<p>My son attends a public math-and-science magnet school. CC has introduced me to many like-minded parents, but I'm not aware of any whose children attend a similar school. Such schools are different from standard public schools and elite private schools, although they share certain characteristics with each. I'm hoping to start a discussion amongst parents whose kids attend such schools.</p>
<p>Any takers?</p>
<p>How about a science and tech magnet program in a comprehensive high school? My son attended such a program.</p>
<p>Well…um…oh, sure, why not? Welcome to the thread! :)</p>
<p>Not a parent but I am a senior at a top magnet school in the state I live in.
I can break down the positives and the minor negatives of my school.</p>
<p>Positives:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Rarely any high school drama, in my 4 years at the magnet school I attend I have not seen one fight.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers know you well since it is a small environment, our school has less than 500 students. </p></li>
<li><p>You are offered more chances at volunteer hours and internships since it is a health science and engineering school.</p></li>
<li><p>Ranked top in the state in terms of statewide tests, graduation and we also send a lot of people off to college.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers are willing to spend time with you and a lot of them love tutoring kids, also a lot of them can help you out with personal problems since class sizes are so small.</p></li>
<li><p>Small campus size forms a heavy bond with all the seniors, everyone loves each other by senior year and usually there are no fights or troubles.</p></li>
<li><p>Some people I have talked to refer to us as the “MIT” of the state. That is a HUGE compliment.</p></li>
<li><p>People are really amiable and kind, we don’t have a lot of jerks.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Negatives:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>We don’t get the sports like football and basketball, we have sports like tennis and soccer. A lot of the students at the school REALLY love football since you know we live down South but the county is still conservative so no football for us.</p></li>
<li><p>Classes are TOUGH, we have honors level classes and tons of homework. On weeknights the guidance counselor suggests that we should not even use things like myspace or AIM because they can serve as distractions. I remember my junior year I had to spend 6 hours some nights on homework, mainly due to a lot of the teachers giving us more “practice”. We started out with 110 students in the class of 2010 when I was a freshman, Now we are down to 82. </p></li>
<li><p>As some students say, “don’t buy into all the hype”, yes we have some of the brightest students in the state and the county but still, we have our idiots and our loons. We have people who are just unmotivated and dumb and barely get by. Not all of our teachers are top class. Overall the school I go to is great but it is not perfect. I love it now, didn’t back in 9th grade.</p></li>
<li><p>YOU have to do internships and volunteer work your senior year, it is basically for a grade.</p></li>
<li><p>A lot of the people at the public schools have more free time and a lot of time to enjoy their lives and play videogames and live the social experience of high school because they don’t get a lot of work. A lot of the public school students I know do not even spend 4 hours a night on homework EVEN when they are taking APs. Also, they have an easier time getting the 4.0 GPA and the high SAT (since the motivated ones have a lot of time to study for the SAT they score better) because they do not have to deal with a lot of homework.</p></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><p>all of the public schools in the county I live in are egregious when it comes to providing a safe environment for kids, a lot of the public schools have drug dealings and fights DAILY.</p></li>
<li><p>I heard it can get me into a good college.</p></li>
<li><p>My parents wanted me to go, I hated it at first but now I like it.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Protagonist111, those are many of the same things my son says about his school. Not many real jerks are math/science/technology types, which makes for a nice atmosphere. When my son and I first visited his school, we were struck by how many kids left their iPods and other belongings just laying in the hall during lunch. I asked our tour guide (a senior) about theft, and she scoffed, “We don’t *have *those problems here.” That moment pretty much sold me on the place.</p>
<p>Some of the things I’d love for parents to comment about are:</p>
<ul>
<li> How is college placement at your school?</li>
<li> What kinds of colleges seem to like math/science high school grads?</li>
<li> Do colleges appreciate what these kids do?</li>
<li> What are the drawbacks of such a school?</li>
<li> How do the teachers compare with regular public schools?</li>
<li> What are the key differences between elite privates and public math/science magnets?</li>
<li> Are there special scholarship opportunities for kids from these schools?</li>
</ul>
<p>I’ve posted my own thoughts about these things in various other threads, but I’ll repeat them here for anyone who cares to know what I think. I’m eager to hear what others think as well.</p>
<p>Parent of two who attended exactly the sort of HS you described. Let me take a whack at your questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>How is college placement at your school?</li>
</ul>
<p>Phenomenal. 100% college placement. Each year the graduating class of around 63 sends around half that number to top 25 colleges – Ivies, MIT, CMU, JHU, etc …</p>
<ul>
<li>What kinds of colleges seem to like math/science high school grads?</li>
</ul>
<p>This seems to swing from year to year. Lately, Cornell has taken almost every kid from our school who applied there. Two years ago we sent 4 to Cal Tech – kind of amazing considering how small their freshman class is. Not a year goes by we don’t send someone to Olin. Last year was the first year anyone could remember we didn’t send at least one to MIT. We usually get at least one into a major service academy. JHU & CMU always seem to like us. Cooper Union. Duke. Always a decent contingent to Columbia. </p>
<ul>
<li>Do colleges appreciate what these kids do?</li>
</ul>
<p>It would appear so, based on the placement. </p>
<ul>
<li>What are the drawbacks of such a school?</li>
</ul>
<p>Language training is a bit weak. Not a lot of elective choices in the social sciences and liberal arts. </p>
<ul>
<li>How do the teachers compare with regular public schools?</li>
</ul>
<p>By and large far superior. </p>
<ul>
<li>What are the key differences between elite privates and public math/science magnets?</li>
</ul>
<p>You can’t buy or dribble your way in to a great magnet. Pure meritocracy. </p>
<ul>
<li>Are there special scholarship opportunities for kids from these schools?</li>
</ul>
<p>Students are presented with tons and tons of research opportunities, all of which open doors to a plethora of competitions – which the school knows all about and encourages participation, all which have scholarship monies as prizes.</p>
<p>Son attends a math science program. His schools sounds nothing like Protagonist’s. It’s a large urban school in a huge school district with three very successful magnet programs that operate at the school (I’ve had kids in each.) The magnet students are about 40% of the total school population. Needless to say, there are lots of urban school issues there – three arson events this week alone (okay that doesn’t happen every week.) The magnet program he is in is excellent with mostly terrific teachers, strong AP courses, etc. We’re in a state that is suffering severely with budget cuts and all public school programs are impacted as a result. Our students go on to the top public universities in the county and, every year, a number of them get into schools like Stanford, Cal Tech, Yale, Harvard, etc. The kids work hard. Advantages are the crossover between the three magnets and a very diverse community. Disadvantages are having to spend a lot of time commuting and having friends spread out over a wide geographic area and the issues that plague the school globally. One more thing – the main requirement is four years of math and four years of science. Most of the kids go through Calculus BC and often AP Statistics as well as well as AP Bio, Chem and Physics. Other than district and A-G requirements for state universities, the kids have some freedom in what they take.</p>
<p>Have two kids who have gone through such programs; one in math/science, one in a more humanities-driven (and uses full IB).</p>
<p>Selective admit, pulls from the entire county, 100 kids per entering class. Programs are within a regular HS, but for both my kids, this meant traveling to the program. This was a price they were happy to pay.</p>
<p>In my S1’s year, 35 of the 83 grads for whom I have data got into a USNWR T-20; about 10 more into CMU, Williams, and the like; about 1/3 go to the flagship, virtually all with at least a partial ride. We found that some schools (MIT, Caltech, Olin, Chicago, Mudd) know a great deal about the program, and this tends to benefit the kids. They are a known quantity, and it shows up in the acceptance rate at these places. OTOH, S1 lost merit $$ at one place because the college insisted on a ranking (the school doesn’t rank) and he was one person off of top 10%. </p>
<p>Advantages:<br>
– depth of coursework. S1 took 13 post-AP courses in HS and was able to place directly into analysis at a top math program. Also got extremely accelerated placement in CS. Several AP courses were taught as accelerated one-semester classes, giving time for more electives.
– core group of like-minded kids who valued academics, shared common interests, kept each other humble. Enough kids to make the accelerated courses feasible.
– work-study skills. And I thought the kid was disorganized! It was a pleasant surprise to find out that he was much more prepared for college than we expected.
– research. He had to find his own mentor, but there is a research class to help the kids write a resume, figure out what they want to do, and then how to go find people who can help them. The institutional support on HOW to do these things helps the school do very well in Intel/Siemens, etc. because the kids learn how to ask for help and problem solve.</p>
<p>My kids would not have traded their experiences for the world.</p>
<p>Our county has both math-science magnets and a selective IB magnet, each of which is located within a larger comprehensive high school. In this setting, you don’t leave your iPod lying around, but you do spend most of your time in classes with your academic peers.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids was in a math-science magnet, although they had friends who were. One of my kids was in the IB magnet. </p>
<p>A few issues that may be worthy of discussion: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>In instances where a magnet is located within a larger school, is this unfair to the rest of the school population? For one thing, it tends to have a devastating effect on their class rank. Magnet students may also tend to dominate non-athletic extracurricular activities, leaving few leadership opportunities for the rest of the student population.</p></li>
<li><p>Does being in a magnet detract from a student’s potential for admission to selective colleges, either because the student’s GPA is lower at the magnet than it would have been at the regular neighborhood high school because of the tougher course load, or because a large number of people from the magnet apply to the same schools? Among graduates of our IB magnet, the consensus is that being in the magnet did lead to poorer college admissions results, except perhaps for those students who ranked in the top quarter or so of the magnet class. I don’t know whether the same thing applies to math-science magnets.</p></li>
<li><p>Many math-science magnets (especially in areas that do not have other magnets) contain a substantial subpopulation of students who are qualified to be there but are not interested in math and science. They chose the magnet school because they wanted to get out of their regular high schools because of poor teaching, discipline problems, and/or an anti-academic atmosphere in which serious students are ostracized. What are the consequences of having these students in the program? Does it detract from the specialized atmosphere? Do these kids have trouble getting into college if they apply to programs that are not math or science oriented, such as liberal arts colleges or undergraduate business programs?</p></li>
<li><p>Are graduates of math-science programs who have done work beyond the AP level able to get appropriate placement in college courses? And even if they get the appropriate placement, can they get into courses suitable for their academic level, or do they tend to get closed out of advanced courses during the first years of college because upperclassmen have higher priority at registration time?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>*Edited to add: Cross-posted with Counting Down, who is from the same county and is talking about the same programs. *</p>
<ul>
<li>How is college placement at your school?</li>
</ul>
<p>Most kids end up going to college in state because they have the HOPE scholarship which pays for tuition and they win tons of scholarship awards. A lot of kids don’t have to pay much for college if they stay in state. Needless to say, I saw tons of seniors last year get accepted to colleges like UNC Chapel Hill (out of state) and Carnegie Melon. Our Salutatorian was accepted into Stanford and Dartmouth. A kid who was ranked like 12th in his senior class got accepted into Yale and UCLA. We send TONS of kids to Georgia Tech (in state) every single year, at least 5 people end up going to Georgia Tech.</p>
<ul>
<li>What kinds of colleges seem to like math/science high school grads?</li>
</ul>
<p>Most except for maybe the small liberal arts schools but a lot of the top colleges love math and science grads.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do colleges appreciate what these kids do?</li>
</ul>
<p>Yup, every single year we have some colleges come to our school during lunch and give a lot of the kids at our school full rides. We have people on the bottom half of our class already getting full ride scholarships to a lot of the in state private schools.</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the drawbacks of such a school?</li>
</ul>
<p>As I said, we do not have sports like football and basketball. We also get a reputation of being “nerdy” by a lot of the regular public schools in our area but most of the kids from those public schools really have no future sadly.</p>
<ul>
<li>How do the teachers compare with regular public schools?</li>
</ul>
<p>Smaller Class size = more 1 on 1 time with the teacher.</p>
<ul>
<li>What are the key differences between elite privates and public math/science magnets?</li>
</ul>
<p>Like an earlier answerer said, you can’t buy your way into a magnet school. A lot of the Private schools in our area our actually good but the kids there do poor on the SATs, yet somehow the kids still get into a lot of the state universities since mama and daddy can pay. Other than that, most magnet schools focus in on a specific curriculum, like our schools focuses on health science and engineering. </p>
<p>In order for you to graduate our school as a health science student, you must take 5 sciences (local public schools only require 4) and 4 maths. In order for you to graduate our school as an engineering student, you must take 5 sciences and 5 maths. </p>
<ul>
<li>Are there special scholarship opportunities for kids from these schools?</li>
</ul>
<p>I certainly hope so LOL, because I WANT TO GET OUTTA THIS STATE FOR COLLEGE!</p>
<p>Dude, I can tell you right now that if I was at a regular public school I would have had a 4.0 GPA right now and a really high SAT score because I would have had more time to study during the school year. I look at the homework of a friend of mines going to a local public school, he is taking 4 AP classes and he has a total of 2 hours worth of homework. I usually get 3 hours worth of homework DAILY and if it is less than that, then you know the teachers are implying that they want us to study for quizzes and tests the next day.</p>
<p>A friend of mines who went to a local public school last year got accepted into Duke University. Well right now he is thinking about dropping out because the workload seems too heavy for him. A person I knew when I was a freshman at my school dropped out of our magnet school (it was too much for him) and went to a public school. He is in the top 10 percent of a graduating class of 400 students at his school.</p>
<p>My point?</p>
<p>Yes, in the end you do have a better shot of getting accepted into a better college if you go to a public school in our area. The courses are easy and usually do not require much effort so most kids with a bit of motivation end up getting high GPAs and since they have extra time to study for the SAT, they usually get higher scores than they would have got had they attended our magnet school. </p>
<p>Recently I met with a person in grad school, he attended our high school but only graduated with a 3.2 GPA and had a 1120 SAT score (math and reading). The student went to an average university out of state. Right now he is in grad school, he attends Harvard and he decided to pay everyone a visit at our school. Also, he finished his undergrad with a 4.0 GPA, it was a piece of cake for him.</p>
<p>Our teachers tell us that there are tons of other students who have done that, they said maybe not Harvard but they have students going to Stanford, University of Illinois at Urbana, University of Chicago and Dartmouth for grad school because those students excelled in college. College was easy for them since they were used to the workload. </p>
<p>Short term:</p>
<p>Parent of a public school student: “yaaayyy my son got into Yale (or other top universities) without even breaking a sweat in high school”</p>
<p>Parent of a magnet school student: “my son did not get into Yale, I thought going to a magnet school was supposed to help him, oh well at least he has scholarships to a lot of the in state schools”</p>
<p>Long term:</p>
<p>Parent of a public school student: “noooo, why does my son have a low GPA at Yale!?”</p>
<p>Parent of a magnet school student: “Yay! My son got into Yale for grad school”</p>
<p>Protagonist, I absolutely agree with you that students from academic magnet programs are better prepared for college and do better in college. Thus, those who plan to go to graduate or professional school immediately after college graduation are likely to have excellent results. And going to a top graduate school is more important than going to a top school for your undergraduate education. If you get your Ph.D. or M.D. from Yale, nobody cares where you got your bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>Some students, however, opt for career paths where people often go to work right after completing their bachelor’s degrees (e.g., engineering) or where it is customary for people to work for a few years after obtaining their bachelor’s degrees before going to graduate school (e.g., students interested in business who intend to eventually obtain MBAs). For these students, attending a lower-ranked undergraduate institution may be a significant impediment to their career plans.</p>
<p>my son attends a math/science school. has been a wonderful experience for him. has taught him so much more than just academics also. He has had to learn time management (as the workload is extremely heavy) has had to become independent as it is a residential school. They have taught him how to think, not just memorize things. Faculty is incredible.
College placement has been extremely good for these students. Merit money also very good.
Only disadvantage i have found is that the school does not rank or weight despite all classes being honors or ap. Not sure yet whether that will cause a problem with selective scholarships or not. If he had stayed at his local school i am sure his gpa would be higher and he probably had a good shot at valedictorian (no valedictorian at his current school) but at local school he was not challenged at all. I think he has had a much better preparation for college.</p>
<p>I think just like comparing regular public schools and regular private schools you have to be careful compairng one magnet school to another. In different districts this can mean different things. I assume what everyone is talking about here are highly selective magnet schools that require entrance exams and have full on admissions processes. There are other magnet schools, often in horrendous school districts, that are not quite as selective and just operate to give kids in these districts a reasonable education. Actually, I believe that’s how magnet schools started - as an alternative to busing - but they have morphed into different things.</p>
<p>It seems like there are so many different kinds of high schools these days it is difficult to keep it straight.</p>
<p>mantori, I wish my district had a magnet-only school, rather than the magnet-in-a-comprehensive program. There are some advantages to housing the program in a comprehensive – much wider range of clubs, elective courses, athletic and music possibilities, for example – but there are drawbacks, too, which are found at many large public high schools – kids who don’t care, drugs including alcohol, overcrowding, many distracting stupid school events, for example.</p>
<p>One of the problems with the magnet program my son attended is the rigid adherence to the little tracks they have set up. I refer to them as “grooves.” It’s difficult to get school personnel to think outside of these grooves, to get them to consider placement outside these grooves. One brilliant student, now off in college, had to wait until his senior year to take mutivariable calculus, a subject at which he was adept in 9th or 10th grade. He’d been studying math outside of school with a well-known scientist, but … the school has its grooves, and he had to slide along in one of them. The fastest groove was way too slow for him. He still followed it, but did a lot of outside work to stay engaged with his subjects of interest.</p>
<p>My son’s last math class at the school was only 50% new material, the rest recycled from his previous year’s math class. What a waste of time that was, and what makes it worse is that the curriculum is designed that way!! :eek: We found more flexibility in the middle school, where there were staff who were willing to do battle to get him properly placed in math. </p>
<p>Some students end up leaving the program because it actually holds them back; that rigid adherence to grooves thing impedes them. These students can move at a faster pace, but …</p>
<p>The programs available in the neighboring county – where Counting Down and Marian live – are much better about not getting in a kid’s way. They offer more flexibility. </p>
<p>My son spent his freshman and sophomore years in the program, but then opted for college instead. If I had it to do over again, I’d have moved a few blocks west when my son was in sixth grade, to the other county! My district’s “Silver Medal” school, its best high school, wasn’t nearly as good as we’d hoped it would be.</p>
<p>Mantori - Thanks for starting this thread. My 8th grader currently has applications in at a math/science/technology school as well as a magnet math/science program program at a nearby school. All of this information and insight being shared is very useful to me.</p>
<p>fallgirl, from a purely academic point of view, couldnt have been a better decision for my son. The difficult part of the decision for us is that the school is 6 hours away and we only see him on school breaks. Having your (at that time) 15 year old leave home is not a decision some people would make. Have we missed out on some of his growing up, yes, but again for him it was perfect.</p>
<p>In our case one of the schools is very close, the other would be about 2-3 hours/day commuting which is something to think about if he gets accepted. Both schools are terrific academically, but I worry somewhat about pressure factor. </p>
<p>The good thing is that if he doesn’t get into either (or decides not to go), our local public school is very good and I have no qualms about sending him there. I have an older child who was a top student there and got a great education. So we are in a win/win situation.</p>
<p>For those of you with access to such wonderful schools, I wonder if you’d be willing to post where/what these schools are, or if not, would you PM me the name(s) of your schools?</p>
<p>I have a 6th grader with math/sci bent, and we may be relocating within the next couple of years and this information would obviously be very helpful. My job can be quite flexible in terms of location we choose.</p>