Sunday, April 01, 2012

Update on Vanguard Middle School

Just yesterday I was blogging about my daughter going off to Vanguard kindergarten. I was blogging about the Vanguard test and waiting to find out what school she would be attending. I've blogged about public education and the Vanguard system several times over the years.
Cute image from michigan.gov

Well here we are SIX YEARS later and we are in the waiting place waiting to find out what middle school Miranda will be attending. We didn't have as many choices inside the loop, as we did the first time around for elementary school. We really only had one first choice. The others were okay choices, but not the best. We had one great choice for a magnet school back-up and thank goodness she did get into that one. However, she was wait-listed #65 for the our first choice Vanguard school.

What does this mean? When you apply for Vanguard you have to list  your 3 school choices in order of preference. First they check all your test scores, report card grades, and teacher recommendation to see if you even made it into Vanguard. Next they do a lottery. They choose their designated number of students and wait list all the rest who want to go to their first choice school.

We received a letter on Monday telling us that Miranda was accepted into the Vanguard program for middle school, however she was #65 on the waiting list for her first choice school. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that our first choice school is also everyone's first choice school. My initial reaction was sadness and then as the day went on, and via facebook conversations and comments, I found out that #65 is actually really good. I found out that the school got as high up as #242 on the waiting list last year.

How is this possible? They send out the letters and parents start calling in to accept or decline. Once they have all the replies on April 9 they start calling down the waiting list. So that's when we get called. One mom told me that anything under 100 is "golden."

Now to wait until April 9 to get the official offer so we can celebrate!

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