Presidential Scholars

[Anonymous]

The current list for 2011 graduating seniors has been announced, 3000 individuals were named as eligible nationwide, 140 will eventually be selected, the 3000 I believe are chosen based on SATs only, although thresholds (like for National Merit PSATs) are not the same state to state (although locally Maryland and DC traditionally have about the highest cutoffs in the US, Virginia also very high). For the local area, likely close to perfect SATs required.

Here is link: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/psp/index.html
Can be slightly confusing since individuals are listed where they live, not where they go to school. But very impressive results for some local public and private schools:

29 from Thomas Jefferson (the VA selective magnet for science)
15 from Sidwell Friends
9 from Maret
8 National Cathedral School
6 St Albans
4 Wilson High School
3 St Anslem's
2 GDS
1 Landon
1 Holton
1 School without Walls
2 Georgetown Visitation
1 Stone Ridge
1 Potomac
3-6 at various Maryland Montgomery county public schools such as Blair, Richard Montgomery, Whitman, BCC

[Anonymous]

It used to be that these presidential scholars could pick and choose which college they would attend. But even these near perfect students - who must take the most rigorous classes - may not get their first choices.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, interesting. Certainly a magnificent pperformance by TJ. For the privates, this stuff varies each year so one shouldnt go overboard, but I was impressed by the performances of Sidwell, Maret, NCS as the top all girls school on the list. A little surprised GDS didn't do better--does this reflect that Maret is taking top students from them? Also seems to show that the DC independents may have the advantage in drawing some of these bright kids bc DC publics aren't seen as the same solid options as MoCo or Fairfax Count public schools.

[Anonymous]

The big surprise here has to be Maret with nine. And a standout year for Sidwell.

[SAM2]

Thanks for posting the list. I plugged all these numbers into the spreadsheet linked from the FAQ (http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/99066.page), so people can see the ebb and flow of candidate numbers over the years, and also see how these candidate numbers work as a percentage of total school population.

[Anonymous]

Fun fact: add up football wins and Presidential Scholar Candidates and Sidwell and STA tie with 15.

Not actually trying to start a flame war here--think both schools are excellent--but it is sort of funny in light of the Texas-ish football mania on DCUM and elsewhere this past fall.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I think for the privates have to look at 5 year blocks. Sidwell has a fabulous class this year as does Maret, didn't need this metric to tell one that, just talk to parents and teachers about the seniors at the two schools this year, both are really strong academically and did great with early action/decision, compared to a weak year for GDS, but last year for instance Sidwell and GDS actually have about the same number and Maret nothing like this year.

[Anonymous]

SAM2 wrote:Thanks for posting the list. I plugged all these numbers into the spreadsheet linked from the FAQ (http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/99066.page), so people can see the ebb and flow of candidate numbers over the years, and also see how these candidate numbers as a percentage of total school population.

Thanks, as always, I appreciate the context your spreadsheets provide, particularly in terms of remembering these are numerators and class size provides the denominator.

[Anonymous]

After looking at the link posted by SAM2
(http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/99066.page)

I now understand why people are so freaked out about getting their kids into Sidwell.

On the other hand, I'm kind of stunned that Landon, Georgetown Prep are mentioned in the same breath as STA - totally different academic experiences according to the stats

[Anonymous]

Presidential Scholars really just measures how many kids are DC residents. Very different criteria for DC versus other states. 51 Scholars from DC population 600,000. 62 from MD population 5.7 million. Lower cutoff for DC. That is why the privates only have one or two kids in the burbs on the list. MD and VA require 1600. DC might allow as low as 1540. Actually a very big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Presidential Scholars really just measures how many kids are DC residents. Very different criteria for DC versus other states. 51 Scholars from DC population 600,000. 62 from MD population 5.7 million. Lower cutoff for DC. That is why the privates only have one or two kids in the burbs on the list. MD and VA require 1600. DC might allow as low as 1540. Actually a very big difference.

That may be right, but I see that for National Merit Semi-finalist qualification (based on PSAT scores), D.C. actually has a more rigorous score cut-off than either Maryland or Virginia. So I get the point about the population differences with DC being so much smaller, but the NMSF cut-off suggests there are still a high amount of high-scoring students in DC as compared to other states; perhaps enough to ensure that the DC cut-off is 1600 or close to that (it is not beyond the realm of imagination to think there are 40 kids in DC with 1600 SAT scores). Easy enough to check if the state-by-state score cut-offs for the Presidential Scholars progam are published -- anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Cut offs not published. PSAT cutoffs for NMSF done as a percentage of pop. Not true for Presidential. Md candidates are 1:90,000 of population. CA 1:140,000 . DC candidates have a ten times higher ratio.

[Anonymous]

There are now three sat scores. Which two are used. I assume one is math and the writing is less important than verbal?

[Anonymous]

The most impressive, significant and notable finding of this report is that TJ had over 200% (twice of twofold) the number of Presidential Scholars than the next highest ranked school (and this was considered a banner year for Sidwell) and over 300% (thrice or three fold) the 3rd highest ranked school (also a banner year for Maret). Truly outstanding.

[Anonymous]

Yaaaaawn.