<p>Has anyone heared of Hunter College High School in New York? In its 2012 class, they have 75 kids or so who are NMS semifinalists. This is amazing! What will you think If you know their class size is only 195 or so and the total number of NMS semifinalists from New York State is 950 to 1000, considering there are hundreds of public and private high schools in the State and some of them are very good one also?</p>
<p>Publicly funded, but not “open to the public” in the come one, come all sense. One has to be gifted and have high test scores in middle school to get in. Of course they would continue to outperform true public schools.</p>
<p>In other words, an exam school, or a type of magnet school. If they had to be identified as gifted just to get in, that usually means they are considered in the top 2-3% of their classmates. It would not be surprising to see half of them score well on the PSAT. There’s a good chance many of them took the SAT before high school (it is often used as the qualifying exam for gifted programs). Then they would have taken the PSAT as Sophomores, though not all schools do. The score report from the PSAT spells out pretty well where their weaknesses are, so not to difficult to target any preparation. And I’m sure they prepared for the PSAT, since it’s not just prestigious for the kids, but obviously prestigious for the school to have that many qualify.</p>
<p>Checked with one senior student of last year - who is not my kid, just to clarify. It is a highly competitive magnet school for gifted kids from 7th to 12th. According to him, the school did absolutely zero thing in terms of prearing kids for the PSAT or SAT. However, the parents did a lot I believe.</p>
<p>They’re a highly selective, very competitive NYC school. I work with a woman who has a child there and she was ecstatic about the acceptance. If the school isn’t doing anything for PSAT or SAT it’s because they know that the type of parents who pushed their kids to get into the school (which requires rigorous testing, see the details below) will do all they can to get them prepared for more tests. </p>
<p>From Wikipedia:
Hunter is noted for sending a very large percentage of students to the Ivy League and other top-ranked colleges and universities. It has been ranked as the top public high school in the United States by The Wall Street Journal and other sources for several years running.
. . . .
Admission to the high school is only granted in seventh grade, and is a two-step procedure. Students from the five boroughs of New York City with strong scores on standardized tests are eligible to take the Hunter College High School Entrance Exam in the January of their sixth grade school year. Eligible students must first meet Hunter’s standards in reading and mathematics proficiency on fifth grade standardized exams. For example, in 2011, sixth grade students who wished to enter Hunter during the 2011–2012 school year must have achieved scores of at least 689 out of 770 on the reading test and 722 out of 780 on the math test, that is, scores in the 90th-and-above percentile of all test takers.
The admissions test has thirty-five multiple-choice mathematics questions, sixty multiple-choice English questions, and an essay-writing portion. Out of about 3,000 test-takers, about 175 are offered admission on the basis of the exam. This 6.6% admissions rate, not considering the many students denied the chance to take the exam because they did not meet the state exam requirements, makes Hunter one of the most selective high schools in the nation.</p>
<p>And the school not doing anything to prepare the kids specifically for the PSAT doesn’t really mean anything. I’m sure they ensure that every student is exposed to the types of questions that will be on the test as part of their every-day classwork. How do you improve scores on the CR section - by knowing vocabulary, and being well-read. How do you prepare for the Math section - by being exposed to everything that might be on the exam. They don’t need a 240 to get NMSF, so there’s room for small errors. The best exam preparation doesn’t focus on the exam itself.</p>
<p>The best exam preparation doesn’t focus on the exam itself. </p>
<p>that is so true.</p>
<p>This year is even more scary – they have 84.</p>
<p>Sounds similar to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Northern VA. For the Class of 2013, 146 kids are semifinalists out of a class of about 450. A public STEM magnet school that tests for admission.</p>
<p>Haha. Our public STEM magnet school is a failure. I’m one of 4 or 5 out of a class of 400 (Although, probably half of those are from the surrounding ghetto-ish area. We are essentially two schools in one. One extremely wealthy, white, fairly smart half, and one of the poorest areas around.) The best school in our district of 13 is not a magnet at all, and the second best is the IB school.</p>
<p>Plano Independent School District in Texas has three senior high schools. This year there are 128 NMSFs, or about 3.40% of the class. Plano ISD has the largest number of NMSFs for any district in Texas. </p>
<p>Practice tests are given sophomore year, and the kids who do well are offered inexpensive, weekly PSAT cram sessions for about eight weeks, mostly over the summer. I’m sure that studying with a huge group gets the kids even more motivated.</p>
<p>The schools are genuinely open to the public, and students come from all income levels.</p>
<p>There are schools like these around the country. Here in Washington DC area, addition to TJ in VA (mentioned post #9 above), Blair and Richard Montgomery (both in MD) come to mind. Whereas TJ is all manget, Blair has a STEM magnet program (about 100 kids each grade) and RM has IB manget (about 100 kids as well). Blair and RM each produces about 30-40 NMF Semi kids each year. Very high numbers.</p>
<p>fromMD, my point is that Plano Independent School District is open to everyone. The percentage is for the general school population, not a magnet school. Its great that magnet schools turn out so many NMFs, but at the same time its expected because there was an application process to attend the school.</p>
<p>holy crap, all so scary</p>