NMSFs in DC 2026

[Anonymous]

DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HB Woodlawn, a public school in Arlington that you don’t test into, only has 100 seniors and more NMSF than any school in DC, public or private. Interesting.

lol. cutoffs are different across the board. for example mechanically it is likely that TJ will have more than all DC combined.

They're not that different. This year DC is 225 and DC and MD are at 224. Yes, slightly easier with that 1 point, but does not explain why one school will have 2 NMSFs while another will have 13.

Obviously the reason is that DC-based schools like Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are sub-par institutions that have never and could never send even one student to a T20 college.

Or more likely that Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are full of rich kids who are legacies who have hooks to get into T20 colleges despite having poorer academic performance than many of their public school peers.

Nonsense. Not a secret that the main reason that so many DC students are admitted to T20 colleges (including the Ivy Plus subset) is that the city has unusually good private schools. Poorer academic performance doesn't explain why these kids may beat out public school peers. My own children went to one of the highest performing DCPS elementary schools EotP all the way up. They were somewhat challenged in math, but the ELA writing instruction on offer wasn't just weak, it was hopeless. By the upper grades, we were hiring writing tutors. We switched to parochial for middle school, and they were so far behind in writing that they struggled in English. A jurisdiction like DC without formal GT programs, or a law on GT education, can only do so much to prep students to compete with GDS, NCS, STA and others in college admission. BASIS certainly tries, but their crappy facilities, weak electives and largely inexperienced teachers drive out most of their student talent before HS. Walls has been hamstrung by affirmative action admissions in recent years. Latin doesn't aim high (but a few of its seniors do).

Are you trying to say that your parochial middle school is on par with elite privates? Hilarious.

I have no doubt that they are getting more knowledge -based learning and more writing instruction at a parochial school than DCPS.

I attended a parochial school and tutor students in many parochial schools here in this area. I have no doubt you can get a way better education in any eotp DCPS than a parochial school. But I do appreciate all the business these schools send my way.

Total BS. PPs aren't kidding about weak DCPS writing instruction. My 5th grader was given 10 easy spelling words (maybe 2nd grade level) at his majority high SES/white DCPS ES EotP to learn weekly in the 4th grade. We switched him to a parochial for 5th where he was given 50 tough spelling words to learn weekly, and taught all sorts of work on grammar, usage and punctuation. He was given daily writing assignments that were corrected and returned to him to make corrections. He went from having to read short excerpts and no tests in the 4th grade, to having to real a novel every two weeks and all kinds of tests in 5th. He got 3 or 4 times the writing instruction at the parochial than he'd had in DCPS the year before.

Your 5th grader was required to read a novel every 2 weeks in 5th grade? So the school required all 5th graders to read about 18 novels that year?

Alex, I'll take Things That Never Happened for $1000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arguing that a school's number of NMSFs is any indicator of a school's quality is really ridiculous.

The PSAT is an exceedingly prepable test. My kid who agreed to do test prep the summer before 11th grade went from a 1200 to a 1550 by fall of junior year on the SAT, rocked the PSAT and became a NMSF. My other two went in cold and got a 1200 on the PSAT and then studied in the months after the test. By spring on junior year they were getting 1550s on the SAT. Sure, there are kids who take the PSAT cold and score very high but in my experience this is very few out of high scorers. There are about a million test-prep operations that offer PSAT tutoring in the greater DMV and SAT tutoring that is done the summer before the junior year covers the exact same material as well. Someone is taking all those courses and using all those tutors. Plus it doesn't take much studying to really jump your score. My kids never had a professional tutor--they simply took about 4 full tests on the weekends, reviewed a study guide and voila--a jump of 200-300 points. Had they done this before taking the PSAT you all would be saying "oh my gosh, their school really prepped them and deserves so much credit." Total bs.

And yet it somehow doesnt seem random that Thomas Jefferson routinely has 100+ semifinalists.

I don't follow your argument. The TJ crowd lives and breathes by test prep. Half those kids were in Russian Math school since the age of 5. And have you been to an C2 Tutoring Center or similar on the weekend in Fairfax County? I have. It's literally overrun by TJ students. AND at the time of the PSAT the TJ kids will only have been at TJ for 2 years so it's not like they've been molded and created by TJ.

Does it get tiring constantly shitting on other schools' children? Do you ever feel kinda dirty?

Settle down. In case you missed it my DC was at the test prep center too. No where did I say there is anything wrong with prep. my point was that you can't ascribe PSAT success or failure to a high school when many kids are doing outside prep. It bothers me when posters on here criticize DCPS or any high school for their results when the preparation playing field varies so greatly by student.

Oh please. There are plenty of DC kids at prep places and getting tutoring too. It’s not that all the MD and VA kids are spending their whole weekends at cram schools while the DC kids are cheerfully spending every day in the park playing on the playground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone just posted list on private school forum:

BASIS (2)
Edmund Burke (1)
DC International School (1)
Georgetown Day School (4)
Georgetown Visitation (2)
Jackson-Reed (3)
MacArthur HS (1)
Maret (1)
National Cathedral School (5)
School Without Walls (3)
Sidwell Friends (4)
St Albans (2)
St Anselm's Abbey (3)
St John's College HS (1)
Washington International (1)
Washington Latin Public Charter (3)

On a percentage of class size basis, St Anselm’s would be the winner by a long shot, right? And for non-selective admission schools that also don’t attempt to weed out students (all 4 of those), I’d say it’s Latin for the win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone just posted list on private school forum:

BASIS (2)
Edmund Burke (1)
DC International School (1)
Georgetown Day School (4)
Georgetown Visitation (2)
Jackson-Reed (3)
MacArthur HS (1)
Maret (1)
National Cathedral School (5)
School Without Walls (3)
Sidwell Friends (4)
St Albans (2)
St Anselm's Abbey (3)
St John's College HS (1)
Washington International (1)
Washington Latin Public Charter (3)

On a percentage of class size basis, St Anselm’s would be the winner by a long shot, right? And for non-selective admission schools that also don’t attempt to weed out students (all 4 of those), I’d say it’s Latin for the win.

I think it’s essentially tied with NCS. I think Andselms is like 50 a class and NCS 75.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone just posted list on private school forum:

BASIS (2)
Edmund Burke (1)
DC International School (1)
Georgetown Day School (4)
Georgetown Visitation (2)
Jackson-Reed (3)
MacArthur HS (1)
Maret (1)
National Cathedral School (5)
School Without Walls (3)
Sidwell Friends (4)
St Albans (2)
St Anselm's Abbey (3)
St John's College HS (1)
Washington International (1)
Washington Latin Public Charter (3)

On a percentage of class size basis, St Anselm’s would be the winner by a long shot, right? And for non-selective admission schools that also don’t attempt to weed out students (all 4 of those), I’d say it’s Latin for the win.

This is both hilarious and one of the most DCUM posts ever. You look at the data and say OUT LOUD, "Yes, but if I use imaginary criteria (schools that weed out kids) then my school if the best!!!!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

Wrong.

11.4% of DC are in STEM occupations.

8.3% of DC are lawyers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HB Woodlawn, a public school in Arlington that you don’t test into, only has 100 seniors and more NMSF than any school in DC, public or private. Interesting.

lol. cutoffs are different across the board. for example mechanically it is likely that TJ will have more than all DC combined.

They're not that different. This year DC is 225 and DC and MD are at 224. Yes, slightly easier with that 1 point, but does not explain why one school will have 2 NMSFs while another will have 13.

Obviously the reason is that DC-based schools like Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are sub-par institutions that have never and could never send even one student to a T20 college.

Or more likely that Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are full of rich kids who are legacies who have hooks to get into T20 colleges despite having poorer academic performance than many of their public school peers.

Nonsense. Not a secret that the main reason that so many DC students are admitted to T20 colleges (including the Ivy Plus subset) is that the city has unusually good private schools. Poorer academic performance doesn't explain why these kids may beat out public school peers. My own children went to one of the highest performing DCPS elementary schools EotP all the way up. They were somewhat challenged in math, but the ELA writing instruction on offer wasn't just weak, it was hopeless. By the upper grades, we were hiring writing tutors. We switched to parochial for middle school, and they were so far behind in writing that they struggled in English. A jurisdiction like DC without formal GT programs, or a law on GT education, can only do so much to prep students to compete with GDS, NCS, STA and others in college admission. BASIS certainly tries, but their crappy facilities, weak electives and largely inexperienced teachers drive out most of their student talent before HS. Walls has been hamstrung by affirmative action admissions in recent years. Latin doesn't aim high (but a few of its seniors do).

Are you trying to say that your parochial middle school is on par with elite privates? Hilarious.

I have no doubt that they are getting more knowledge -based learning and more writing instruction at a parochial school than DCPS.

I attended a parochial school and tutor students in many parochial schools here in this area. I have no doubt you can get a way better education in any eotp DCPS than a parochial school. But I do appreciate all the business these schools send my way.

Total BS. PPs aren't kidding about weak DCPS writing instruction. My 5th grader was given 10 easy spelling words (maybe 2nd grade level) at his majority high SES/white DCPS ES EotP to learn weekly in the 4th grade. We switched him to a parochial for 5th where he was given 50 tough spelling words to learn weekly, and taught all sorts of work on grammar, usage and punctuation. He was given daily writing assignments that were corrected and returned to him to make corrections. He went from having to read short excerpts and no tests in the 4th grade, to having to real a novel every two weeks and all kinds of tests in 5th. He got 3 or 4 times the writing instruction at the parochial than he'd had in DCPS the year before.

Your 5th grader was required to read a novel every 2 weeks in 5th grade? So the school required all 5th graders to read about 18 novels that year?

Alex, I'll take Things That Never Happened for $1000.

lol.

DCUM parents are a hoot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone just posted list on private school forum:

BASIS (2)
Edmund Burke (1)
DC International School (1)
Georgetown Day School (4)
Georgetown Visitation (2)
Jackson-Reed (3)
MacArthur HS (1)
Maret (1)
National Cathedral School (5)
School Without Walls (3)
Sidwell Friends (4)
St Albans (2)
St Anselm's Abbey (3)
St John's College HS (1)
Washington International (1)
Washington Latin Public Charter (3)

On a percentage of class size basis, St Anselm’s would be the winner by a long shot, right? And for non-selective admission schools that also don’t attempt to weed out students (all 4 of those), I’d say it’s Latin for the win.

Looking at all charter schools in DC rhyming with fatten, it is Latin with a tremendous win over every other school!!!!

Nos sumus optima!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HB Woodlawn, a public school in Arlington that you don’t test into, only has 100 seniors and more NMSF than any school in DC, public or private. Interesting.

lol. cutoffs are different across the board. for example mechanically it is likely that TJ will have more than all DC combined.

They're not that different. This year DC is 225 and DC and MD are at 224. Yes, slightly easier with that 1 point, but does not explain why one school will have 2 NMSFs while another will have 13.

Obviously the reason is that DC-based schools like Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are sub-par institutions that have never and could never send even one student to a T20 college.

Or more likely that Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are full of rich kids who are legacies who have hooks to get into T20 colleges despite having poorer academic performance than many of their public school peers.

Nonsense. Not a secret that the main reason that so many DC students are admitted to T20 colleges (including the Ivy Plus subset) is that the city has unusually good private schools. Poorer academic performance doesn't explain why these kids may beat out public school peers. My own children went to one of the highest performing DCPS elementary schools EotP all the way up. They were somewhat challenged in math, but the ELA writing instruction on offer wasn't just weak, it was hopeless. By the upper grades, we were hiring writing tutors. We switched to parochial for middle school, and they were so far behind in writing that they struggled in English. A jurisdiction like DC without formal GT programs, or a law on GT education, can only do so much to prep students to compete with GDS, NCS, STA and others in college admission. BASIS certainly tries, but their crappy facilities, weak electives and largely inexperienced teachers drive out most of their student talent before HS. Walls has been hamstrung by affirmative action admissions in recent years. Latin doesn't aim high (but a few of its seniors do).

Are you trying to say that your parochial middle school is on par with elite privates? Hilarious.

I have no doubt that they are getting more knowledge -based learning and more writing instruction at a parochial school than DCPS.

I attended a parochial school and tutor students in many parochial schools here in this area. I have no doubt you can get a way better education in any eotp DCPS than a parochial school. But I do appreciate all the business these schools send my way.

Total BS. PPs aren't kidding about weak DCPS writing instruction. My 5th grader was given 10 easy spelling words (maybe 2nd grade level) at his majority high SES/white DCPS ES EotP to learn weekly in the 4th grade. We switched him to a parochial for 5th where he was given 50 tough spelling words to learn weekly, and taught all sorts of work on grammar, usage and punctuation. He was given daily writing assignments that were corrected and returned to him to make corrections. He went from having to read short excerpts and no tests in the 4th grade, to having to real a novel every two weeks and all kinds of tests in 5th. He got 3 or 4 times the writing instruction at the parochial than he'd had in DCPS the year before.

Your 5th grader was required to read a novel every 2 weeks in 5th grade? So the school required all 5th graders to read about 18 novels that year?

Alex, I'll take Things That Never Happened for $1000.

Tutor here. I can attest that parochial schools tend to do well with grammar instruction but that’s where it ends. Math is a particularly weak point. Also I think maybe some people don’t know the difference between a novel and a short story or novella. But whatever. Like I said, thanks for the business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

Wrong.

11.4% of DC are in STEM occupations.

8.3% of DC are lawyers.

Where does this data come from? These aren't Census occupational categories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

Wrong.

11.4% of DC are in STEM occupations.

8.3% of DC are lawyers.

Where does this data come from? These aren't Census occupational categories.

You think all data comes from the Census?

Let me guess. You aren’t a lawyer or a scientist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HB Woodlawn, a public school in Arlington that you don’t test into, only has 100 seniors and more NMSF than any school in DC, public or private. Interesting.

lol. cutoffs are different across the board. for example mechanically it is likely that TJ will have more than all DC combined.

They're not that different. This year DC is 225 and DC and MD are at 224. Yes, slightly easier with that 1 point, but does not explain why one school will have 2 NMSFs while another will have 13.

Obviously the reason is that DC-based schools like Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are sub-par institutions that have never and could never send even one student to a T20 college.

Or more likely that Sidwell, GDS, NCS and STA are full of rich kids who are legacies who have hooks to get into T20 colleges despite having poorer academic performance than many of their public school peers.

Nonsense. Not a secret that the main reason that so many DC students are admitted to T20 colleges (including the Ivy Plus subset) is that the city has unusually good private schools. Poorer academic performance doesn't explain why these kids may beat out public school peers. My own children went to one of the highest performing DCPS elementary schools EotP all the way up. They were somewhat challenged in math, but the ELA writing instruction on offer wasn't just weak, it was hopeless. By the upper grades, we were hiring writing tutors. We switched to parochial for middle school, and they were so far behind in writing that they struggled in English. A jurisdiction like DC without formal GT programs, or a law on GT education, can only do so much to prep students to compete with GDS, NCS, STA and others in college admission. BASIS certainly tries, but their crappy facilities, weak electives and largely inexperienced teachers drive out most of their student talent before HS. Walls has been hamstrung by affirmative action admissions in recent years. Latin doesn't aim high (but a few of its seniors do).

Are you trying to say that your parochial middle school is on par with elite privates? Hilarious.

I have no doubt that they are getting more knowledge -based learning and more writing instruction at a parochial school than DCPS.

I attended a parochial school and tutor students in many parochial schools here in this area. I have no doubt you can get a way better education in any eotp DCPS than a parochial school. But I do appreciate all the business these schools send my way.

Total BS. PPs aren't kidding about weak DCPS writing instruction. My 5th grader was given 10 easy spelling words (maybe 2nd grade level) at his majority high SES/white DCPS ES EotP to learn weekly in the 4th grade. We switched him to a parochial for 5th where he was given 50 tough spelling words to learn weekly, and taught all sorts of work on grammar, usage and punctuation. He was given daily writing assignments that were corrected and returned to him to make corrections. He went from having to read short excerpts and no tests in the 4th grade, to having to real a novel every two weeks and all kinds of tests in 5th. He got 3 or 4 times the writing instruction at the parochial than he'd had in DCPS the year before.

Your 5th grader was required to read a novel every 2 weeks in 5th grade? So the school required all 5th graders to read about 18 novels that year?

Alex, I'll take Things That Never Happened for $1000.

Tutor here. I can attest that parochial schools tend to do well with grammar instruction but that’s where it ends. Math is a particularly weak point. Also I think maybe some people don’t know the difference between a novel and a short story or novella. But whatever. Like I said, thanks for the business.

Whatever they teach in terms of rhetoric is pretty good too. I’m a college professor, and there’s a template to a Catholic school product’s short report. Critically, they’re short. Most other students aren’t confident enough and write way too much stuff throwing everything at the reader. I can’t fault kids too much- it’s an AP Lang strategy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

Wrong.

11.4% of DC are in STEM occupations.

8.3% of DC are lawyers.

Where does this data come from? These aren't Census occupational categories.

You think all data comes from the Census?

Let me guess. You aren’t a lawyer or a scientist?

So you just made up those numbers, then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC tends not to have Math Olympiad/ Regeneron kids because DC parents are lawyers. It's the NIH-NIST-USDA lab-Dulles Access Rd parents in the burbs who raise scientists.

Wrong.

11.4% of DC are in STEM occupations.

8.3% of DC are lawyers.

Where does this data come from? These aren't Census occupational categories.

You think all data comes from the Census?

Let me guess. You aren’t a lawyer or a scientist?

So you just made up those numbers, then.

DP here- seriously- did you ever look at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics?