Walls admissions article in the Post

[Anonymous]

All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

Uh huh. That sounded really convincing. Also, a great lesson for your kid: "Don't try unless you are guaranteed to succeed because otherwise you might feel stress during the process. And you might not get what you wanted."

I'm white, wealthy and entitled. If ever there was a post by someone else in my demo, it's you PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

Uh huh. That sounded really convincing. Also, a great lesson for your kid: "Don't try unless you are guaranteed to succeed because otherwise you might feel stress during the process. And you might not get what you wanted."

I'm white, wealthy and entitled. If ever there was a post by someone else in my demo, it's you PP.

Well my kid did try, that’s how I know they didn’t make the cutoff, but otherwise I feel very seen!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find parents speculating on which kids are highly motivated and good fits when you haven’t observed these kids or been privy to their grades is gross.

Kids know peers and share with each other. No one names names.

Ah so it is too stressful and too much to ask 8th graders to interview and not get in, but we totally trust the judgements they have about peers and their abilities. Utter nonsense.

[Anonymous]

One of the student interviewers rolled her eyes twice during the parent portion of the interview last year...apparently, she wasn't a fan of our questions...in theory, the parent portion doesn't count at all but it did make us pretty skeptical about the quality control around these interviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

Mine made the cutoff easily but had a 3-minute interview. Waitlisted in the low 200s. No idea why. She's extremely upset...thinks the interviewer must have "hated her" and that she must have "said something really stupid."

Walls should be ashamed of themselves for doing this to kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

Mine made the cutoff easily but had a 3-minute interview. Waitlisted in the low 200s. No idea why. She's extremely upset...thinks the interviewer must have "hated her" and that she must have "said something really stupid."

Walls should be ashamed of themselves for doing this to kids.

Well, let me then tell you this: my son was asked about his hobbies. Waitlisted 120+ . Now he's upset with himself and doubting about his own hobbies and interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I can say is, thank goodness my kid missed the cutoff. Much easier than all this interview/waitlist stress!

Mine made the cutoff easily but had a 3-minute interview. Waitlisted in the low 200s. No idea why. She's extremely upset...thinks the interviewer must have "hated her" and that she must have "said something really stupid."

Walls should be ashamed of themselves for doing this to kids.

Well, let me then tell you this: my son was asked about his hobbies. Waitlisted 120+ . Now he's upset with himself and doubting about his own hobbies and interests.

This year or last year? Similar anecdotes from last year and would be disappointing to see that repeated. At a minimum they need to provide a standard set of questions and a fixed block of time, but there's so much more they should do. They could follow Banneker's process for starters and require an essay and teacher recs. If they want greater diversity they should prioritize equity seats and make the remaining seats entirely competitive including reinstating test. Upper class student participation in selection process is also a strange dynamic and doesn't seem appropriate

The process sucks. Lots of highly qualified candidates get overlooked.

[Anonymous]

My child applied this year --Deal, 4.0 GPA, had a ten-minute interview with one teacher (no students) that she described as a really fun and interesting conversation. She prepared for the interview and took it seriously. She is waitlisted with a number in the 170s. Looking at the lottery data for this year, they offered 170 spots and put 211 kids on the waitlist. That means she was in the 340s out of a total of 381 students. No idea why!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child applied this year --Deal, 4.0 GPA, had a ten-minute interview with one teacher (no students) that she described as a really fun and interesting conversation. She prepared for the interview and took it seriously. She is waitlisted with a number in the 170s. Looking at the lottery data for this year, they offered 170 spots and put 211 kids on the waitlist. That means she was in the 340s out of a total of 381 students. No idea why!

I'm so sorry. Honestly, I would submit a FOIA request. I wish I had done it last year when the same thing happened to my DC. It is total a total BS process and they will continue to do it until they can't get away with it anymore.

The FOIA process is really simple but they will drag it out as long as they can (up to five weeks or something like that). Keep your request simple. Just ask for all records that contain guidance for interviewers on how they are supposed to rate candidates, all records that provides training for interviewers on how they are supposed to interview candidates, all records that provides the weighting for interviews vs GPA and how candidates are ranked in the event of a tie. Also ask for an example of the interview matrix or rubric that is used for each interview.

They will either have to provide you with these or it will be exposed that they have no guidelines for the process.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone speak to the waitlist process from last year's admissions? Did the school seem to offer seats to applicants based on their rank order? I saw someone commented last fall that the waitlist had moved down to 92 spots but their child who had a better number than that hadn't received an offer of a seat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone speak to the waitlist process from last year's admissions? Did the school seem to offer seats to applicants based on their rank order? I saw someone commented last fall that the waitlist had moved down to 92 spots but their child who had a better number than that hadn't received an offer of a seat.

I was a previous poster whose kid was 102 on the waitlist and it appeared to move appropriately. my kid ended up as number 7 when it was all said and done. he had numerous friends who came off the waitlist in an orderly fashion. I think it was all done on the up-and-up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone speak to the waitlist process from last year's admissions? Did the school seem to offer seats to applicants based on their rank order? I saw someone commented last fall that the waitlist had moved down to 92 spots but their child who had a better number than that hadn't received an offer of a seat.

I was a previous poster whose kid was 102 on the waitlist and it appeared to move appropriately. my kid ended up as number 7 when it was all said and done. he had numerous friends who came off the waitlist in an orderly fashion. I think it was all done on the up-and-up.

Well that’s a long painful summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone speak to the waitlist process from last year's admissions? Did the school seem to offer seats to applicants based on their rank order? I saw someone commented last fall that the waitlist had moved down to 92 spots but their child who had a better number than that hadn't received an offer of a seat.

I was a previous poster whose kid was 102 on the waitlist and it appeared to move appropriately. my kid ended up as number 7 when it was all said and done. he had numerous friends who came off the waitlist in an orderly fashion. I think it was all done on the up-and-up.

Well that’s a long painful summer.

It all worked out! He entered Sidwell/St Albans/GDS (being intentionally vague about which one) and we were locked in that contract by June 1. It's been a great fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child applied this year --Deal, 4.0 GPA, had a ten-minute interview with one teacher (no students) that she described as a really fun and interesting conversation. She prepared for the interview and took it seriously. She is waitlisted with a number in the 170s. Looking at the lottery data for this year, they offered 170 spots and put 211 kids on the waitlist. That means she was in the 340s out of a total of 381 students. No idea why!

I'm so sorry. Honestly, I would submit a FOIA request. I wish I had done it last year when the same thing happened to my DC. It is total a total BS process and they will continue to do it until they can't get away with it anymore.

The FOIA process is really simple but they will drag it out as long as they can (up to five weeks or something like that). Keep your request simple. Just ask for all records that contain guidance for interviewers on how they are supposed to rate candidates, all records that provides training for interviewers on how they are supposed to interview candidates, all records that provides the weighting for interviews vs GPA and how candidates are ranked in the event of a tie. Also ask for an example of the interview matrix or rubric that is used for each interview.

They will either have to provide you with these or it will be exposed that they have no guidelines for the process.

This^