Applying to Walls from private middle school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is something truly wrong with an application school admissions process for a supposedly academic school that favors “easy As” from grade inflated schools rather than potentially lower grades from much tougher courses/schools. Where is the incentive for students to challenge themselves? Why is it better to exclude the more capable students? Certainly not all will be excluded, but it seems a great many.

Wow. Don’t assume the kids coming from public middle schools are taking “easy A” classes and not challenging themselves. Many of the admitted students from DCPS middles took high school math in 7th and 8th.

But it's crazy that a kid at SH makes the choice to turn down school-recommended math acceleration to guarantee an A in order to meet the Walls cut-off. I know 2 kids who did exactly that last year. That's a terrible incentive to create for DCPS students.

Agree that this is crazy. I also wonder about the adults in the lives of these children.

It's no different than making choices in HS for competitive universities. If acceleration means lower grades, sometimes it will hurt your chances. Such is life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They need to make sure they admit kids from every neighborhood so they water down requirements. They should do it like NYC Public Schools.

Queue the Stuyvesant grad who weighs in with the same points ad nauseum. This is not NYC. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is something truly wrong with an application school admissions process for a supposedly academic school that favors “easy As” from grade inflated schools rather than potentially lower grades from much tougher courses/schools. Where is the incentive for students to challenge themselves? Why is it better to exclude the more capable students? Certainly not all will be excluded, but it seems a great many.

Wow. Don’t assume the kids coming from public middle schools are taking “easy A” classes and not challenging themselves. Many of the admitted students from DCPS middles took high school math in 7th and 8th.

But it's crazy that a kid at SH makes the choice to turn down school-recommended math acceleration to guarantee an A in order to meet the Walls cut-off. I know 2 kids who did exactly that last year. That's a terrible incentive to create for DCPS students.

Agree that this is crazy. I also wonder about the adults in the lives of these children.

It's no different than making choices in HS for competitive universities. If acceleration means lower grades, sometimes it will hurt your chances. Such is life.

It is different, because colleges look at SAT/ACT scores, weighted GPA, and transcripts (among many other factors). The problem with Walls is that the unweighted GPA is basically the only filtering factor they use. So, it makes sense to aim for an easy A middle school experience, especially if you have a terrible IB high school. We didn't do this, btw (chose BASIS) because I wanted my kid to learn a lot, but I understand why people do it.

[Anonymous]

This. No filtering factor, not a remotely fair, thoughtful or serious admissions process. Queue DCPS loyalist shills who defend it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This. No filtering factor, not a remotely fair, thoughtful or serious admissions process. Queue DCPS loyalist shills who defend it.

More like queue the parent whose child didn’t get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This. No filtering factor, not a remotely fair, thoughtful or serious admissions process. Queue DCPS loyalist shills who defend it.

How would you suggest the one part time admissions coordinator (that is not her only role at the school) filter through transcripts to judge how difficult a student’s coursework is? Honestly you all expect a school with no extra resources for admissions to run like a private school. It isn’t happening.

[Anonymous]

PP again and just want to mention there are a lot of kids at the school accelerated in math. So clearly a group of kids get good grades while taking Algebra II in 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Complaining about this problem on this board will get you no where.

Yes, it is a problem, and not just for private school kids. Some years the cut off is higher and some years it is lower.

Every year exceptionally qualified students don't make it in. There just aren't enough spaces for all who are qualified.

The current process for admissions does not particularly select for the absolute best students.

Bringing back the requirement for an admissions test (any admissions test) would be one way to have an apples to apples means to test for entrance.

As it is now, lots of good students are admitted.

It's also possible now that certain schools are privileged over others regardless of whether they are better at educating their students.

Schools that don't have teachers who write good admissions letters are not setting their students up for success.

Schools like Basis who tend to give worse grades (perhaps in part so that their kids won't leave for greener pastures) are also not helping their students get into SWW (or other application schools).

What are you basing this on? As others have pointed out, there’s no perfect system for high school. But “best” is subjective, and there’s more to it than being able to take a test. My kid knows several kids from middle school who weren’t great in class (low participation, or lacked self control/awareness) who made it to the interview round but then didn’t get in. That suggests the interview and essay were key components of admissions, which is a good thing, IMO. I’d much rather have kids who can actively participate in a class discussion but weren’t the highest scorers in the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This. No filtering factor, not a remotely fair, thoughtful or serious admissions process. Queue DCPS loyalist shills who defend it.

How would you suggest the one part time admissions coordinator (that is not her only role at the school) filter through transcripts to judge how difficult a student’s coursework is? Honestly you all expect a school with no extra resources for admissions to run like a private school. It isn’t happening.

This is mentioned ad nauseum, but they can just... Bring back the same test they used to have before COVID.

[Anonymous]

Basis (DC charter, not private) refused to write recommendations for my child for Walls, it was in their best interest to not write them so kids would stay for HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Math acceleration has gone overboard anyway. Perhaps those parents don’t want their kids in calculus as sophomores or juniors.

LOL! We are talking math acceleration in poorly performing middle schools where over 3/4 or more of the entire grade is BELOW grade level, many way below grade level in math. It’s not really rigorous or advanced like in high performing schools. At some schools it’s probably just grade level math.

That is why it’s so bad to hold your kid back for years just for chance at Walls because you don’t want to move. Sorry but as a parent, if that is not failing your kid, I don’t know what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Basis (DC charter, not private) refused to write recommendations for my child for Walls, it was in their best interest to not write them so kids would stay for HS.

That seems like something you should take up with the school. That’s actually pretty egregious if that’s true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math acceleration has gone overboard anyway. Perhaps those parents don’t want their kids in calculus as sophomores or juniors.

LOL! We are talking math acceleration in poorly performing middle schools where over 3/4 or more of the entire grade is BELOW grade level, many way below grade level in math. It’s not really rigorous or advanced like in high performing schools. At some schools it’s probably just grade level math.

That is why it’s so bad to hold your kid back for years just for chance at Walls because you don’t want to move. Sorry but as a parent, if that is not failing your kid, I don’t know what.

You actually think high performing schools always appropriately accelerate kids in math? Lots of kids struggle in HS math because they are accelerated but don’t have strong foundations or needed more time to understand concepts. This goes for all high performing high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math acceleration has gone overboard anyway. Perhaps those parents don’t want their kids in calculus as sophomores or juniors.

LOL! We are talking math acceleration in poorly performing middle schools where over 3/4 or more of the entire grade is BELOW grade level, many way below grade level in math. It’s not really rigorous or advanced like in high performing schools. At some schools it’s probably just grade level math.

That is why it’s so bad to hold your kid back for years just for chance at Walls because you don’t want to move. Sorry but as a parent, if that is not failing your kid, I don’t know what.

You actually think high performing schools always appropriately accelerate kids in math? Lots of kids struggle in HS math because they are accelerated but don’t have strong foundations or needed more time to understand concepts. This goes for all high performing high schools.

Sure but it’s not the school pushing that. Reality is it’s the parents wanting their kid in the highest math track when they should not be there.

As to if the same advance math classes are more challenging in high performing school vs very poor performing school, of course it is. You don’t actually believe that the Algebra 1 class at Deal is the same rigor as it is at Eastern.

[Anonymous]

Schools are definitely pushing it as well. It's a myth that DCPS offers stronger STEM than top private schools. DCPS schools like J-R have course catalogs that market a slew of math classes (along with AP classes in other subjects) when the rigor is not there.