2020 National Merit semifinalists in DC

[Anonymous]

Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:can someone post the list?

2020 D.C. Student Semifinalists

Basis School: Lena E. Cavicchia
Field School: Annika Torng
Georgetown Day High School: William E. Finkelstein, Natasha Zimmermann
Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School: Kiera E. Dent, Cecelia A. Swartz
Gonzaga High School: James C. Garland, Joshua D. Pfefferkorn
Maret School: Kathryn S. Hahm, Claiborne H. Hartman
National Cathedral School: Elizabeth A. Borgmann, Sophia A. Charles, Amelia M. Giffin, Audrey E. May, Iris Wu
School Without Walls: Aryaman Arora
Sidwell Friends School: Curran Chopra, Kiran A. Deol, Benjamin T Fagell, Henry Fant, Ishaan Kumar, Aleksandr P. Kuzmenchuk, Gillian M. La Vina, Harris N. Panner, Luke H. Primis, Joe H. Schwabacher, Mihir Singh, Nicholas Spasojevic, Timothy A. Ward
St. Albans School: Matthew A. Chalk, David A. Hla, Nolan W. Musslewhite,William G. Nash, Yash S. Somaiya, Constantine G. Tsibouris
St. Anselm's Abbey School: Antoni W. Wellisz
Washington International School: Joshua J. Roberts
Washington Latin Charter School: Benjamin Weinberger
Woodrow Wilson High School: Gabrielle S. Aladjem

What is the source?

[Anonymous]

Northwest Courier (print edition, not online)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

DCPS and public charters, with a combined enrollment of nearly 100,000 students, has four semifinalists.

Sidwell, with 1140 K-12 students, has thirteen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

DCPS and public charters, with a combined enrollment of nearly 100,000 students, has four semifinalists.

Sidwell, with 1140 K-12 students, has thirteen.

yes, there the ratio is higher at Sidwell. But the Sidwell kids come from MD and VA too. So they're not all coming from the pool of DC students. In fact none of the ones
I know on that list are DC residents.
Plus scoring well on the PSAT these days is often about prepping. Back in our day, no one would prep prior to the PSAT. Today some kids don't and others
do prep for months if not years. It's a different playing field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

Last year BASIS had 3, this year 1. It bounces around and the private schools always have most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

Last year BASIS had 3, this year 1. It bounces around and the private schools always have most.

yes, but they are cherry-picking bright students from 2 other states.

[Anonymous]

And NYC is cherry-picking bright students from NJ. It's been this way forever.

Even with DC's high cutoff score, 1% of test-takers are finalists. In most states, it's a lower percentage. I think it evens out in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And NYC is cherry-picking bright students from NJ. It's been this way forever.

Even with DC's high cutoff score, 1% of test-takers are finalists. In most states, it's a lower percentage. I think it evens out in the end.

Not to the same degree at all. There may be a tiny handful of NJ kids who are travelling to Manhattan for private high school.
In the DMV these top schools are up to 2/3 (or more) comprised of students from MD and VA. It's a fairly unique situation here. Not many (or any?) other states have
top private schools that are majority filled with students from another state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And NYC is cherry-picking bright students from NJ. It's been this way forever.

Even with DC's high cutoff score, 1% of test-takers are finalists. In most states, it's a lower percentage. I think it evens out in the end.

Not to the same degree at all. There may be a tiny handful of NJ kids who are travelling to Manhattan for private high school.
In the DMV these top schools are up to 2/3 (or more) comprised of students from MD and VA. It's a fairly unique situation here. Not many (or any?) other states have
top private schools that are majority filled with students from another state.

Life isn’t fair. We don’t get Congressional representation either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

DCPS and public charters, with a combined enrollment of nearly 100,000 students, has four semifinalists.

Sidwell, with 1140 K-12 students, has thirteen.

yes, there the ratio is higher at Sidwell. But the Sidwell kids come from MD and VA too. So they're not all coming from the pool of DC students. In fact none of the ones
I know on that list are DC residents.
Plus scoring well on the PSAT these days is often about prepping. Back in our day, no one would prep prior to the PSAT. Today some kids don't and others
do prep for months if not years. It's a different playing field.

They're taking spots that would go to DC kids. The way NMS works is they select kids based on where they go to school, not where they live.

Presidential Scholars are based on where they live and much more broadly distributed within DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

DCPS and public charters, with a combined enrollment of nearly 100,000 students, has four semifinalists.

Sidwell, with 1140 K-12 students, has thirteen.

yes, there the ratio is higher at Sidwell. But the Sidwell kids come from MD and VA too. So they're not all coming from the pool of DC students. In fact none of the ones
I know on that list are DC residents.
Plus scoring well on the PSAT these days is often about prepping. Back in our day, no one would prep prior to the PSAT. Today some kids don't and others
do prep for months if not years. It's a different playing field.

They're taking spots that would go to DC kids. The way NMS works is they select kids based on where they go to school, not where they live.

Presidential Scholars are based on where they live and much more broadly distributed within DC.

NMS is just not that big a deal; the scholarship is worth very little anymore. The way DC was treated was established decades ago; did you just figure this out now?

I'm sorry your kid wasn't named a finalist, but they will be just fine in college admissions, merit aid and life without it. Promise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They're taking spots that would go to DC kids. The way NMS works is they select kids based on where they go to school, not where they live.

Presidential Scholars are based on where they live and much more broadly distributed within DC.

MD/VA students are not taking spots away from DC students. DC is set to the highest cutoff in the country, but gets double the representation of other states (~1% vs. ~0.5%). 40% of the Sidwell students listed above live in DC, and (hopefully) 100% of the DCPS/DCPCS students above do. I'm would bet that >50% of the 39 2020 semifinalists live in DC, so DC residents are proportionally represented (I know that we are not use to that).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bummer, not a great showing for DC public, and that's putting it mildly.

In 2017, Walls had five semifinalists, and there have been years when Wilson had several.

DCPS and public charters, with a combined enrollment of nearly 100,000 students, has four semifinalists.

Sidwell, with 1140 K-12 students, has thirteen.

THIS. Poor showing DCPS & DCPCS, failed system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They're taking spots that would go to DC kids. The way NMS works is they select kids based on where they go to school, not where they live.

Presidential Scholars are based on where they live and much more broadly distributed within DC.

MD/VA students are not taking spots away from DC students. DC is set to the highest cutoff in the country, but gets double the representation of other states (~1% vs. ~0.5%). 40% of the Sidwell students listed above live in DC, and (hopefully) 100% of the DCPS/DCPCS students above do. I'm would bet that >50% of the 39 2020 semifinalists live in DC, so DC residents are proportionally represented (I know that we are not use to that).

I'm just not buying that half the private school semifinalists don't live in DC. I'd wager it's more like 25%. People who live in DC simply don't have high-caliber public high schools to send their children to, like residents of NYC, Chicago, Boston etc.. In the DC burbs, even the wealthy clamor to get their children into top programs like TJ. In the District, those with the dough to ignore public schools generally do after elementary. Affirmative-action based admissions to Walls and honors for all at Wilson is the best we can do as a City. See the results in the paucity of DC public school semifinalists year after year. They're staring you in the face.