SWW College Admissions

[Anonymous]

The Walls college decision account is impressive. My kid is hoping to head there in a couple years. Are the results school-tied or SES/parent alum tied, by and large. How is the college advising?

[Anonymous]

Where did you find this information?

[Anonymous]

Walls college advisors stay with the same class for 4 years. The upside is they can get to know your kid well. The downside is they’re always coming back to the process after a 3-year hiatus, your counselor is responsible for all 150 seniors at once, and the quality can vary. It’s not uncommon for more affluent families to have private counselors, though I would argue it’s not necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where did you find this information?

Anyone can follow the @SWW2025decisions page on Instagram. You can see where students are going.

[Anonymous]

Yeah it’s related to the income background of the students. Parents who went to college. All of that.

[Anonymous]

I have a child there and this is what I've noticed: College admissions are generally strong across the board. There are more kids going to good out-of-state schools like Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, etc. than you'll see at private high schools, often for financial reasons. And scholarships like Posse, are popular with lower-income/first-gen kids. There are plenty heading off to study STEM, but it skews more humanities. You won't find rich legacy kids getting a leg up, but the outcomes are otherwise pretty similar to most area private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child there and this is what I've noticed: College admissions are generally strong across the board. There are more kids going to good out-of-state schools like Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, etc. than you'll see at private high schools, often for financial reasons. And scholarships like Posse, are popular with lower-income/first-gen kids. There are plenty heading off to study STEM, but it skews more humanities. You won't find rich legacy kids getting a leg up, but the outcomes are otherwise pretty similar to most area private schools.

This isn't true at all. Last year a very large percentage of the Ivy and top20 admits were legacies. There are a ton of well educated parents at Walls. Then most of the rest of the Ivies were first gen/URM. This is not to say that the kids were not qualified (they were) but their hooks are what pushed them over. I don't know this year's class so I can't comment on them.

[Anonymous]

FWIW Jackson-Reed's college decision account is also quite impressive so far - on IG @jacksonreed_2025

[Anonymous]

Also Banneker - bbahs2025decisions

[Anonymous]

I've been having trouble finding any college stats for Mckinley Tech. I found the IG page @mthsdecisions2k25 but it's blank and can't find one for past years. Anyone have any insight? It's on my 8th grader's lottery list.

[Anonymous]

"This isn't true at all. Last year a very large percentage of the Ivy and top20 admits were legacies. There are a ton of well educated parents at Walls. Then most of the rest of the Ivies were first gen/URM. This is not to say that the kids were not qualified (they were) but their hooks are what pushed them over. I don't know this year's class so I can't comment on them."


You are so right! Doing my research early but noticed the same trend at other DC public/charter high schools - maybe 3 categories: recruited athletes, first gen/URM and legacies. Oddly enough some were "general legacies" - meaning they got into an Ivy but parent(s) went to a different Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also Banneker - bbahs2025decisions

And BASIS -- @bdc.2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW Jackson-Reed's college decision account is also quite impressive so far - on IG @jacksonreed_2025

Accounting for the huge size of the senior class, not really.

[Anonymous]

Are there similar decision accounts for Basis and Latin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been having trouble finding any college stats for Mckinley Tech. I found the IG page @mthsdecisions2k25 but it's blank and can't find one for past years. Anyone have any insight? It's on my 8th grader's lottery list.

In early February I emailed them and they told me they don't upload to the IG page until May when all the decisions come in but in the email they stated "...The Class of 2025 thus far has had a number of college acceptances rolling in with several large scholarship awards attached. Most notably we already have students with Full Ride Offers to MIT, John's Hopkins, and Spelman College. Other acceptances have included Morehouse College, University of Kentucky, LSU, Georgia State, Temple University, Penn State, Florida A&M, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Rochester Institute of Technology, (RIT), St. John's, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Maryland and more. These are just a few of our Early Action or Early Decision applications. Most of our senior class are waiting on acceptance letters from regular decision applications and will not be receiving acceptances until later."