Why don’t more parents send their kids to Basis McLean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty despicable that a former teacher would try to malign the school that gave them employment and opportunity just because things didn’t work out for them. I say Basis is lucky to rid of such a character- less person.

If your kids have taken the 7th-grade Logic course at BIM, ask them about the impact of personal (ad hominem) attacks on the credibility of someone in a debate.

HINT - relying on personal attacks steadily undermines your credibility. I hope your kids learn the lesson that you have not. Facing facts in life is important, good and bad.

As for who is lucky, I consider myself very fortunate to work in a positive environment now as opposed to the toxic environment at BIM that drove away many fine teachers who could have been there the next 10-20 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New BIM family here. I found it really weird that there are so many non-BIM family members posting on this thread demanding "truth" on the school website. Why are you so invested or threaten by this small school? Do you check out other school websites and demand the same "truth" too? If you pulled your kids out from BIM, where are your kids now? Do you demand the same "truth" with your current school?

Agree completely. The NCS and GDS websites have plenty of out-of-date curricular information and no information on actual schedules and which classes are actually taught. The staff pages are also only periodically updated. All these private schools are haphazard in what they update on their websites.

NCS and GDS don’t have new HOS every year or recruitment/retention issues. They have a very solid track record of academic success and college placements. BIM has not yet sent a kid to HYP.

BIM is new, only had very few high school graduates, less than or around 100 maybe in total It already sent kids to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Brown, Connell, U Chicago,Duke, CMU, JHU, UCB, UCLA, Rice, Emory, UVA, GT, UMD, WM, etc. From what I know, almost everyone got into top 50 schools, More than 30% got into T10.
Do you think Niche ranking is less creditable than this forum?

That’s true.
The national merit semifinalists results are out, Basis has 7 with such small class. Very impressive.

[Anonymous]

Tuition looks more reasonable than top privates. I checked the Basis McLean web site, and tuition for 5-12 is $33,000, compared to $47,000 at most top privates in the DC area. (The Catholic schools are slightly cheaper.)

If you're going to go private, it's kind of nice to have the amenities of a traditional private, such as the campus, the sports, the activities, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Tuition looks more reasonable than top privates. I checked the Basis McLean web site, and tuition for 5-12 is $33,000, compared to $47,000 at most top privates in the DC area. (The Catholic schools are slightly cheaper.)

If you're going to go private, it's kind of nice to have the amenities of a traditional private, such as the campus, the sports, the activities, etc.

You get what you pay for in terms of amenities. The campus is a converted office building with a converted parking lot for the playground and postage stamp "sports field." Activities are tiny clubs or limited sports in the postage stamp gym. Or middle school theater and music in the postage stamp theater.

Nothing big enough for serious HS sports or activities. Oh yeah, if they had finished out the second half of the building they lease, they could do that. But they never did. They do pay rent on it, however, probably $20 million since the school opened on dead space. Then they tried to sublet that and lost 25% of their students year over year.

This is a comical story when you get the real details.

[Anonymous]

Came from another thread about National semi finalist: Basis McLean has 7 semi finalists out of a small class of ～30 , about 23%, a tad lower that TJ’s percentage but much higher than other DMV schools’.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Came from another thread about National semi finalist: Basis McLean has 7 semi finalists out of a small class of ～30 , about 23%, a tad lower that TJ’s percentage but much higher than other DMV schools’.

BIM likely benefitted from many students who would have gone to TJ but lost out under their new admissions policy and ended up at BIM as the fallback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Came from another thread about National semi finalist: Basis McLean has 7 semi finalists out of a small class of ～30 , about 23%, a tad lower that TJ’s percentage but much higher than other DMV schools’.

BIM likely benefitted from many students who would have gone to TJ but lost out under their new admissions policy and ended up at BIM as the fallback.

Those students begin with the Class of 2025. The latest NMSF announcement is for the Class of 2023.

So you need to wait two more years to make statements about how changes to TJ admissions might be correlated with more NMSF at Basis McLean or, for that matter, other public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m from NYC where Basis is well regarded. I attended the open house before Basis opened and there seemed to be a lot of interest back then. We are interested again due to pandemic. What turned me off was that the graduating class was tiny, like 30 kids. It made me think that more people didn’t want to send their kids there.

How is the culture? College admissions?
Do they even have enough kids for sport teams?

Isn’t it associated with the Chinese Communists? Yes, it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Tuition looks more reasonable than top privates. I checked the Basis McLean web site, and tuition for 5-12 is $33,000, compared to $47,000 at most top privates in the DC area. (The Catholic schools are slightly cheaper.)

If you're going to go private, it's kind of nice to have the amenities of a traditional private, such as the campus, the sports, the activities, etc.

You get what you pay for in terms of amenities. The campus is a converted office building with a converted parking lot for the playground and postage stamp "sports field." Activities are tiny clubs or limited sports in the postage stamp gym. Or middle school theater and music in the postage stamp theater.

Nothing big enough for serious HS sports or activities. Oh yeah, if they had finished out the second half of the building they lease, they could do that. But they never did. They do pay rent on it, however, probably $20 million since the school opened on dead space. Then they tried to sublet that and lost 25% of their students year over year.

This is a comical story when you get the real details.

BASIS did not lose 25% students every year. Actually it gains 22% students this year comparing to last year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Came from another thread about National semi finalist: Basis McLean has 7 semi finalists out of a small class of ～30 , about 23%, a tad lower that TJ’s percentage but much higher than other DMV schools’.

BIM likely benefitted from many students who would have gone to TJ but lost out under their new admissions policy and ended up at BIM as the fallback.

Those students begin with the Class of 2025. The latest NMSF announcement is for the Class of 2023.

So you need to wait two more years to make statements about how changes to TJ admissions might be correlated with more NMSF at Basis McLean or, for that matter, other public schools.

That’s right. For class of 2026, among 5 students admitted by TJ this summer, 4 students chose to stay at BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Tuition looks more reasonable than top privates. I checked the Basis McLean web site, and tuition for 5-12 is $33,000, compared to $47,000 at most top privates in the DC area. (The Catholic schools are slightly cheaper.)

If you're going to go private, it's kind of nice to have the amenities of a traditional private, such as the campus, the sports, the activities, etc.

You get what you pay for in terms of amenities. The campus is a converted office building with a converted parking lot for the playground and postage stamp "sports field." Activities are tiny clubs or limited sports in the postage stamp gym. Or middle school theater and music in the postage stamp theater.

Nothing big enough for serious HS sports or activities. Oh yeah, if they had finished out the second half of the building they lease, they could do that. But they never did. They do pay rent on it, however, probably $20 million since the school opened on dead space. Then they tried to sublet that and lost 25% of their students year over year.

This is a comical story when you get the real details.

BASIS did not lose 25% students every year. Actually it gains 22% students this year comparing to last year.

They lost 25% of their students from the end of 2019-2020 to the fall of 2020 enrollment. They have been rebuilding since then under the latest HoS. According to their original plan, they should have had 700 students and been using the entire building by now.

Your stray year over year stats don't tell the whole story since 2016.

[Anonymous]

When BIM opened the target was 500 students the first year and 1000 for year two. They didn’t make the year one number and even dipped lower some years and still have not made the year two number. Hundreds if not thousands have churned through the school in its short history. Anecdotally only a small percentage of the “founding families” remain.

As others have said, the school is appealing to a very niche group of students/families who are extremely academically focused. For this group the school is a great fit, hence the high NMSF. Those that like the school and can stay in are high academic performers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When BIM opened the target was 500 students the first year and 1000 for year two. They didn’t make the year one number and even dipped lower some years and still have not made the year two number. Hundreds if not thousands have churned through the school in its short history. Anecdotally only a small percentage of the “founding families” remain.

As others have said, the school is appealing to a very niche group of students/families who are extremely academically focused. For this group the school is a great fit, hence the high NMSF. Those that like the school and can stay in are high academic performers.

Now it is close to 600. Not far away from 700.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Came from another thread about National semi finalist: Basis McLean has 7 semi finalists out of a small class of ～30 , about 23%, a tad lower that TJ’s percentage but much higher than other DMV schools’.

Good to know.
My friends who just relocated from CA are asking this school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When BIM opened the target was 500 students the first year and 1000 for year two. They didn’t make the year one number and even dipped lower some years and still have not made the year two number. Hundreds if not thousands have churned through the school in its short history. Anecdotally only a small percentage of the “founding families” remain.

As others have said, the school is appealing to a very niche group of students/families who are extremely academically focused. For this group the school is a great fit, hence the high NMSF. Those that like the school and can stay in are high academic performers.

Now it is close to 600. Not far away from 700.

I don’t know, I think 700 sounds like a long way from 1000 which was supposed to be the target 6 years ago. The school needs much higher enrollment for the corporate office to make any meaningful investment..