Struggling in math at the Magnet Program

Parent Cafe
1

My daughter is currently attends the math, computer science, science magnet program.
She is struggling in math. In her freshmen year, she got C’s in precalculus both semester - very close to a B the 2nd sem.
Her other grades are as follows
First SEM:
Magnet Physics = A, Magnet Computer Science = A, Honors English = A
Honors US History = A, Art Elective = A, Magnet Research & Experimentation = A, Foreign Language = A

Second SEM:
Magnet Chem = A, Magnet Computer Science = B, Honors English = A
Honors US History = A, Art Elective = A, Magnet Research & Experimentation = A, Foreign Language = A

*Magnet freshmen take accelerated physics and chem learning each course in one semester

She was never terrible at math having gotten straight A’s in middle school,
but she is struggling now in high school. She wants to drop out of the magnet because she finds it stressful,
but doesn’t know how that will affect her chances of getting into a prestigious college.

Any thoughts on whether she should drop?

2

Has she addressed the math issues with her teachers at Blair? Surely there are some tutoring resources available to her.

How does she feel about the rest of her classes? Is math the only problem, or is she just fed up with the pressure ?

What is her home high school? Where did her pals from middle school end up?

What does she think she might like to study in college?

Admission to a “prestigious” college isn’t what either of you should be worried about. Her overall happiness and mental health are.

3

She has tried getting help from her math teacher, but she does not feel it is helpful.

For the most part, she likes her other classes but has trouble with math.
Her home high school is not a great school that has a rather
limited selection of STEM courses.
She went to a magnet middle school so most of her friends are actually at Blair as well.

A idea she came up with, was to drop down to the AP level of her math course.
She wants to study medicine and become a pharmacist.

4

What math class is she taking this year?

5

From what your daughter has taken so far, she is a great student, and If she were in a regular high school in your county she would easily have been the top 5% of her class. You may want to go to the local HS, asking to see if the administrator/school counselor can give you a ball park picture on the past few years’ track record on what level of the colleges its top 25 students (or its overall signature program population) had been accepted. I think you will be surprised the % of these students accepted by prestigious colleges. I checked with Bethesda magazine (Sept/Oct issue), which always publishes six or seven top public schools’
applicants/acceptances to particular university. The acceptance rates of the magnet schools to the top colleges are actually very comparable to the top 25 students in regular HS, I believe (at least that was what I learned from my daughter’s HS’ last few years and from few kids I knew who went to magnet HSs and regular HSs

One advantage of not being in the magnet school, but in your home high school is that your daughter would probably rank higher in her graduating class than if she stayed in current program, and class ranking is part of prestigious college admission criteria. Putting the brightest and most diligent pool of kids into one or two programs and competing each others, someone(s) got to be hurt. The other advantages in home high school would be your daughter can have her own pace in taking APs, less pressure with peers all looked so smart, and still enjoy few more years of being just a kid. From the classes your daughter has, it seems they all require many hours of study each day, and she may therefore have not enough time to give more focus on her math. And the magnet programs are supposed to be harder each year as their progress from freshman to senior. I felt I am obligated to give you my opinion because few years ago my kid was accepted by one of the magnet schools in our county , and we decided not to let her stay in her home high school. We still think we made a good decision and my kid ended in one of the prestigious college too.

6

Maybe a C looks like struggling after straight A’s, but having had a kid in the same program I know that they tell parents up front that straight A’s aren’t going to happen. Our son ran into trouble with classes that required writing did to a disability that wasn’t uncovered until he didn’t make it through his first year of college. Our younger son was in CAP at the same school and dropped out during his sophomore year due to the stress (with our encouragement). Our older son chose to stay in the magnet because his friends were there. When the director asked him if he thought he’d make better grades if he weren’t in the magnet he said no. Since neither of our kids had getting into a top college as a priority anyway, we were more concerned that they were happy. Younger son seems to mind school less now (neither ever liked school that much), and his test scores will get him into college somewhere. As for our oldest, he’s proof so far that graduating from a competitive magnet program and having high test scores (he was NMSF) are no guarantee of success in college. It’s my opinion that if she’s struggling after first semester let her drop out of the magnet.

7

Error in my previous post: “we decided not to let her stay in her home high school.”
It should be: “We decided not to let my kid go to the magnet school but make my kid enrolled in our home high school.”

8

She was a freshman taking pre+calc? Math is sequential and it is likely her Algebra, Algebra II, and Geometry foundation from what would have been middle school was not quite strong enough. And she could have a bum teacher too. Rather than quit that high school, I would look at repeating a math course or getting outside help in the subject. It just isn’t developmentally appropriate for most kids to be taking three important high school foundation courses in middle school. My daughter found her weak grasp of algebra from middle school has haunted her HS math progression. In hindsight, she should have taken algebra again. My son with better math conceptual understanding did just fine with two HS math courses in middle school. But even he did not take precalc until 10th grade. Her other grades show she is doing great. If she is happy at the school, it sounds like the right place. Edited to add: she finds it stressful and wants to drop now I see. You will know best if she is overly stressed keeping up or appropriately challenged and doesn’t like getting a C. Judge based on that.

9

Dropping to AP could makes sense. Finding a math tutor (surely there is some volunteer math tutoring thing going on at Blair run by the more advanced math students) could be good to.

But first thing on Monday, get a parent-teacher meeting with the math teacher. Not being on the spot when she talked with the teacher, you don’t know what that conversation actually entailed, and you don’t know what kind of help was offered. If the teacher has been at Blair for a while, the teacher will be able to evaluate your daughter’s situation with reasonable accuracy, and should have good counsel for you.

10

Parent of an alum from this program and of the magnet IB program in the county…

The Pre-Calc/Functions course at Blair is unlike any other pre-calc course in MCPS. It is not only pre-calc, it also covers most of AP Calc AB. And it’s on steroids. Freshman year at Blair is a huge transition, even for kids who were at TPMS. It’s not simple regurgitation and memorization. They are teaching her to think and analyze. Anaylsis I (if that’s what she’s taking this year) is AP Calc BC, done in one semester. They go farther and deeper the second semester.

Blair has a mentoring program for students who are struggling in a class. She should go to the Magnet Office and get connected to resources. Magnet teachers at Blair and RM have been expressing concerns about the preparation of kids who get into the programs. In the push to get lots of kids into Alg I in middle school, the course was watered down so that Alg II became a HUGE struggle.

Whether or not Blair is an advantage for applying to top schools is debatable; what is not debatable is that she is getting a world-class education that will put her in fine shape for ANY college she decides to attend. I will add that I know many students who turned down MIT, Ivies, etc. to take the full ride at UMD. They went to those schools for their PhDs and med school. Generally, before the recession in 2008-2009, 35% of the magnet class went to UMD, many with lots of merit $$. SInce then, the UMD yield has increased further. Was definitely the case at RM, too.

There are some MCPS high schools where you’ll get an excellent education and not attending the magnet will not be a hindrance. At other schools, there is not the critical mass to get some of those post-AP electives that are really interesting and challenging.

P.S. My S got a C in chemistry freshman year and a fair sprinkling of Bs, even in math. Still got into excellent schools. He was a math major. He very consciously chose not to participate in the stress and rat race for grades.

After sophomore year, your D can take the courses that interest her; Stat will be useful to her, but if she doesn’t want Analysis II and beyond, there’s no need for her to go there. There are some excellent bio and chem options, and the opportunity to get a summer research gig. Blair has a lot of great extracurriculars and it’s a good time to explore some of those interests and develop new ones, too. (Philosophy Club had a major impact on where and why S1 decided to attend his college.)

I can’t tell you whether she should stay or transfer back home. Neither of my sons ever considered leaving. I will say that my IB son burned out by senior year in the program and despite great scores, good grades and a college he loved, the burnout plus LD issues that he’d been able to compensate for in HS but not when he had to manage away from home, proved very, very challenging. College was not what he had hoped it would be.

@happymom – unless things have changed, magnet kids can’t drop back to a regular AP math class.

11

My daughter was in the countywide IB program in the same county where you live. The pressure is not quite as bad as it is at Blair, but it’s in the same ballpark.

My daughter knew from the day that she chose the program that she was totally free to transfer to the regular high school program at her neighborhood high school at any time, and there would be no objections from her parents. The option was always there.

As it happened, she ended up completing the IB program. But things could have gone the other way, and that would have been fine, too.

Sometimes specialized programs aren’t the best choice for every kid who ends up in them. In those cases, cutting your losses and going into the mainstream HS program may make sense. And there’s a good life lesson here. You don’t have to continue down a path in life that isn’t working out for you; there are always other options.

I’m not sure whether leaving the magnet would be the best choice for your daughter. I’m only saying that if it turns out to be the best choice, that’s fine. Different people do best in different environments.

12

I think the level of stress really depends on the student. My tightly-wound student wasn’t stressed at the STEM program; my laid-back one was hugely stressed at IB – but refused to go back to our local HS. (He had three magnet choices for HS plus the local HS, and chose IB. Says he would still do so today.) The other distinguishing factor I found between the two programs is that once a student gets past the first two years at the STEM program, one can choose many electives that are more to one’s liking. A lot of S1’s friends reveled in those choices. In IB, students were at IB/AP level in every subject area, which can be really tough if one isn’t strong in all areas.

13

I know my advice is 40 years old, but… there is life after leaving a magnet type school.

I was always a very good student. I skipped 5th grade and got into Bronx Science at age 12, but was 13 by the time 9th grade began. I was placed in a college physics class and a college level geometry class. It quickly became apparent that skipping 5th grade had really negatively impacted my math learning. I literally just went from 4th to 6th and had never had any exposure to math concepts that kids learned in 5th grade in those days, which were essentially pre-algebra and pre-geometry. I made it through middle school because I’m smart and had a good memory but I never really grasped the theories behind the concepts. On the other hand, I was in honors English and excelled in social studies (in those days, there were no honors SS classes at Bronx Science). I struggled in math and physics and began to hate math, which I had not before. It wasn’t my favorite, but I had never despised it before going to Bronx Science.

After 3 semesters, I decided to transfer to the local HS. I never looked back. I was first generation and may have lost out on college guidance but there was no money to send me to college anyway. I attended a CUNY school and fulfilled my dream of becoming an attorney.

The most important thing, IMHO, is that your D not feel that she is staying at the magnet school because she thinks that’s what you want her to do. I stayed at Science an additional semester because I felt like my parents were upset and disappointed that I didn’t love it there. I also felt a lot of pressure because they didn’t want to give up their bragging rights over me.

It’s a tough decision but if your D is as bright as she sounds, she will do fine in the magnet and amazing in the honors program at the regular HS. I met some kids in my SS and English classes at the local HS who hadn’t gotten into Science, because they were humanities and not STEM kids, and they were every bit as smart as anyone I met at Science. The magnets can only take so many kids and there are many bright motivated kids who are in the local HS.

14

I think after going through precalc a/b during the freshmen year, she started to realize
how she relies on memorization too much. She discussed her recent math test with me
and told me she understood the concepts for the most part - but made many simple arithmetic
mistakes that threw off her answer.

She appreciates how math is actually making her think a lot, but she is unhappy with
getting a C last year. She is currently taking precalc C/Analysis A next semester.

One of her friends also did a poorly last year, and decided to retake the course. A new teacher
is teaching the course this year, and was told that the new teacher is a lot easier than the previous one.
Funny thing is her precalc teacher last year, got moved up and is actually teacher my daughter this year.

15

I vote for a tutor if you can afford it.

My senior is “math illiterate” her words. She learns more in 1hr a week with her 23yr old tutor (math major) than in her school all week.

She often says “My tutor is infinitely better than my teacher!”

Some teachers suck! In my experience its 50/50 nowadays. It seems the more experience the cruddier they are. Lost zeal, lost compassion, lack of desire, etc I could go on and on.