SWW - when do notices go out about interviews?

[Anonymous]

I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

We all know the answer to that question: no.

[Anonymous]

first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

I was a person who HATED the GPA cutoff + sham interview to determine the results. The sham interview essentially made the process a lottery. They should have just done a random ordering of the GPA-qualified kids and called it done.

But honestly, the way they are doing it this year is much, much worse. I'm sorry for the kids and the teachers. A lottery for those kids with a 3.7 - plus TRANSPARENCY about how the process works and what the numbers/cutoffs are - would be better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

Yes to this!

Every year Walls turns down students with great credentials. There just aren't enough spots to go around. This is good preparation for college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

Yes to this!

Every year Walls turns down students with great credentials. There just aren't enough spots to go around. This is good preparation for college admissions.

Sorry, that doesn’t work here.

Every college has a better process than this…. No college weights letters if rec three times more than GPA….no college ignores rigor in the courseload and treats an A in PE the same as an A in accelerated math….I could go on and on…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

Yes to this!

Every year Walls turns down students with great credentials. There just aren't enough spots to go around. This is good preparation for college admissions.

Sorry, that doesn’t work here.

Every college has a better process than this…. No college weights letters if rec three times more than GPA….no college ignores rigor in the courseload and treats an A in PE the same as an A in accelerated math….I could go on and on…

They have the student transcripts, so there’s no reason to think that Walls would be overlooking the rigor of the course load in cases where they need to differentiate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody from BASIS offered an interview?

My BASIS kid with a 4.0 was not offered an interview.

Doesn’t basis go through high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

We all know the answer to that question: no.

Exactly. Asked my kid's math teacher soon after the lottery launched. She responded that she would do it. Weeks went by. Then she sent out a persnickity message to families a day or two before the lottery closed basically saying "back off. If I told you I'd do it, I'll do it. I won't accept any more requests, go to another teacher. My deadline is not tomorrow, it's 2/9. I have to do these during my own time". She was clearly very much resenting this load of unpaid work, which I don't blame her for. But parents had no choice. It was a requirement. The union needs to take this up with MySchoolDC, SWW and other application schools and compensate the teachers for their time. Don't take it out on the families. It was not made clear in the online application that we could ask my child's 7th grade math teacher. Besides the teacher committed to doing it so I had to trust it would happen. Well, My kid's letter was submitted a few hours before her deadline. I'm guessing it wasn't all that thoughtful. No interview offer. Oh well. Bad, subjective process dependent upon a teacher actually being committed to doing right by the kids.

[Anonymous]

The winners here hands down are going to be Banneker and J-R. A bunch of first-rate students who would have been admitted to Walls pre-Covid will be giving Banneker and J-R another look. This mess has as a silver lining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

We all know the answer to that question: no.

Exactly. Asked my kid's math teacher soon after the lottery launched. She responded that she would do it. Weeks went by. Then she sent out a persnickity message to families a day or two before the lottery closed basically saying "back off. If I told you I'd do it, I'll do it. I won't accept any more requests, go to another teacher. My deadline is not tomorrow, it's 2/9. I have to do these during my own time". She was clearly very much resenting this load of unpaid work, which I don't blame her for. But parents had no choice. It was a requirement. The union needs to take this up with MySchoolDC, SWW and other application schools and compensate the teachers for their time. Don't take it out on the families. It was not made clear in the online application that we could ask my child's 7th grade math teacher. Besides the teacher committed to doing it so I had to trust it would happen. Well, My kid's letter was submitted a few hours before her deadline. I'm guessing it wasn't all that thoughtful. No interview offer. Oh well. Bad, subjective process dependent upon a teacher actually being committed to doing right by the kids.

I could've written this. My kid has the same teacher. I had a thoughtful conversation with her at the PTC about the application process and she gave every indication that she would provide a strong letter. We designated her as a recommender in MySchool early in January so that she had ample notice and yet she completed it at the very last minute. In retrospect, I wish we had gone with the 7th grade teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

We all know the answer to that question: no.

Exactly. Asked my kid's math teacher soon after the lottery launched. She responded that she would do it. Weeks went by. Then she sent out a persnickity message to families a day or two before the lottery closed basically saying "back off. If I told you I'd do it, I'll do it. I won't accept any more requests, go to another teacher. My deadline is not tomorrow, it's 2/9. I have to do these during my own time". She was clearly very much resenting this load of unpaid work, which I don't blame her for. But parents had no choice. It was a requirement. The union needs to take this up with MySchoolDC, SWW and other application schools and compensate the teachers for their time. Don't take it out on the families. It was not made clear in the online application that we could ask my child's 7th grade math teacher. Besides the teacher committed to doing it so I had to trust it would happen. Well, My kid's letter was submitted a few hours before her deadline. I'm guessing it wasn't all that thoughtful. No interview offer. Oh well. Bad, subjective process dependent upon a teacher actually being committed to doing right by the kids.

I could've written this. My kid has the same teacher. I had a thoughtful conversation with her at the PTC about the application process and she gave every indication that she would provide a strong letter. We designated her as a recommender in MySchool early in January so that she had ample notice and yet she completed it at the very last minute. In retrospect, I wish we had gone with the 7th grade teacher.

Ditto. Even my kid's English teacher who left Hardy midyear was able to get his letter submitted early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally know of 4 Hardy kids who got an interview (my kid is not one of them, has a 4.0, and a sibling at Walls, which I know likely doesn't matter). I wonder if the middle schools were told how much weight recommendations would carry - and I hope there was some effort to ensure consistent approach across Hardy teachers - but who knows.

We all know the answer to that question: no.

Exactly. Asked my kid's math teacher soon after the lottery launched. She responded that she would do it. Weeks went by. Then she sent out a persnickity message to families a day or two before the lottery closed basically saying "back off. If I told you I'd do it, I'll do it. I won't accept any more requests, go to another teacher. My deadline is not tomorrow, it's 2/9. I have to do these during my own time". She was clearly very much resenting this load of unpaid work, which I don't blame her for. But parents had no choice. It was a requirement. The union needs to take this up with MySchoolDC, SWW and other application schools and compensate the teachers for their time. Don't take it out on the families. It was not made clear in the online application that we could ask my child's 7th grade math teacher. Besides the teacher committed to doing it so I had to trust it would happen. Well, My kid's letter was submitted a few hours before her deadline. I'm guessing it wasn't all that thoughtful. No interview offer. Oh well. Bad, subjective process dependent upon a teacher actually being committed to doing right by the kids.

I could've written this. My kid has the same teacher. I had a thoughtful conversation with her at the PTC about the application process and she gave every indication that she would provide a strong letter. We designated her as a recommender in MySchool early in January so that she had ample notice and yet she completed it at the very last minute. In retrospect, I wish we had gone with the 7th grade teacher.

Oh wow. We had the same teacher (third kid in this post). My kid had a 4.0. No interview. Looks like she torpedoed all of our kids' recs.
She actually gave my kid an award earlier in the year.


I didn't reach out to her but I guess enough other people pissed her off that we all suffered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

Yes to this!

Every year Walls turns down students with great credentials. There just aren't enough spots to go around. This is good preparation for college admissions.

Sorry, that doesn’t work here.

Every college has a better process than this…. No college weights letters if rec three times more than GPA….no college ignores rigor in the courseload and treats an A in PE the same as an A in accelerated math….I could go on and on…

Also college do not require that you and all your classmates ask the same 2 teachers. Kids ask a whole variety of teachers--depending on who knows them best, who likes them, etc.

There really is very little similarity between the Walls process and the college rec process.

Can you imagine if college acceptances were 75% based on teacher recs? Grades were basically irrelevant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:first people said there shouldn't be a test. then they said the interview and gpa process was bad. now they're saying the gpa and recomendation process is bad. Seems like no one will be happy whatever happens. I'm sad for the kids that didn't get a chance to interview. If there are quotas or whatever by ward or school, it's certainly not something that should be publicized / released.

Yes to this!

Every year Walls turns down students with great credentials. There just aren't enough spots to go around. This is good preparation for college admissions.

Sorry, that doesn’t work here.

Every college has a better process than this…. No college weights letters if rec three times more than GPA….no college ignores rigor in the courseload and treats an A in PE the same as an A in accelerated math….I could go on and on…

They have the student transcripts, so there’s no reason to think that Walls would be overlooking the rigor of the course load in cases where they need to differentiate.

The specific rubric they release that doesn't have that would be the reason.