applying to private school from DCPS isn't easy; my advice: if you want to move, do it early on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps things have changed over the course of the last few years (I have two in HS) but my dc went to a JKLM and their peers had no trouble getting into private schools following elementary school (just off the top of my head kids went to NCS, St. Albans, St. Anselm's, Sheridan, Field, Burke, Sidwell, Landon). Both of mine got into big 3 for 9th grade and, again, their cohort went off to all of the usual suspects (Sidwell, GDS, NCS, St. John's, Maret, Field, WIS) as well as top-tier boarding schools.

Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't and that can be difficult but I can see no systematic rejection of DCPS students from the JKLMs and Deal.

OP here. I do think things may have changed because this year no one I know from our JKLM got in to these schools (and most of us applying knew who was applying where). I'm not sure why. I had also heard of (and know of) kids who got in during past years. That is part is why I was hopeful! Everyone said, "oh, you'll get in, kids from our school have gotten in during past years". Well, not this year.

I don't know if this is a rejection of DCPS kids or because there were so many more qualified applicants from Mont County and Fairfax (which I've heard both have increasingly amounts of unhappy parents especially in the gifted and talented programs).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps things have changed over the course of the last few years (I have two in HS) but my dc went to a JKLM and their peers had no trouble getting into private schools following elementary school (just off the top of my head kids went to NCS, St. Albans, St. Anselm's, Sheridan, Field, Burke, Sidwell, Landon). Both of mine got into big 3 for 9th grade and, again, their cohort went off to all of the usual suspects (Sidwell, GDS, NCS, St. John's, Maret, Field, WIS) as well as top-tier boarding schools.

Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't and that can be difficult but I can see no systematic rejection of DCPS students from the JKLMs and Deal.

OP here. I do think things may have changed because this year no one I know from our JKLM got in to these schools (and most of us applying knew who was applying where). I'm not sure why. I had also heard of (and know of) kids who got in during past years. That is part is why I was hopeful! Everyone said, "oh, you'll get in, kids from our school have gotten in during past years". Well, not this year.

I don't know if this is a rejection of DCPS kids or because there were so many more qualified applicants from Mont County and Fairfax (which I've heard both have increasingly amounts of unhappy parents especially in the gifted and talented programs).

I don't know about more applicants from Mo Co and Fairfax, but Arlington schools have gotten very crowded. Definitely more applicants from there.

Also the economy is doing well -- and that always drives up applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar yet with PARCC scores, but it's striking to read that a 99% in the DCPS standardized test (PARCC) translates into 30% in the private school one (SSAT). Can other parents comment on this?

Depends on your kid.

My child gets 4s on PARCC, and got a 92 percentile on the SSAT. DC only did one practice test, no test prep.

Was in 5th grade at a DC charter school. Some tests just fit some kids better than others.

However, we struck out at all but one of the privates we applied to (Field, Burke, GDS).

wow, this is a really striking fact, in and of itself.
Your kid did really well on the SSAT. 92% on this test is a great score (for those not taking this test, this is normed against a very competitive group and generally an 80%+ gets a kid into the top boarding schools in the country). Congrats to your kid!

And yet, your kid from a DC Charter didn't get into 2/3 local schools, 2 of which aren't competitive. It's a VERY difficult world of admissions out there, especially coming from public/charter schools.

[Anonymous]

I am a private school parent and I fielded 4 calls from friends of friends who had kids in MCPS who were absolutely desperate to get their kids out and go to private school. Most of them said the same thing that there was way too much pressure to take many AP classes and that class sizes of 40 kids or more meant their kids were being ignored. It could be that with the good economy people feel more able to afford private school and so they were more applicants this year

[Anonymous]

I think the main thing is that you apply to get into a private school during a "portal" year. In many local privates, that's 5th grade and not 6th grade. Also, the OP already mentioned 9th grade as a portal year at many of these private schools. Other than those two years, then yes the easiest way to get in is PK or K.

THEN there's always the "contribute 5-10K with the application" approach. I know anecdotally that this has worked at several schools for student applicants. I'm sure that someone who works at an independent school would confirm that this is an effective approach. Believe it or not, these schools actually need the cost of tuition to keep the institution running, and for many the cost of tuition without additional contributions is still not enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not easy but it isn’t impossible either. We did to a mid-level private MS and DD has just been accepted from their to multiple Big 3 HS.

right, but this thread is about going from DCPS to private. Not from a mid level private middle school to private high school. It's completely apples and oranges.

The "mid level" private middle schools all have relationships with the private high schools. Their big part of their reputation hangs on their ability to get their kids into high schools of their choice. DCPS has no such relationship. Which is a big part of what makes it difficult.

Maybe I wasn't clear. We went from DCPS to a mid-level private and now to a big 3. Not a JKLMM DCPS either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps things have changed over the course of the last few years (I have two in HS) but my dc went to a JKLM and their peers had no trouble getting into private schools following elementary school (just off the top of my head kids went to NCS, St. Albans, St. Anselm's, Sheridan, Field, Burke, Sidwell, Landon). Both of mine got into big 3 for 9th grade and, again, their cohort went off to all of the usual suspects (Sidwell, GDS, NCS, St. John's, Maret, Field, WIS) as well as top-tier boarding schools.

Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't and that can be difficult but I can see no systematic rejection of DCPS students from the JKLMs and Deal.

Agree. We had great results this year. It is very easy for any given person to have a large sampling of kids who didn't get in when only 1 in 10 applicants gets a spot at a top school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar yet with PARCC scores, but it's striking to read that a 99% in the DCPS standardized test (PARCC) translates into 30% in the private school one (SSAT). Can other parents comment on this?

It doesn't translate that way, but also the tests do not align -- PARCC is testing a grade level, middle school SSAT is testing a range of grades (5-7). For high school, our DC did very little prep; never even took a full practice test. The SSAT scores were completely consistent with DC's top PARCC scores. DC got no rejections. Actually, DC did better on the SSAT than on the ELA part of the PARCC and thought the SSAT was easier than PARCC. There was nothing in the math part of the SSAT that DC had not learned in school, so the score there was pure test performance. There was no knowledge gap. I will add that in the interviews, ADs consistently had enthusiastic comments about their experiences with kids admitted from DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar yet with PARCC scores, but it's striking to read that a 99% in the DCPS standardized test (PARCC) translates into 30% in the private school one (SSAT). Can other parents comment on this?

It doesn't translate that way, but also the tests do not align -- PARCC is testing a grade level, middle school SSAT is testing a range of grades (5-7). For high school, our DC did very little prep; never even took a full practice test. The SSAT scores were completely consistent with DC's top PARCC scores. DC got no rejections. Actually, DC did better on the SSAT than on the ELA part of the PARCC and thought the SSAT was easier than PARCC. There was nothing in the math part of the SSAT that DC had not learned in school, so the score there was pure test performance. There was no knowledge gap. I will add that in the interviews, ADs consistently had enthusiastic comments about their experiences with kids admitted from DCPS schools.

What school were you coming from? Kids at our JKLM bombed the ssat and isee. A large amount of the math was brand new to them. I know because I studied it with my child and it was all parents talked about. Our kids had never seen the concepts before.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar yet with PARCC scores, but it's striking to read that a 99% in the DCPS standardized test (PARCC) translates into 30% in the private school one (SSAT). Can other parents comment on this?

It doesn't translate that way, but also the tests do not align -- PARCC is testing a grade level, middle school SSAT is testing a range of grades (5-7). For high school, our DC did very little prep; never even took a full practice test. The SSAT scores were completely consistent with DC's top PARCC scores. DC got no rejections. Actually, DC did better on the SSAT than on the ELA part of the PARCC and thought the SSAT was easier than PARCC. There was nothing in the math part of the SSAT that DC had not learned in school, so the score there was pure test performance. There was no knowledge gap. I will add that in the interviews, ADs consistently had enthusiastic comments about their experiences with kids admitted from DCPS schools.

What school were you coming from? Kids at our JKLM bombed the ssat and isee. A large amount of the math was brand new to them. I know because I studied it with my child and it was all parents talked about. Our kids had never seen the concepts before.

What grade? The SSAT for middle school is the same test for 5th through 7th graders, so you would expect to see new stuff if you are a 5th grader, unless you are tracked to 7th grade math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps things have changed over the course of the last few years (I have two in HS) but my dc went to a JKLM and their peers had no trouble getting into private schools following elementary school (just off the top of my head kids went to NCS, St. Albans, St. Anselm's, Sheridan, Field, Burke, Sidwell, Landon). Both of mine got into big 3 for 9th grade and, again, their cohort went off to all of the usual suspects (Sidwell, GDS, NCS, St. John's, Maret, Field, WIS) as well as top-tier boarding schools.

Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don't and that can be difficult but I can see no systematic rejection of DCPS students from the JKLMs and Deal.

OP here. I do think things may have changed because this year no one I know from our JKLM got in to these schools (and most of us applying knew who was applying where). I'm not sure why. I had also heard of (and know of) kids who got in during past years. That is part is why I was hopeful! Everyone said, "oh, you'll get in, kids from our school have gotten in during past years". Well, not this year.

I don't know if this is a rejection of DCPS kids or because there were so many more qualified applicants from Mont County and Fairfax (which I've heard both have increasingly amounts of unhappy parents especially in the gifted and talented programs).

OP, you should apply again next year. One kid I know didn't get in at 6th. Then applied again at 7th and got in.

[Anonymous]

Also, did your kid really want to transfer to private. Sometimes when the parents want it but the kid doesn't, the kid does not do well in the interview because they really don't care and would prefer to stay with all their friends. Could something like that have happened to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not familiar yet with PARCC scores, but it's striking to read that a 99% in the DCPS standardized test (PARCC) translates into 30% in the private school one (SSAT). Can other parents comment on this?

It doesn't translate that way, but also the tests do not align -- PARCC is testing a grade level, middle school SSAT is testing a range of grades (5-7). For high school, our DC did very little prep; never even took a full practice test. The SSAT scores were completely consistent with DC's top PARCC scores. DC got no rejections. Actually, DC did better on the SSAT than on the ELA part of the PARCC and thought the SSAT was easier than PARCC. There was nothing in the math part of the SSAT that DC had not learned in school, so the score there was pure test performance. There was no knowledge gap. I will add that in the interviews, ADs consistently had enthusiastic comments about their experiences with kids admitted from DCPS schools.

What school were you coming from? Kids at our JKLM bombed the ssat and isee. A large amount of the math was brand new to them. I know because I studied it with my child and it was all parents talked about. Our kids had never seen the concepts before.

What grade? The SSAT for middle school is the same test for 5th through 7th graders, so you would expect to see new stuff if you are a 5th grader, unless you are tracked to 7th grade math.

The 5th graders at our JKLM had never seen much the SSAT math before but it was the same for the ISEE. The kids all did badly, despite many having top PARCC scores.
I was the one who studied with my child and he/she had never seen a number of the concepts before (even for the ISEE which was normed to be a 4th/5th grade test).
None of us (parents) could figure out what went wrong in their math curriculum. These are smart kids, who have 4's in math and good if not great PARCC scores but who did horribly on the SSAT and ISEE without a signifiant amount of tutoring
and test prep. Many of the kids ended up taking the SSAT/ISEE 4 or 5 times to get their scores up!
It was eye opening and I'm still not sure why it happened. This is from one of the most popular JKLM schools.

[Anonymous]

Multiple students in different grades got into multiple schools at our DCPS elementary. And we're EOTP. Maybe it depends more on the kids than the school.

[Anonymous]

Our experience was similar to OP's when applying to 6th last year.

DC with 5 on PARCC got 30% on SSAT and had to go to a tutor.

Shut out of everywhere except school where sibling is. We had moved sibling in an earlier grade when it was easier.

Feedback from private this year is that DC is very weak on grammar and punctuation rules, does not know how to take notes, and does not know how to study.

We are dreading the process for our youngest DC next year.