Wall 2022--63% admission rate for 9th

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the lottery part? They said at the online open house on Thursday they interview the top 500 GPAs and then select from there and there was no mention of a lottery as part of the process.

It is not a lottery like the elementary school one / it is a ranked choice system so essentially walls puts the interviewed students it a preference order from 1-xxx - then the students rank their HS choices in the “lottery” then it is a matching game until all of the spots are filled at walls.

If student x puts Banneker above walls and they are on Banneker's priority list when their number is called they get into Banneker and do not get a waitlist number from walls

HS is a very different process and you really do need to put your first choice first…no gaming the system because you basically get one shot at it all

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the lottery part? They said at the online open house on Thursday they interview the top 500 GPAs and then select from there and there was no mention of a lottery as part of the process.

It is not a lottery like the elementary school one / it is a ranked choice system so essentially walls puts the interviewed students it a preference order from 1-xxx - then the students rank their HS choices in the “lottery” then it is a matching game until all of the spots are filled at walls.

If student x puts Banneker above walls and they are on Banneker's priority list when their number is called they get into Banneker and do not get a waitlist number from walls

HS is a very different process and you really do need to put your first choice first…no gaming the system because you basically get one shot at it all

Sorry, how is that different from the rest of the lottery? Are you suggesting that you alone have figured out a way to game the system that was designed to avoid that very thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone above gpa cutoff (3.7-3.8) interviewed, right? The 170 admits are the top scorers (gpa plus interview score) right? Are all the rest put in pure lottery order on the waitlist?

During the School Without Walls Open House today, they said the GPA cutoffs were:

3.70 (2021)
3.73 (2022)

How does that translate for schools that use a different system?

For example, if a school uses a grading system that goes up to 100%, then 90-92% translates to 3.7 and 93%+ translates to 4.0. Does that mean that last year no one (from a school using the 100% system) was considered who wasn't at least at 93%?

https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/sites/dcpsenrollment/files/page_content/attachments/SWW%20GPA%20Scale_SY%2022-23%20Admissions%20Update%20FINAL.pdf

Good question. Some DC charters use the 100% grading system. Assume kid #1 gets a 92% (a 3.7 under the Walls rubric) and kid #2 gets a 93% (a 4.0 under the Walls rubric). These kids have pretty much identical grades but the rubric greatly favors the second kid (that is, treats that kid as equivalent to a kid who got a 100%). Does that mean that kid #1 doesn't make a 3.73 cutoff but kid #2 does?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the lottery part? They said at the online open house on Thursday they interview the top 500 GPAs and then select from there and there was no mention of a lottery as part of the process.

It is not a lottery like the elementary school one / it is a ranked choice system so essentially walls puts the interviewed students it a preference order from 1-xxx - then the students rank their HS choices in the “lottery” then it is a matching game until all of the spots are filled at walls.

If student x puts Banneker above walls and they are on Banneker's priority list when their number is called they get into Banneker and do not get a waitlist number from walls

HS is a very different process and you really do need to put your first choice first…no gaming the system because you basically get one shot at it all

I am the PP who asked the question - thank you for explaining!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone above gpa cutoff (3.7-3.8) interviewed, right? The 170 admits are the top scorers (gpa plus interview score) right? Are all the rest put in pure lottery order on the waitlist?

During the School Without Walls Open House today, they said the GPA cutoffs were:

3.70 (2021)
3.73 (2022)

How does that translate for schools that use a different system?

For example, if a school uses a grading system that goes up to 100%, then 90-92% translates to 3.7 and 93%+ translates to 4.0. Does that mean that last year no one (from a school using the 100% system) was considered who wasn't at least at 93%?

https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/sites/dcpsenrollment/files/page_content/attachments/SWW%20GPA%20Scale_SY%2022-23%20Admissions%20Update%20FINAL.pdf

Good question. Some DC charters use the 100% grading system. Assume kid #1 gets a 92% (a 3.7 under the Walls rubric) and kid #2 gets a 93% (a 4.0 under the Walls rubric). These kids have pretty much identical grades but the rubric greatly favors the second kid (that is, treats that kid as equivalent to a kid who got a 100%). Does that mean that kid #1 doesn't make a 3.73 cutoff but kid #2 does?

I believe so. But the exact number used for the cutoff varies from year to year, so you can’t know when applying to high school(s) whether the 3.7 will be above the line in any particular year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So for 9th grade, 381 kids interviewed and were put into the lottery. When it was it was all said and done, 238/381 were given offers and 142/381 were left on the waitlist.
So a 63% admission rate for kids who interviewed for 9th grade.

Did SWW give out these numbers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone above gpa cutoff (3.7-3.8) interviewed, right? The 170 admits are the top scorers (gpa plus interview score) right? Are all the rest put in pure lottery order on the waitlist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone above gpa cutoff (3.7-3.8) interviewed, right? The 170 admits are the top scorers (gpa plus interview score) right? Are all the rest put in pure lottery order on the waitlist?

During the School Without Walls Open House today, they said the GPA cutoffs were:

3.70 (2021)
3.73 (2022)

How does that translate for schools that use a different system?

For example, if a school uses a grading system that goes up to 100%, then 90-92% translates to 3.7 and 93%+ translates to 4.0. Does that mean that last year no one (from a school using the 100% system) was considered who wasn't at least at 93%?

https://enrolldcps.dc.gov/sites/dcpsenrollment/files/page_content/attachments/SWW%20GPA%20Scale_SY%2022-23%20Admissions%20Update%20FINAL.pdf

The Walls administrators said several times that they have the ability to convert a variety of GPAs, including foreign transcripts and those that use a different grading scale.

[Anonymous]

I am confused by this post. The percent of admits after the interview process has always been very high at Walls. Pre-pandemic they would interview 250 students for 150 spots. It has always been this way. Some years they’ve gone through almost the entire post interview waitlist.

[Anonymous]

To calculate GPA, how do you factor in 7th grade PE and Music (from a traditional DCPS middle school) - are they 50% of a grade each? So kid got an A in one and an A- in the other, that would "equal" a 3.85 ? The rubric that DCPS provides doesn't answer this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To calculate GPA, how do you factor in 7th grade PE and Music (from a traditional DCPS middle school) - are they 50% of a grade each? So kid got an A in one and an A- in the other, that would "equal" a 3.85 ? The rubric that DCPS provides doesn't answer this.

I tried to find the answer to this question last year, but I was never able to get any kind of official answer from anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by this post. The percent of admits after the interview process has always been very high at Walls. Pre-pandemic they would interview 250 students for 150 spots. It has always been this way. Some years they’ve gone through almost the entire post interview waitlist.

Right but post pandemic (the "no test" era) they started interviewing more kids and leaving more on the waitlist.

2021: about 150 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist (I don't know the exact number)
2022: 142 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by this post. The percent of admits after the interview process has always been very high at Walls. Pre-pandemic they would interview 250 students for 150 spots. It has always been this way. Some years they’ve gone through almost the entire post interview waitlist.

Right but post pandemic (the "no test" era) they started interviewing more kids and leaving more on the waitlist.

2021: about 150 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist (I don't know the exact number)
2022: 142 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist

Yikes! So the parents of those 142 had to tell their kids they didn’t get in because they blew the interview…? Joking - but wondering how to finesse my 4.0 (well rounded, athlete, fabulous artist , blah blah) daughter if she doesn’t get in ….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by this post. The percent of admits after the interview process has always been very high at Walls. Pre-pandemic they would interview 250 students for 150 spots. It has always been this way. Some years they’ve gone through almost the entire post interview waitlist.

Right but post pandemic (the "no test" era) they started interviewing more kids and leaving more on the waitlist.

2021: about 150 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist (I don't know the exact number)
2022: 142 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist

Yikes! So the parents of those 142 had to tell their kids they didn’t get in because they blew the interview…? Joking - but wondering how to finesse my 4.0 (well rounded, athlete, fabulous artist , blah blah) daughter if she doesn’t get in ….

I had a 4.0, top travel athlete, algebra 2 in 8th grade, national level debater, etc kid who did not get in. was accepted to Sidwell, Potomac, GDS, STA, and Teg scholars's program at SJC but not Walls. 🤣🤪

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused by this post. The percent of admits after the interview process has always been very high at Walls. Pre-pandemic they would interview 250 students for 150 spots. It has always been this way. Some years they’ve gone through almost the entire post interview waitlist.

Right but post pandemic (the "no test" era) they started interviewing more kids and leaving more on the waitlist.

2021: about 150 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist (I don't know the exact number)
2022: 142 interviewed kids were left on the waitlist

Yikes! So the parents of those 142 had to tell their kids they didn’t get in because they blew the interview…? Joking - but wondering how to finesse my 4.0 (well rounded, athlete, fabulous artist , blah blah) daughter if she doesn’t get in ….

I had a 4.0, top travel athlete, algebra 2 in 8th grade, national level debater, etc kid who did not get in. was accepted to Sidwell, Potomac, GDS, STA, and Teg scholars's program at SJC but not Walls. 🤣🤪

Probably the interview.