DC application high schools - by the numbers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Deal: 306
KIPP: 53
DCI: 73
Basis: 70
Hardy: 58
DC Prep: 55
Friendship: 50
Stuart-Hobson: 49
Latin: 46
Center City: 39
Oyster-Adams: 36
Jefferson: 32
EL Haynes: 27
Chavez: 26
Capital City: 23
Kelly Miller: 20
CHEC: 20

This list is also worth considering for elementary parents who talk about wanting their child to have a "cohort" of fellow high performers in middle school. There are lot of schools in DC where that is available.

[Anonymous]

Yes, although some of those are LEAs, not individual schools. KIPP, DC Prep, etc.

[Anonymous]

Isn't the middle school list missing Two Rivers? The middle school is small, I think just 50 kids at each grade, but somewhere north of 40% of 7th graders scored 4s and 5s on math, which makes 20 kids, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the middle school list missing Two Rivers? The middle school is small, I think just 50 kids at each grade, but somewhere north of 40% of 7th graders scored 4s and 5s on math, which makes 20 kids, no?

Two Rivers estimates 17 qualified kids (criteria = 75% of kids who scored well on ELA also meet math/GPA requirements).

And yeah, there's definitely a balance between a raw number of qualified kids and the percentage of the cohort that scores well - I focused on the raw number because I was looking at selective school seat capacity. Small schools obviously won't rise to the top on that measure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was intrigued by the discussion on the waitlist thread about the low waitlists for application high schools. A poster on that thread estimated that there were about 1,300 7th graders in DC who got 4s or 5s on PARCC and would have been eligible to apply for these schools (all but Ellington now include PARCC + GPA as admission criteria). Since 7th graders may take different math tests, I calculated the number of 7th graders at DC schools with a 4 or 5 on the PARCC ELA and multiplied that by .75 (estimating that 75% of kids who got a 4 or 5 on PARCC ELA also had qualifying math and GPA scores).

Here are the results, for all schools with 20 or more "eligible" kids. The total number of eligible kids across the city is around 1,360:

Deal: 306
KIPP: 53
DCI: 73
Basis: 70
Hardy: 58
DC Prep: 55
Friendship: 50
Stuart-Hobson: 49
Latin: 46
Center City: 39
Oyster-Adams: 36
Jefferson: 32
EL Haynes: 27
Chavez: 26
Capital City: 23
Kelly Miller: 20
CHEC: 20

Many of these kids are in a feeder pattern where they might stay and continue high school - I'd estimate about 600 out of the 1,360 would choose to stay in their feeder track.

That leaves 760 kids with qualifying scores in the pool for application high schools, which offered 670 seats as follows:

School Without Walls: 140
Banneker: 170
McKinley: 220
Phelps: 140

Based on these rough estimates, I think it's reasonable to assume that all kids who meet the criteria (at least currently) can get a seat at an application high school. I'd be interested to know if the matching algorithm might allow a kid to match to Banneker if they are on the SWW waitlist - I know the algorithm works differently for these schools.

None of the K-8 schools have kids who are scoring high enough on PARCC to apply?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was intrigued by the discussion on the waitlist thread about the low waitlists for application high schools. A poster on that thread estimated that there were about 1,300 7th graders in DC who got 4s or 5s on PARCC and would have been eligible to apply for these schools (all but Ellington now include PARCC + GPA as admission criteria). Since 7th graders may take different math tests, I calculated the number of 7th graders at DC schools with a 4 or 5 on the PARCC ELA and multiplied that by .75 (estimating that 75% of kids who got a 4 or 5 on PARCC ELA also had qualifying math and GPA scores).

Here are the results, for all schools with 20 or more "eligible" kids. The total number of eligible kids across the city is around 1,360:

Deal: 306
KIPP: 53
DCI: 73
Basis: 70
Hardy: 58
DC Prep: 55
Friendship: 50
Stuart-Hobson: 49
Latin: 46
Center City: 39
Oyster-Adams: 36
Jefferson: 32
EL Haynes: 27
Chavez: 26
Capital City: 23
Kelly Miller: 20
CHEC: 20

Many of these kids are in a feeder pattern where they might stay and continue high school - I'd estimate about 600 out of the 1,360 would choose to stay in their feeder track.

That leaves 760 kids with qualifying scores in the pool for application high schools, which offered 670 seats as follows:

School Without Walls: 140
Banneker: 170
McKinley: 220
Phelps: 140

Based on these rough estimates, I think it's reasonable to assume that all kids who meet the criteria (at least currently) can get a seat at an application high school. I'd be interested to know if the matching algorithm might allow a kid to match to Banneker if they are on the SWW waitlist - I know the algorithm works differently for these schools.

None of the K-8 schools have kids who are scoring high enough on PARCC to apply?

OP's cutoff was 20 or more kids with high enough PARCC scores. There are a bunch of education campuses and middle schools that have less than 20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know private schools' students also apply to SWW and some others, right?

Sure, but the reverse also happens and the inflow and outflow likely don't have huge systemic impacts.

Interestingly, digging into the DCPS data, both McKinley (matched 159) and Phelps (matched 67) significantly undermatched their available seats. DCPS didn't release data for Coolidge early college.

I would imagine this is due to both limited applicant pool as well as students matching at another school they ranked higher.

Washington Leadership Academy PCS should also be in this mix as a high-quality option.

They start at 9th and have a pretty strong cohort of students who score 4 and 5 on PARCC, which suggests that some of their students were probably in that 7th-grade pool as well. They offer 110 seats per grade.

I happen to know 3 students who lotteried for WLA + SWW and ranked WLA higher, so thus aren't showing up on a SWW WL.

Yes - totally agree about Washington Leadership Academy. Though, wow, I just looked at its waitlist and it matched 110 kids for 9th grade this year, with 93 on the waitlist. It looks like they have mostly cleared the waitlist in past years. I wonder if that will continue.

[Anonymous]

Re WLA - I think once they’ve graduated a class, it will get more notice.

Right now they are serving a pretty disadvantaged community and doing well with it. For example they really emphasize the steps needed to get to strong colleges. I know they helped 3 kids obtain an OSSE scholarship for low-income students at 8-week academic summer programs (Harvard, Stanford and Duke).

[Anonymous]

So, OP, you aren't using actual numbers, just a guesstimate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, OP, you aren't using actual numbers, just a guesstimate?

OP is using actual numbers of 7th graders who scored 4+ on PARCC (for schools with 20+ students who meet that criteria)

And seats offered at 9th at the application schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, OP, you aren't using actual numbers, just a guesstimate?

OP is using actual numbers of 7th graders who scored 4+ on PARCC (for schools with 20+ students who meet that criteria)

And seats offered at 9th at the application schools.

Right. There are 3 criteria for the schools that use PARCC for admission:

4+ on ELA
4+ on math
3.0 or higher GPA

The readily available data is the number of kids who scored 4+ on ELA. OP assumed that 75% of kids who scored 4+ on ELA also met the other two criteria, which seems like a reasonable estimate. The best you could do with actual numbers is to look at kids who scored 4+ on ELA as the potential pool, but that would definitely be an overcount.

(In 7th grade, kids take a variety of PARCC math tests so it's harder to compare apples to apples scores.)

[Anonymous]

This sounds like a student is mostly screwed if they don't lottery into BASIS, Latin, DCI, or Cap City if they don't score well on 7trh grade exams or live IB for Wilson. Got it. smh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a student is mostly screwed if they don't lottery into BASIS, Latin, DCI, or Cap City if they don't score well on 7trh grade exams or live IB for Wilson. Got it. smh

7th grade PARCC does matter a lot.

But remember SWW intends to implement a policy next year that would allow some students with high enough GPA from certain underperforming MS/ECs to at least sit for the exam.

Bard Early College does not use a PARCC cut-off, and neither does Ron Brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a student is mostly screwed if they don't lottery into BASIS, Latin, DCI, or Cap City if they don't score well on 7trh grade exams or live IB for Wilson. Got it. smh

7th grade PARCC does matter a lot.

But remember SWW intends to implement a policy next year that would allow some students with high enough GPA from certain underperforming MS/ECs to at least sit for the exam.

Bard Early College does not use a PARCC cut-off, and neither does Ron Brown.

Haynes goes through 12th. WLA is a pure lottery. Eastern has an IB program. But yes, impressing upon your kid the importance of working hard on the 7th grade PARCC will give them more options.

[Anonymous]

Neither does Ellington or Washington Leadership Academy.

I think the bottom line is that if your kid has the academic qualifications for an application high school, there will be a seat available for them. If they don't, you'd of course be looking at other options.