Wilson H.S. or GDS/Sidwell/St. Albans for your basic Ward 3 smart kid

[Anonymous]

Hmm I don't know. I do know that Wilson has been sending a lot of kids to Madison the last couple of years, but I have no idea of the racial breakdown of the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: But when we saw Wilson's college list we were blown away: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Tufts, Bates, UNC Chapel Hill, the list goes on. .

I heard that most of the kids from Wilson who end up at ivies are AA, while the white kids go to Madison, Oberlin, etc. True?

I know of several white kids who went to ivies - and to Oberlin.

[Anonymous]

To the person who keeps touting Eastern: please give up. I doubt anyone who reads DCUM is seriously considering Eastern for their child. I know I wouldn't, and I'm not in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: But when we saw Wilson's college list we were blown away: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Tufts, Bates, UNC Chapel Hill, the list goes on. .

I heard that most of the kids from Wilson who end up at ivies are AA, while the white kids go to Madison, Oberlin, etc. True?

I know of several white kids who went to ivies - and to Oberlin.

+1

[Anonymous]

I'm also considering Wilson for next year. The building is beautiful and I know lots of happy kids there. My concern is whether the kids are really prepared for college. I don't care that lots of kids get into great schools - what happens after they get in?

[Anonymous]

From the kids I know, they are hitting it out of the ballpark in college readiness, and have been for at least 10 years that I've been watching. No worries there at all. In fact, not to be whatever, but it's the Walls kids that I see end up back at home mid-semester.

[Anonymous]

Plus college readiness is not just about the high school you attended. I'd like to think that my efforts as a parent and the fact that I attended college will make a big difference.

[Anonymous]

The kids I know from Wilson are doing great at college--one is thriving in one of the Ivies and the other is at a top small liberal arts college.

[Anonymous]

Love people acting like Wilson is some dangerous school... Its a bunch of rich kids who didn't get in or want to go private.

[Anonymous]

OP,

One-third of the students at Wilson have a GPA of 2.0 or lower.

[Anonymous]

I've interviewed a dozen Wilson students applying to my alma mater (an Ivy) in the last six or seven years, and none has been admitted, and not for lack of brains or industry. Wilson does get one or two students into my school every year, I just haven't interviewed any of the succesful applicants. If you're willing to play guidance counselor to your kid to a large extent junior and senior year, your kid may indeed do just as well at Wilson as St. Albans etc. The Wilson kids simply don't seem to get nearly enough attention from college counselors as individuals, a public school problem hardly unique to the school. But if your kid winds up as Ivy League material, regardless of which area school he ends up attending, you may wish to seriously consider doing something radical for senior year. That is get him OUT of the DC applicant pool altogether somehow, have him graduate from a school in North Dakota, or Alaska, or Kenya, or the Bahamas. Anywhere but here or NYC. The numbers crunch at 5-star schools (mine admits 8%) has become increasingly brutal for a decade, no matter if your kid applies to Stanford, Georgetown, Ivies of military academies, or if a kid graduates from Sidwell, St. Albans or Wilson. I don't see more kids getting in from the DC independents than Wilson (although kids from high-powered suburban magnets like Blair in Silver Spring and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria seem to have an edge). But sometimes I interview kids on the phone, kids who live in cities where few graduates of my school reside, like Minneapolis, and Honolulu and Tuscon. These kids can get in with academic records that wouldn't fly for a DC applicant by a long shot. I've seen DC applicants who've taken 9 AP classes, and received all 5s on the their tests get shot down. I've seen valedictorian kids with perfect SAT scores who published op-ed pieces in the Post and did research at NIH get rejected. But from Honolulu, they sometimes get in with 4 or 5 AP classes and SATs in the 600s under their belts (and there are not low-income minority kids). Take it from me, applying to college from DC, the country's second toughest applicant pool, hurts your kids chances of admisssion - the type of the school, the name of the school, doesn't change that.

[Anonymous]

Who in their right mind said chose Eastern. This school is totally out of control and I heard this from upper-level DCPS official. Wilson is having a rougher year and it has many scratching their heads in frustration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP,

One-third of the students at Wilson have a GPA of 2.0 or lower.

and those kids aren't the ones applying and getting into good schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who in their right mind said chose Eastern. This school is totally out of control and I heard this from upper-level DCPS official. Wilson is having a rougher year and it has many scratching their heads in frustration.

I hope you're wrong about Eastern. I don't expect any miracles, but I'd like to think there's hope for the huge investment in a new school and for the new carefully selected principal who was hired a year in advance strictly to do planning.

[Anonymous]

23:27 Not my point. My point is they take energy and attention away from the administration. It's not widely known, and I think OP should understand the extent of the achievement gap. Also, at Wilson any student can take AP English or History. That drags down the class. There are lots of politics about all this under the radar at Wilson. It's a complicated place. If a strong student looses his or her way, who is looking out for him/her?