I should have kept my kid at Wilson; college admits are much better than the Big3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know PP gets this idea that Big 3 Privates are filled with Uber wealth or that somehow being around driven and successful people is somehow going to crush their kid.

First off, at our Big 3 Private about 1/3 of the students are getting about 60- 75 percent FA and many are from Wards 1 & 4 - having lived there for a decade before those neighborhoods became Hip

There isn’t any real UBER wealth in DC anyway. It’s Washington, not a Swiss Boarding school for Christ’s sake

Lawyers, Finance guys and Fed Govt Admin - hardly UBER anything lol

Just successful enough to stir a little determination to succeed, which is a good thing

I don’t know about your private school but my kids are at GDS and there are many Uber wealthy people. I know 3 billionaires who have kids there and many other parents who make 1M+.

A Law Partner's annual bonus alone is about 800k, but a Million a year does not constitute Upper Class. It's still Upper Middle Class

Upper class is Royalty, 4th-5th Generational Wealth ( Mellon, Carnegie, Ford, Pew, etc.. ) DC does not have that class of people.

LOL, keep telling yourself that 1 mill/year is UMC: https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

It absolutely is UMC .

Taxes reduce it to 750k, 3 kids in Private reduces it to about 550k once you factor in annual giving expectations and college tuition of 80k a year per kid

Decent house is 2.5-5 million so, unless you pay cash, is about a 200 k a year in mortgage

So, now you are down to 350k from which to live on, invest, plan for retirement and maybe pay for assisted living of MC parents

That’s far from the real Upper Class, which is a very small entity of people who can draw millions in annual income without having to work ( unless they wish to ) just from living off of their GGGF invested wealth as do all their family today and for generations to come.

The latter is Upper Class . The former is Upper Middle Class

So your point is that once you spend money, you have less of it? Okay then.

Please tell me this is satire.

[Anonymous]

To answer the poster who asked what percentage of the 40 percent at Harvard from Private school were actually applicants from working class backgrounds who , yes, applied from Private but we’re actually checking the boxes for said HYP to admit: 1st gen college, URM , single parent or ALL of the above:

Do you actually think that a parent of a bright and talented kid doesn’t start looking for a great education for them LONG before college application season?
Say a single parent raising a kid in Ward 1 on less than 100k a year in income notices that her 3 year old has just taught himself to read- do you not comprehend that that parent, if zoned for a failed school, would try to get their kid into Private or move to a better school district

Do you honestly think that parents with kids like that just sit on their thumbs, send them to a sh?t school for 14 years and then have them apply to Harvard

No, those kids are the ones who’s parents are banging on Private school doors in elementary, middle school or HS - whatever it takes - until someone recognizes their kid’s potential

And it’s also what schools like St Albans, Sidwell, Maret and GDS love to invest in- as does Dalton, Trinity, Exeter, Andover - and the teachers at these schools love that kind of merit based student

True, the apply to Harvard as a Private school applicant, but really they are a kid who made it from ground up

Obama’s story with his GP’s putting him through Private school in Hawaii is perfect example. Did Harvard look at his application as being from “ just another privileged Private school spoiled brat “ or a bright kid, raised without a father, who was doing extremely well academically and social genius

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The initial premise of this tread that is horrified that Wilson kids should be qualified or allowed to go to top colleges is clearly provocative. There are so many layers here!
By definition sending kids to elite big 3-5 schools is elitist. It comes with an attitude that those kids are more special and entitled to go to better colleges. The higher cost comes with lots of homework and constant stress to excel - and paid for the ability to cope much better during a global pandemic by having money to throw at the problem and smaller sizes of cherry picked kids to deal with. College admissions are used to nearly all the kids from these schools to get As and Bs. There’s a forced culture of achievement - and grade inflation. The amount of homework and stress aren’t proven to do much that’s really positive for kids. Proportionately these kids will always get into great colleges and do fine in life. Most of the kids are born on third base and think they hit a triple.
Wilson has for generations been “Yale or jail” - a reflection mostly of having higher income and low income families. The kids from higher income families at Wilson are very similar to those at the big 3-5 but the private school parents are so bought into the value of the schools they are paying for, they need to believe those kids won’t be able to cut it in college. Which is ridiculous. Yes many of the parents are just as insufferable as those at privates. But the private parents have chosen an intentionally elitist path. The demographics at Wilson have also changed in the recent 10-15 years and is continuing to change in make up. More and more kids are from higher income families are at Wilson than before. So the numbers applying for top schools and getting in will go up. Grade inflation has become a thing. The W schools in MoCo and the McLean and Fairfax schools have been doing it for while, with about 1/3 of classes getting all A’s.
Just a rant that private school parents can just feel happy with your privilege without kicking down at Wilson.

You lost all credibility in your post when you said that the Big3 have grade inflation. There is marked grade deflation over public and many Bs and Cs are given. The top student at my kid's Big3 last year had a 3.9.

Nearly every kid gets all As and Bs. The parents paying demand no less. You can call that grading on a curve or you can call that grade inflation. A small percentage or kids get Cs with any regularity and those parents go apoplectic that their kid has to settle for Tulane or Wisconsin.

You are so bought into the private culture you can’t see straight.

Say a kid who goes to Wilson gets a 5 in calculus and tests out of 2 semesters of calc at an Ivy - but did about half the homework at Wilson as a Big 3 kid. (True story by the way) are they still less than?

There is so much academic pressure theater at the Big 3s to justify the price tag and feeling of elitism it really warps any perspective.

Talk about not seeing straight. 58% of B-CC graduates have weighted GPAs > 4.00. That’s 300 kids per year graduating from one school with GPAs > 4.0. The amount of grade inflation in MCPS is crazy.

That’s because an A in AP and IB classes counts as a 5. Colleges don’t look at weighted GPAs anyway, they look at unweighted grades. Many even take apart your kid’s transcript and rebuild it with their own proprietary weighting systems. So enough about the weighed grades already, thanks.

Okay. So 55% of B-CC graduates have unweighted cumulative GPAs of 3.51 or better.

It’s funny how area public schools sound eerily familiar to your idea of the problems with the “elitist” private schools.

I’m a private school teacher and there definitely is grade inflation at private schools. The administration is not happy if we give out too many Cs and Ds. They want to see majority As and Bs. Parent complaints are taken very seriously as admin want to keep parents happy

Sure. But it sure is interesting that area public schools don’t give out Cs or Ds either.

Oh, they definitely do. You kind of have to work to get one, but my neurodivergent rebel children are not to be deterred!

One of my children actually FAILED a class at B-CC during the pandemic. It was impressive, really, what he was able to do with depression and ADHD. No easy feat!

This post will be completely ignored on this thread because private school parents know for a fact that no one gets below a B at public school. They are experts on the local public schools even if they have never set foot in one. So you must be lying as apparently your child failing a class in public school is practically impossible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know PP gets this idea that Big 3 Privates are filled with Uber wealth or that somehow being around driven and successful people is somehow going to crush their kid.

First off, at our Big 3 Private about 1/3 of the students are getting about 60- 75 percent FA and many are from Wards 1 & 4 - having lived there for a decade before those neighborhoods became Hip

There isn’t any real UBER wealth in DC anyway. It’s Washington, not a Swiss Boarding school for Christ’s sake

Lawyers, Finance guys and Fed Govt Admin - hardly UBER anything lol

Just successful enough to stir a little determination to succeed, which is a good thing

I don’t know about your private school but my kids are at GDS and there are many Uber wealthy people. I know 3 billionaires who have kids there and many other parents who make 1M+.

A Law Partner's annual bonus alone is about 800k, but a Million a year does not constitute Upper Class. It's still Upper Middle Class

Upper class is Royalty, 4th-5th Generational Wealth ( Mellon, Carnegie, Ford, Pew, etc.. ) DC does not have that class of people.

Ok. I will tell my law firm partner husband who made $2M this year that we are UMC. Or would you call us middle class? We don’t own a 20 million dollar yacht so I guess in your mind we are middle class

[Anonymous]

Flip side as someone who graduated from a pressure cooker suburban high school and went to a top ivy. Yes, ivy seemed “Easy” in comparison to high school. That was nice. BUT I was so burnt out from high school that I didn’t challenge myself one bit at college. Got by with god grades, but had an easy major, no minor, didn’t do senior thesis, did minimal extracurriculars etc. do you want that for your kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

Not in my experience over the past 3 years. My kid was on the debate team with Wilson kids (my kid was at Deal on the same team). The Wilson debate kids went on to Harvard, Barnard, Rice, Georgetown, Occidental etc. The one noteworthy extracurricular each kid had was debate. We knew these kids really, really well. They weren't secretly splitting the atom in their space time and you can't convince me otherwise. The Wilson debate team is very strong and goes to nationals each year but these kids weren't national champs themselves or anything that distinguishing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

Not in my experience over the past 3 years. My kid was on the debate team with Wilson kids (my kid was at Deal on the same team). The Wilson debate kids went on to Harvard, Barnard, Rice, Georgetown, Occidental etc. The one noteworthy extracurricular each kid had was debate. We knew these kids really, really well. They weren't secretly splitting the atom in their space time and you can't convince me otherwise. The Wilson debate team is very strong and goes to nationals each year but these kids weren't national champs themselves or anything that distinguishing.

The point isn't that the only way into an Ivy is splitting the atom. Rather, the point is that grade inflation isn't what is getting Wilson kids into the Ivies. The admissions folks at the Ivies see "Wilson debate team" and that tells them what they want to know before they ever look at GPAs and stats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

At my kid’s MoCo high school, a bunch of kids including my DC got into HYPCS. They all had something extra besides debate team. My kid won a state award and had a rec from a national figure in a particular extra curricular (don’t want to out my kid by saying what)—and was president of a club while working after school. Others were athletes who completed on the national level. One was a first gen immigrant (who took a full scholarship elsewhere). No legacies that I know of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hahahahahaha. You private school parents are a bunch of whiny babies. Sorry your children are not strong candidates for top colleges. Wilson is not perfect, but colleges know what they are doing. Better for them to have kids that can overcome some adversity in public schools rather than entitled spoiled brats from private school.

How old are you? If you're an adult, perhaps you could have benefited from the emotional intelligence taught in private school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know PP gets this idea that Big 3 Privates are filled with Uber wealth or that somehow being around driven and successful people is somehow going to crush their kid.

First off, at our Big 3 Private about 1/3 of the students are getting about 60- 75 percent FA and many are from Wards 1 & 4 - having lived there for a decade before those neighborhoods became Hip

There isn’t any real UBER wealth in DC anyway. It’s Washington, not a Swiss Boarding school for Christ’s sake

Lawyers, Finance guys and Fed Govt Admin - hardly UBER anything lol

Just successful enough to stir a little determination to succeed, which is a good thing

I don’t know about your private school but my kids are at GDS and there are many Uber wealthy people. I know 3 billionaires who have kids there and many other parents who make 1M+.

A Law Partner's annual bonus alone is about 800k, but a Million a year does not constitute Upper Class. It's still Upper Middle Class

Upper class is Royalty, 4th-5th Generational Wealth ( Mellon, Carnegie, Ford, Pew, etc.. ) DC does not have that class of people.

LOL, keep telling yourself that 1 mill/year is UMC: https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

It absolutely is UMC .

Taxes reduce it to 750k, 3 kids in Private reduces it to about 550k once you factor in annual giving expectations and college tuition of 80k a year per kid

Decent house is 2.5-5 million so, unless you pay cash, is about a 200 k a year in mortgage

So, now you are down to 350k from which to live on, invest, plan for retirement and maybe pay for assisted living of MC parents

That’s far from the real Upper Class, which is a very small entity of people who can draw millions in annual income without having to work ( unless they wish to ) just from living off of their GGGF invested wealth as do all their family today and for generations to come.

The latter is Upper Class . The former is Upper Middle Class

So your point is that once you spend money, you have less of it? Okay then.

Please tell me this is satire.

OMG, right? Look, I know a few folks who are this clueless, so not necessarily surprised.

What always gets me is some of the folks who vociferously argue these points attended what some would call "elite" or "prestigious" colleges/universities - how can a school churn out that level of nonsense and still be considered elite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

At my kid’s MoCo high school, a bunch of kids including my DC got into HYPCS. They all had something extra besides debate team. My kid won a state award and had a rec from a national figure in a particular extra curricular (don’t want to out my kid by saying what)—and was president of a club while working after school. Others were athletes who completed on the national level. One was a first gen immigrant (who took a full scholarship elsewhere). No legacies that I know of.

Right. well, MontCo theoretically has 31 debate teams at their 31 high schools.
DCPS has one debate team at it's ONE good comprehensive high school. (Even Walls does not have it's own debate team--the kids debate for Wilson).
So the pool of smart kids who debate from DCPS is super small. As in 2-4 seniors a year, total.
Debate is usually enough. It's a numbers game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's this odd touch of naivete running through this thread: Do you think the admissions folks at HYPSM aren't well familiar with the Big-3, W schools (including Wilson!), TJ, Blair Magnet, et al? Do you think they don't know that the entire educational experiences at the Big3 and the publics are profoundly different?

Do you imagine some faceless automaton looking at college applications saying to themselves, "Ah, I see an A at Sidwell, and an A at Wilson -- and these are exactly the same!"

Don't kid yourselves: The people reviewing your child's application know a great deal about all of the schools mentioned here.

And for those troubled by grade inflation, you can ease your troubled minds: I have heard from more than one admissions officer at Top-20 schools that they can usually tell if a student is a good candidate for admission without ever looking at their GPAs and test scores. Awards, honors, ec's, essays, connections, recommendations... You can tell a lot about who a student is from their application and resume, without ever examining their transcript.

Students with unremarkable resumes do not get admitted to HYPSM these days no matter how high their stats are, inflated or no. And truly remarkable students will be considered for those schools so long as their GPA / test scores do not diverge wildly from the picture painted by the rest of the application.

Aside from the naivete, there's also an overinflated belief that what you know about another student and their family is all there is to know. College applications can be wonderfully confessional: Students bare their souls and tell secrets to admissions officers they'll never tell YOU. Sure, you may know this one is a concert pianist and that one rowed at this or that regatta: But you don't know about the student who was raped at 13 by their step-father and then called the police when he moved on their younger sister -- and then wrote the most soul-crushing poetry about it, and also an essay exploring legal mechanisms that both protect minors from abuse while also preventing recidivism. Or the quiet nerdy one who has been drawing comics since they were 9, posted some images online, and eventually found themselves co-moderating a massive online community. Their application included not only a thoughtful essay considering the whether the development and methods of policing behavioral norms in online forums with regard to pronoun usage and gender expression might have applicability offline, as well -- and also a link to their portfolio of beautifully-inked, brilliant, edgy comics.

But you think A's and APs and stats and sports and music are the whole deal? Don't get me wrong: they can matter. But it's the resume that makes plain who is climbing the ladder, and who is climbing *exceptionally* well -- and who is actually so good at ladder-climbing that they need to add rungs. The resume shows who is helping others up. Or creating an altogether new way to climb.

In considering whether to send to Wilson or the Big3 or making any other choices, my advice is this: Engage your child in the process of deciding. The extent of their agency and their level of engagement will almost certainly turn out to be greater differentiators than whether they jumped through GDS hoops or Wilson hoops. We know they're different. What we want to know is not how the curricula compare, but who the students are. That's what matters, at the end of the day.

You are wrong when it comes to both the Big3 schools and Wilson.

I have daughters who left DCPS for NCS. The top 15-20 or so girls at NCS (out of 80) will go to the Ivy League each year. It's already happening this year with approx. 15 ED admits. Going to NCS and doing well is what makes them stand out. It is the main point on their "resume". NCS is among the top 5 girls schools in the US. There are 80 girls per class. Do well and you are in a very small pool of top applicants nationally from "top girls schools". You have put yourself in a national pool of 40 such girls. It becomes what distinguishes them in admissions. The girls who succeed at getting Ivy spots not winning the Intel science prize or founding internationally known non-profits. They are simply doing well in school and participating in every-day extracurriculars: member of the math club, writer for the literary journal, etc. Maybe they do one thing city-wide (winning an award or similar). But they are by-in-large not doing remarkable things outside of the classroom. (Some are---this year's Special Olympian and fencer as examples) but many simply are not. They don't have to.

The same thing goes for Wilson kids who succeed. They are also in an exceptionally small pool and their school becomes the distinguishing factor on their resume. There is ONE good comprehensive high school in the District of Columbia (Wilson). It may graduate 500 kids per year but a good portion of it's students are not aiming high academically. Let's say in a typical year there are 100 very good students and a pool of 50 that are applying to top schools. The ones succeeding at the Ivys are very good students but again, they are not doing things like winning at Intel or doing internationally known extracurriculars. They are perhaps an editor of the school paper (maybe Chief editor but maybe not--there are many different editors each year). They probably do some volunteer work. They may do debate and succeed at going to nationals (not winning at nationals but going to compete).

I know I'm probably going to get crucified for typing this but I have seen it play out time and time again over the past 5 years. I know these kids personally. They are regular kids (i.e. not kids with any particularly unique story) who are succeeding in their small pools but they are both pools that the Ivy league (and similar) very much care about having representation from. I do think it is MUCH harder to achieve an Ivy (or similar) admit from a DMV suburban public. There you are one of 50 (maybe 100? 200? more?) qualified kids in your high school and there are 30 high schools in your district (Fairfax) or 15 (Loudoun) or 31 (Mont. Co). Sure, a school may take more kids total than they do from Wilson or NCS but the competition numbers are far greater. These kids are having to do truly interesting and often spectacular things to set themselves apart.

OP, the top kids at Wilson are doing truly interesting and often spectacular things. In my experience, much more so than the boring vanilla kids at suburban high schools in Fairfax or Montgomery Counties, or the pampered rich kids at area privates.

Not in my experience over the past 3 years. My kid was on the debate team with Wilson kids (my kid was at Deal on the same team). The Wilson debate kids went on to Harvard, Barnard, Rice, Georgetown, Occidental etc. The one noteworthy extracurricular each kid had was debate. We knew these kids really, really well. They weren't secretly splitting the atom in their space time and you can't convince me otherwise. The Wilson debate team is very strong and goes to nationals each year but these kids weren't national champs themselves or anything that distinguishing.

This is BS. I’m sorry. Maybe this narrative makes you feel better or perhaps these kids are not sharing everything with you but no way is just being on the Wilson debate team enough to get you into an Ivy. I know a kid from School without Walls who got into Harvard. He had a top GPA. He also did model UN at school without walls. The team was very good and actually went to an international competition in South Africa where he won the top award. And for all I know, he might have done other stuff as well. Ivies and their equivalents are no fools. They look for something that tells them this kid will do fine at their school and might go on to do some very cool things

[Anonymous]

Why don’t the other DC public high schools like Roosevelt have debate teams?