<p>Well, i have a general sense of a magnet school (that it's a competitive and rigorous academic environment) but can someone specify what it actually is? Does it give one a hook in college admissions since the courses are more rigorous than those of regular High schools? </p>
<p>From your username, I assume you’re attending BTech. Lolol I heard BTech went down in quality over the years; not even comparable to Stuy/BxSci anymore.</p>
<p>As for the hook, it depends; sometimes a bright kid from a backwater school makes for a great admissions story. </p>
<p>A magnet school is usually one established under the school district to attract a certain group of students - math and science, arts, languages. Because of the nature of the school,usually you do have a ‘hook’ in that area. How big the hook is subjective. Does an art student automatically get into his top choice art school? No, but it’s likely that that student will have a pretty nice portfolio to present to that art school for consideration.</p>
<p>A magnet school, as the nae implies, is a school that attracts lots of students from around the city/state who would, otherwise attend local public schools.
Coming from a magnet school isn’t necessarily a “hook”, but magnet schools are well known to admissions officers. Thus good grades at a magnet school are looked at as better than good grades from a public school. However as @TeamRocketGrunt said sometimes a “bright kid from a backwater school” is a better story than a bright kid from a privileged (usually expensive, private) magnet school. </p>
<p>I go to a magnet school. They generally offer a specific program or pathway to attract students from all across a county or district. My school focuses on technology, offering a variety of college classes through a community college nearby. Next year it’ll be offering general education classes as well as the old technology classes, and there’ll be a new pathway to get an Associates degree. My school has about 650 students. I wouldn’t call this specific program any more rigorous than the school my sister goes to (I’m in the top ten GPA, and I definitely wouldn’t be if I went to a bigger school), but it definitely offers a lot of opportunities, and it has a lot of connections, enabling students to take on paid internships, apply for certain scholarships, get certifications, and a lot more.</p>
<p>That’s just one magnet school, though. In my county, there’s an IB magnet school, an engineering magnet school, and of course, my school. I noticed that a lot of those programs open up in schools in bad areas or in schools that don’t have a lot of students. Both the IB school and the technology school, for instance, are in ghetto-like areas that people wouldn’t be attracted to if it weren’t for the programs. That might not always be the case though.</p>
<p>I assume they still have the Gateway to Medicine program at BTech? They did when my sister attended. </p>
<p>yeah Btech did go down in quality over the years. No one really recognizes it’s academic excellence anymore… if there is any that is… i mean, on the shsat Br.Sci is only like 40 points higher on the cutoff. all you need to get is like 4 or 5 questions more and that’ll set u off from tech to br.sci. lol I think Tech is soon going to be unspecialized. Well it used to be ranked 30 in the nation a few years ago and now the rank plummeted to 69 ■■■??? it makes sense because the cutoff on the shsat is lowering every single year</p>
<p>Our school district has lots of magnet choices - not all of them strictly academic. For instance, there are single gender middle school magnets and performing arts magnet programs. How much it helps probably depends on where you apply and in what area. </p>
<p>Most magnet schools you have to apply to and they are all specialized. My school actually was a hook for me because I applied to smaller schools that don’t get a lot of kids from my particular magnet school, but it has been known to hurt admissions in some cases. Some schools put caps coming from my schools, and it makes it harder to stand out from applicants from your school. I am middle of the pack at my school, but would have been at the top of my base school.</p>