Walls application - quiet kid

[Anonymous]

Surprised? Come on, the mayor scuttled the “racist” entrance exams. Interviews obviously help identify minority applicants. That’s why my alma mater, Boston Latin, was forced to ditch interviews in the late 90s, after a white dad sued the school and the case settled. We don’t have serious test-in magnets here in DC like some other big US cities, or lawsuits challenging affirmative actuins based admissions regimes either.

[Anonymous]

This is OP.

Thanks to the earlier responses re: quiet kids at Walls!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the requests for LORs in early and provide some info in the email request. Make sure she asks the teachers herself, in person and then she follows up with the thank you for agreeing email with the extra info. Look at the forms posted in the current Walls admissions thread.

Then spend a little time prepping for the interview - what sorts of Qs, use someone familiar to her but not you.

Then she will have more confidence and if she doesn’t get in, she will know she did her best. Looking at some of the results for my kids’ years, it’s a crap shoot.

Prepare her to talk fast in the interview right out of the gate, since she's only going to get about 5 minutes to talk, 10 tops. The ridiculously brief/cursory Walls interview can be a disaster for shy kids who take time to warm up. We learned this the hard way for our eldest.

If you want my two cents worth, nobody in your family should think in terms of Walls being a dream school. The head is a dingbat (yes woman for DCPS, not more), the building run down, the academics not as robust as they were pre Covid (mainly because the Walls specific test and a standardized test score were dropped during Covid). The English lit curriculum is weak, and a mess. AP sciences aren't always taught in a given year. College admissions are clearly slipping. I could go on. It's still a decent school, but hardly a....dream.

+1. An absolute nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get the requests for LORs in early and provide some info in the email request. Make sure she asks the teachers herself, in person and then she follows up with the thank you for agreeing email with the extra info. Look at the forms posted in the current Walls admissions thread.

Then spend a little time prepping for the interview - what sorts of Qs, use someone familiar to her but not you.

Then she will have more confidence and if she doesn’t get in, she will know she did her best. Looking at some of the results for my kids’ years, it’s a crap shoot.

Prepare her to talk fast in the interview right out of the gate, since she's only going to get about 5 minutes to talk, 10 tops. The ridiculously brief/cursory Walls interview can be a disaster for shy kids who take time to warm up. We learned this the hard way for our eldest.

If you want my two cents worth, nobody in your family should think in terms of Walls being a dream school. The head is a dingbat (yes woman for DCPS, not more), the building run down, the academics not as robust as they were pre Covid (mainly because the Walls specific test and a standardized test score were dropped during Covid). The English lit curriculum is weak, and a mess. AP sciences aren't always taught in a given year. College admissions are clearly slipping. I could go on. It's still a decent school, but hardly a....dream.

Where are you getting info/data that college admissions are "clearly slipping"? Could you provide more on this?

I know kids at both and I still think Jackson-Reed for all it's faults - has much more rigor and a wider breadth of classes without a workload just to have one.

NP and obviously JR does- it’s like four times the size of Walls. But college admits this year have been fantastic at Walls.

Same tune on winter Walls threads every year but take it with a grain of salt, make that a bag. The inconvenient truth is that the class of 2025 is the first that was admitted without the Walls exam or submission of a standardized test score and it shows. My eldest went through Walls with a much stronger cohort than my youngest, a junior, particularly for advanced STEM work. Who can deny that the admissions system has become something of a joke, favoring DCPS middle school grads with B+ averages who would pretty clearly have struggled at BASIS or top privates. If you have access to BASIS or JR, go.

True.

[Anonymous]

Wait, why would I want ‘access to JR’ instead of Walls? This is kooky.

[Anonymous]

I can’t believe they’re still allowed to do an interview. Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe they’re still allowed to do an interview. Ridiculous.

Wait until you learn about the “glimpse” technology now being used in college applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is involved in school (sports, band, MS student gov't) and has a 3.9 GPA, but is very quiet. Teachers comment that they'd love to hear her speak up more, which is a work in progress.

Walls is her dream school and she knows a few kids already there. I seem to read here that Walls thrives on confident, outgoing kids and that's what they look for in applicants.

I know, of course, that Walls is not a sure thing for any kid, but I'm curious about successful acceptance of quiet ones who get good grades and are deeply involved in school activities despite their shyness. Anyone have stories to share?

Had kid practice with a neighbor that's an educator. It really made her comfortable speaking about herself and to somewhat strangers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should we believe you?

It's fine with me if you don't believe me. I just know that my SWW senior got into their top choice ED, as did most (but definitely not all) of their friends. I've been impressed with the results I'm hearing about, and so happy for these kids! Other adults may be underwhelmed, but it is demonstrably the case that kids are still getting into highly selective schools.

Feel free to watch the SWW instagram "decisions" account if you're curious. Not every kid chooses to report their results, so it will be incomplete--and is probably not worth looking at till spring to get a sense of the overall class results, anyway.

At any rate, college acceptances are just a small part of the school's appeal to families (or lack thereof.) I mentioned I agreed with every single one of the other critiques, but not the one about college results for the class of 2025. The kids are doing really well so far.

[Anonymous]

What is this instagram account?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should we believe you?

It's fine with me if you don't believe me. I just know that my SWW senior got into their top choice ED, as did most (but definitely not all) of their friends. I've been impressed with the results I'm hearing about, and so happy for these kids! Other adults may be underwhelmed, but it is demonstrably the case that kids are still getting into highly selective schools.

Feel free to watch the SWW instagram "decisions" account if you're curious. Not every kid chooses to report their results, so it will be incomplete--and is probably not worth looking at till spring to get a sense of the overall class results, anyway.

At any rate, college acceptances are just a small part of the school's appeal to families (or lack thereof.) I mentioned I agreed with every single one of the other critiques, but not the one about college results for the class of 2025. The kids are doing really well so far.

Nonsense. UMC parents select high schools largely on the strength of their college admissions track record. There simply isn't any way that Walls can coast on the academic strength of pre-pandemic cohorts indefinitely. Eliminating the entrance exam and standardized test requirement in admissions four years ago was a mistake on the part of DCPS and Bowser. Just how grave a mistake remains to be seen. That's all there is to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is this instagram account?

Is it sww2025decisions?

BASIS is bdc2025

Feels a bit creepy to lurk but impressed with the results at both schools!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this instagram account?

Is it sww2025decisions?

BASIS is bdc2025

Feels a bit creepy to lurk but impressed with the results at both schools!

And Banneker's is something like bbahs2025decisions. Also excellent so far!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should we believe you?

It's fine with me if you don't believe me. I just know that my SWW senior got into their top choice ED, as did most (but definitely not all) of their friends. I've been impressed with the results I'm hearing about, and so happy for these kids! Other adults may be underwhelmed, but it is demonstrably the case that kids are still getting into highly selective schools.

Feel free to watch the SWW instagram "decisions" account if you're curious. Not every kid chooses to report their results, so it will be incomplete--and is probably not worth looking at till spring to get a sense of the overall class results, anyway.

At any rate, college acceptances are just a small part of the school's appeal to families (or lack thereof.) I mentioned I agreed with every single one of the other critiques, but not the one about college results for the class of 2025. The kids are doing really well so far.

Nonsense. UMC parents select high schools largely on the strength of their college admissions track record. There simply isn't any way that Walls can coast on the academic strength of pre-pandemic cohorts indefinitely. Eliminating the entrance exam and standardized test requirement in admissions four years ago was a mistake on the part of DCPS and Bowser. Just how grave a mistake remains to be seen. That's all there is to it.

Well the private school crew says you are wrong! No one is coasting on anything. Same type of kids are there with the same drive. Plenty of people test well but struggle in college. Saw it first hand at my t10 university. Exec functioning is the most important skill in college. No one knows how well the SWW kids(as a group) are performing pre/post entrance exam in college. If the school doesn't fit your standards, tons of other options. People make the choice all the time. It want change in the near term so it is what it is....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should we believe you?

It's fine with me if you don't believe me. I just know that my SWW senior got into their top choice ED, as did most (but definitely not all) of their friends. I've been impressed with the results I'm hearing about, and so happy for these kids! Other adults may be underwhelmed, but it is demonstrably the case that kids are still getting into highly selective schools.

Feel free to watch the SWW instagram "decisions" account if you're curious. Not every kid chooses to report their results, so it will be incomplete--and is probably not worth looking at till spring to get a sense of the overall class results, anyway.

At any rate, college acceptances are just a small part of the school's appeal to families (or lack thereof.) I mentioned I agreed with every single one of the other critiques, but not the one about college results for the class of 2025. The kids are doing really well so far.

Nonsense. UMC parents select high schools largely on the strength of their college admissions track record. There simply isn't any way that Walls can coast on the academic strength of pre-pandemic cohorts indefinitely. Eliminating the entrance exam and standardized test requirement in admissions four years ago was a mistake on the part of DCPS and Bowser. Just how grave a mistake remains to be seen. That's all there is to it.

Well the private school crew says you are wrong! No one is coasting on anything. Same type of kids are there with the same drive. Plenty of people test well but struggle in college. Saw it first hand at my t10 university. Exec functioning is the most important skill in college. No one knows how well the SWW kids(as a group) are performing pre/post entrance exam in college. If the school doesn't fit your standards, tons of other options. People make the choice all the time. It want change in the near term so it is what it is....

Huh? Students at competitive DMV independent and parochial schools generally take entrance exams as part of the application process.

OK, let's assume the bolded is true. So why did MIT reinstate the SAT/ACT in admissions in 2022, after having dropped a standardized test requirement during the pandemic? And why have most of the Ivies followed MIT's lead in the last year, along with Stanford, Georgetown and Caltech. These institutions are wasting their time in reinstating SAT scores as an admissions requirement having failed to notice that exec functioning skills are the most important skills in high school and college?

Utter BS, along with the assertation that there are "tons of other options" for high school in the District EotP. Maybe there are tons if you're wealthy or get lucky in the lotteries for BASIS and the Latins (as long as those programs are a good fit for your children).