High school shutouts-- what's the plan?

[Anonymous]

To those of you disappointed in your high school results, what do you plan to do? Are you adding any schools to your list? Saying to heck with it and moving? Any late applications to privates? I'm a 7th grade mom with no clear plan for high school and honestly I'm a bit stunned by how much disappointment I'm hearing....

[Anonymous]

Where are you hearing it? DCUM doesn't make for a great scientific sample.

If you don't consider your IB school to be an option, then yes, you need a backup plan. If that plan includes a private school, you need to plan for that and apply in the fall, because the due dates are before the lottery. If it doesn't, then you need to consider moving if your kid doesn't get in anywhere. Regardless of the disappointment you are or are not hearing out there, you would be remiss not to do these things anyhow. It's a LOTTERY after all. Nothing is guaranteed at any level.

[Anonymous]

My plan last year was to rent our home and move to an apartment IB for J-R for a year.

[Anonymous]

DD was saying that she wants out from her middle/high school charter, but was shut out of application high schools. Right now it seems like she's resigned to stay where she is, but the other option is renting out our house and moving inbounds to JR. I am not convinced, however, that it would solve all of DD's problems. Reluctant to move outside DC for many reasons, including the fact that her sibling is in a good school situation.

(I'm sure all those zoned for JR go crazy reading about all of us moving there, but it's a free country. And that's only the backup backup plan. At least we would move and not be cheating on residency.)

[Anonymous]

OP, focus on the fact that you have a 7th grader and you have plenty of time to prepare your approach so you have backup plans.

I have an 8th grader and don't know anyone completely shut out yet (as in, only option is their in boundary DCPS which they are *not* willing to attend). Current public charter school which ends in 8th grade and doesn't feed to any HS worked with students and families to plan HS applications and lottery approach. These are scenarios I'm aware of outside of student getting into their first choice school:

- student will attend 2nd or 3rd choice DCPS selective HS
- student will attend 2nd, 3rd, or 4th choice public charter HS
- student will attend Catholic or other independent/private school
- student will attend in boundary HS that was their last choice among public schools but still ok
- student will attend public charter HS that was not their preferred choice but for which they were matched because of sibling preference (sibling already attends)

Some families had plans to go to private HS or move out of DC for HS (e.g., to become eligible for MD or VA in-state college tuition) since kids were small.

[Anonymous]

I think for those of you that are trying to figure out HS for 25-26, the takeaway from this year is that if Walls is the only selective HS that you'd consider then you must have a back-up plan because

a) you don't know if the school is going to change its process again

b) if the school sticks with the same process, it's just too unpredictable - what will the GPA cut-off be? how will your teachers rate your kid? how generously do other teachers from others schools rate other kids? Even if your kid gets an interview, it seems like you have a 40-50% chance of getting in (50% isn't nothing but it's not a highly likely situation either).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are you hearing it? DCUM doesn't make for a great scientific sample.

If you don't consider your IB school to be an option, then yes, you need a backup plan. If that plan includes a private school, you need to plan for that and apply in the fall, because the due dates are before the lottery. If it doesn't, then you need to consider moving if your kid doesn't get in anywhere. Regardless of the disappointment you are or are not hearing out there, you would be remiss not to do these things anyhow. It's a LOTTERY after all. Nothing is guaranteed at any level.

Combination of DCUM and my social circle and like, peripheral social circle where I don't know people well enough to ask them their plans directly.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm curious which charters are taking most of their 9th grade applicants-- any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Our family is not shut out, but we may well could have been as we are zoned for Coolidge (not an option) and our son got a terrible lottery number.

He will be attending McKinley Tech. He is someone who does extremely well on standardized tests and, previous to the change in admissions requirements, would have had a great chance at getting into Walls which was our plan.

My takeaway is that I'm very grateful that we put ALL of the schools we would be willing for our son to attend on the application. All of them. It's a true lottery now as it always was.

I also wonder if we should have applied for private schools, but my son's strong preference was that the money that would go to Private school instead go to Graduate School or a down payment on a home. For us, this is an actual pot of money that is for our kids, so it's not conceptual and we left this choice up to our son. Because, ultimately it's his choice which school he attends.

Now, we did not have our son apply for the early college program at Coolidge, and in retrospect, I wish we had. Things turned out fine, but our safety schools were McArthur and Sojourner Truth and they had many, many applications this year so I doubt our son would have lotteried in.

Our son is interested in Engineering, we loved the open house and this truly is a happy ending for us, but if it had been a different year (or a different interview day where he had been in a bad mood and not gotten in?) then we could have been shut out. In that case, I would have called around to all the high schools we would consider to see if anyone happened to have any spaces open up.

My point is, please don't count on getting into anywhere other than your zoned school, because things change. Apply to all schools you would consider, and, probably, at least a couple of private schools even if paying the tuition would be a stretch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where are you hearing it? DCUM doesn't make for a great scientific sample.

If you don't consider your IB school to be an option, then yes, you need a backup plan. If that plan includes a private school, you need to plan for that and apply in the fall, because the due dates are before the lottery. If it doesn't, then you need to consider moving if your kid doesn't get in anywhere. Regardless of the disappointment you are or are not hearing out there, you would be remiss not to do these things anyhow. It's a LOTTERY after all. Nothing is guaranteed at any level.

Combination of DCUM and my social circle and like, peripheral social circle where I don't know people well enough to ask them their plans directly.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm curious which charters are taking most of their 9th grade applicants-- any ideas?

You can see here (last year's data) https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family is not shut out, but we may well could have been as we are zoned for Coolidge (not an option) and our son got a terrible lottery number.

He will be attending McKinley Tech. He is someone who does extremely well on standardized tests and, previous to the change in admissions requirements, would have had a great chance at getting into Walls which was our plan.

My takeaway is that I'm very grateful that we put ALL of the schools we would be willing for our son to attend on the application. All of them. It's a true lottery now as it always was.

I also wonder if we should have applied for private schools, but my son's strong preference was that the money that would go to Private school instead go to Graduate School or a down payment on a home. For us, this is an actual pot of money that is for our kids, so it's not conceptual and we left this choice up to our son. Because, ultimately it's his choice which school he attends.

Now, we did not have our son apply for the early college program at Coolidge, and in retrospect, I wish we had. Things turned out fine, but our safety schools were McArthur and Sojourner Truth and they had many, many applications this year so I doubt our son would have lotteried in.

Our son is interested in Engineering, we loved the open house and this truly is a happy ending for us, but if it had been a different year (or a different interview day where he had been in a bad mood and not gotten in?) then we could have been shut out. In that case, I would have called around to all the high schools we would consider to see if anyone happened to have any spaces open up.

My point is, please don't count on getting into anywhere other than your zoned school, because things change. Apply to all schools you would consider, and, probably, at least a couple of private schools even if paying the tuition would be a stretch.

Thank you for this helpful answer! I hope that your son enjoys McKinley Tech-- I would be so happy for my children to attend in the future.

Are there any other schools you would recommend to fill out the list in case of a bad lottery number?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where are you hearing it? DCUM doesn't make for a great scientific sample.

If you don't consider your IB school to be an option, then yes, you need a backup plan. If that plan includes a private school, you need to plan for that and apply in the fall, because the due dates are before the lottery. If it doesn't, then you need to consider moving if your kid doesn't get in anywhere. Regardless of the disappointment you are or are not hearing out there, you would be remiss not to do these things anyhow. It's a LOTTERY after all. Nothing is guaranteed at any level.

Combination of DCUM and my social circle and like, peripheral social circle where I don't know people well enough to ask them their plans directly.

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm curious which charters are taking most of their 9th grade applicants-- any ideas?

You can see here (last year's data) https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/aaron2446/viz/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData_draft/MSDCPublicDisplay

Thanks. I guess I'll just have to wait for updated data-- I see that Truth barely had a 9th grade waitlist at all this year, but from what I'm hearing this year, things are quite different now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our family is not shut out, but we may well could have been as we are zoned for Coolidge (not an option) and our son got a terrible lottery number.

He will be attending McKinley Tech. He is someone who does extremely well on standardized tests and, previous to the change in admissions requirements, would have had a great chance at getting into Walls which was our plan.

My takeaway is that I'm very grateful that we put ALL of the schools we would be willing for our son to attend on the application. All of them. It's a true lottery now as it always was.

I also wonder if we should have applied for private schools, but my son's strong preference was that the money that would go to Private school instead go to Graduate School or a down payment on a home. For us, this is an actual pot of money that is for our kids, so it's not conceptual and we left this choice up to our son. Because, ultimately it's his choice which school he attends.

Now, we did not have our son apply for the early college program at Coolidge, and in retrospect, I wish we had. Things turned out fine, but our safety schools were McArthur and Sojourner Truth and they had many, many applications this year so I doubt our son would have lotteried in.

Our son is interested in Engineering, we loved the open house and this truly is a happy ending for us, but if it had been a different year (or a different interview day where he had been in a bad mood and not gotten in?) then we could have been shut out. In that case, I would have called around to all the high schools we would consider to see if anyone happened to have any spaces open up.

My point is, please don't count on getting into anywhere other than your zoned school, because things change. Apply to all schools you would consider, and, probably, at least a couple of private schools even if paying the tuition would be a stretch.

Thank you for this helpful answer! I hope that your son enjoys McKinley Tech-- I would be so happy for my children to attend in the future.

Are there any other schools you would recommend to fill out the list in case of a bad lottery number?

Well, I would look at it like you're filling in a PK3 application. Just make sure there are some safety schools that you are not hearing a lot of people mention.

For this year, I would have included:

SWW
Banneker
McKinley Tech
DCI French
DCI Chinese
(DCI Spanish is a waste of a slot)
Latin
Sojourner Truth
MacArthur
Cap City
Coolidge Early College
Phelps Engineering

In any given year, which of these are safeties and which aren't depends heavily on which school your kids has the grades, essays, recommendations and essay skills to get into as almost half are application schools. But the evolving does seem to point towards families placing greater emphasis on having a place in a middle school that grants access to at least a decent high school

[Anonymous]

What private schools can you realistically get into for 9th grade? Catholics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What private schools can you realistically get into for 9th grade? Catholics?

Catholics like St. John's, Gonzaga, and St. Anselm's. and also independent schools like Maret, GDS, Burke, and Field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What private schools can you realistically get into for 9th grade? Catholics?

Catholics like St. John's, Gonzaga, and St. Anselm's. and also independent schools like Maret, GDS, Burke, and Field.

Elizabeth Seton isn't too hard to get into.