The regional model maximizes placement opportunities for students. Program ranking and lottery are used for placement in the admission process. This process is called a ranked-choice lottery process. Student applicants can rank up to 8 programs- both criteria and interest-based.  

To be part of the interest based ranked-choice lottery process:

• Student applicants must be a Montgomery County (MoCo) resident and be in Grade 8. Their ranked choices are entered into the lottery. A student's socioeconomic status may be considered in the ranked-choice lottery process. 

To be part of the criteria based ranked-choice lottery process:

• Student applicants must be a MoCo resident, be in Grade 8 and  be identified as qualified after an academic review.  Those identified as qualified in this review are moved to the lottery pool for the program.  Those not identified as qualified are not moved to the lottery pool. 

Once all eligible students are in the lottery– a ranking system is used to place them in their highest ranked program seat.  The lottery considers region and student rank order. Every effort is made to assign students to their highest ranked program.  It is possible that some students may not get a placement in Round 1.  Round 1 students may request to go into Round 2 for a higher ranked choice or return to their home high school for the local offerings

Students can apply to up to eight (8) Center programs and programs should be ranked in order of interest.  Students will also complete two (2) brief response essays in Synergy/ParentVue.  The responses should be the work of the student only with zero-Artificial Intelligence (AI) use.

Steps to Apply in Round 1 

1  - Families may rank order 1-8 Center programs. 

2 - Students will be reviewed for eligibility/qualified into criteria-based program(s). If eligible, will be placed in the lottery. (Some programs have prerequisites). 

3 - Students requesting interest-based programs proceed to the ranked-choice lottery. 

4 - Student placement into ALL programs will occur through a ranked-choice lottery.

All applications and admissions will be run through MCPS Central Office. 

Individual high schools will not be directly involved in the student/program assignment process.

ADMISSION OVERVIEW

CENTRAL REVIEW PLACEMENT

MCPS Initiated (This is separate from the admissions process. No action from the family is necessary)

MCPS will conduct a central review (evaluation of each student's academic profile) of all Grade 8 students in each region for both the International Baccalaureate and Science, Math, and Computer Science programs. 

Automatic invitations will be extended to students demonstrating a distinguished academic need that sets them apart from peer academic profiles.