magnet application

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From the application form for the Montgomery County middle school Mathematics, Science, and Computer Science Magnet Program. Children apply for it at age 10, in fifth grade:

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Comments

[CF Oxtrot]

I say they're slacking. They should follow the PRN model: look on the right margin here, at the Current Openings slots. Here's how you weed out the undesirables!

http://progrepnow.blogspot.com/

[Pablo]

Don't be a hater just because you're an underachiever...

[Charlene]

Pablo - are you currently in the middle school magnet?

[PGCist]

What about INTERNATIONAL-level awards?

They should at least ONE by the age of 10, right?

[PGCist]

edit: They should at least *have* ONE by the age of 10, right?

Sorry. I'm obviously not magnet material.

[tim]

It appears the magnet program has gotten a lot more competitive since the mid 90's. Back then all you needed was grades and teacher recommendations.

[Yoki]

They don't specifically ask for a Nobel? Any self-respecting 10-year-old has one for either peace or science.

[I-270, Exit 1]

There isn't enough space to list each participation award for recreational soccer, gymnastics, and baseball.

[snobeltway]

how dare you??!! don't you know?!!! most of these kids are asymptotically close enough to find cures for conditions like alz'mrs a-ids, can-s'r etc. it is just a matter of time and an ivy d'gree. LOL!! ;-]

[Justafed]

It is actually better than that. We moved to snoburbia from a very different place when my son had just finished fifth grade. When we got here, we asked what we should do to get him placed in appropriate classes here, since he had been in a advanced classes before.

In part the response was pretty quizzical. "Well, we know he isn't gifted," quoth the school system, "or else he would have been identified as such way back in elementary school". But we didn't live here when he was that age! "That might be true, but we didn't identify him as gifted."

Hard to argue with that logic. Of course, that's before we knew that every child in snoburbia was gifted. All they had to do was be in the green zone in second grade.

[CMK]

Did you know there's a somewhat secret primary magnet program in Takoma Park (but then you have to send your kids to school in Takoma Park). It's for 1st and 2nd graders-they take "the test" in kindergarten and they have the same application form as what you displayed above. My daughter was accepted and we almost sent her there but couldn't stand the idea of her commuting an hour each way in a bus.

My daughter's elementary school claimed that 51% of the kids are gifted. That's weird, right? Giftedness is often defined as kids who score above the 98th percentile on standardized intelligence tests. It's so weird that in my snoburban community, 51% of kids were scoring that high.