SWW - when do notices go out about interviews?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

Do you know that students without 4.0s received interviews? As of now, I have no evidence of it.
Should a 3.9 with a stellar rec be valuable more or less than a 4.0 with an average rec?

[Anonymous]

My kid with a 4.0 did not get an interview. They have friends at their school with 3.9s who did. The 8th grade text chains are hot tonight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

And add to all that the fact that lots of teachers were asked to write letters of recommendation for private school applications. I wish I knew what the teacher recommendation letter looked like. Was it a form with fields or was it just freestyle text?

It wound assume it had questions that with numeric scales. That's the only thing that would make any sense.

Lots of kids will be going to school tomorrow knowing that their teachers like their classmate(s) better than they like them. 🤪

[Anonymous]

My 4.0 kid got an interview and one friend with high grades but not a 4.0 got an interview.

[Anonymous]

Congrats to the kids that got an interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder about the ranking issue too. My student got an interview at Walls but hasn’t heard from Banneker.

Or did anyone rank only Walls?

Hey! I’m a student who applied to both Walls and Banneker. I got the interview from Banneker but was rejected from the interview process at Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

They probably got around 1800 applications. And what is unfair? Teachers aren’t giving bad recs because they resent the work load. I’m a teacher, and while recs are a lot of work, I am always happy to write recs for hardworking kids. Even if I have to write a lot of them. And if the recs affects all kids, which they do, where is the unfairness? Also, the rankings do not matter. SWW does not know the rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

They probably got around 1800 applications. And what is unfair? Teachers aren’t giving bad recs because they resent the work load. I’m a teacher, and while recs are a lot of work, I am always happy to write recs for hardworking kids. Even if I have to write a lot of them. And if the recs affects all kids, which they do, where is the unfairness? Also, the rankings do not matter. SWW does not know the rankings.

Where did you come up with 1800?

Could you describe the Walls teacher rec form? Did you assign numerical rankings to students in certain categories?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

So much conjecture. First of all, you don’t know what the recs say about your kid. A kid might not have gotten an interview because their rec wasn’t as good as other kids, which is valid. The recs ask about all sorts of things, including social skills. Maybe a 4.0 kid isn’t mature, or kind, or whatever….they have to differentiate between the apps, and so the recs add to the big picture. Even if there were no recs, many 4.0 kids would not get interviews because they just can’t interview everyone. I think the system is crazy that everyone is vying for spots for what is really not even a particularly awesome school (we did apply, though), but even I can recognize that recs aren’t inherently an unfair part of the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

They probably got around 1800 applications. And what is unfair? Teachers aren’t giving bad recs because they resent the work load. I’m a teacher, and while recs are a lot of work, I am always happy to write recs for hardworking kids. Even if I have to write a lot of them. And if the recs affects all kids, which they do, where is the unfairness? Also, the rankings do not matter. SWW does not know the rankings.

Thanks for chiming in. That was helpful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

So much conjecture. First of all, you don’t know what the recs say about your kid. A kid might not have gotten an interview because their rec wasn’t as good as other kids, which is valid. The recs ask about all sorts of things, including social skills. Maybe a 4.0 kid isn’t mature, or kind, or whatever….they have to differentiate between the apps, and so the recs add to the big picture. Even if there were no recs, many 4.0 kids would not get interviews because they just can’t interview everyone. I think the system is crazy that everyone is vying for spots for what is really not even a particularly awesome school (we did apply, though), but even I can recognize that recs aren’t inherently an unfair part of the process.

Walls used to have an entrance exam. Do you think that would be fairer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

They probably got around 1800 applications. And what is unfair? Teachers aren’t giving bad recs because they resent the work load. I’m a teacher, and while recs are a lot of work, I am always happy to write recs for hardworking kids. Even if I have to write a lot of them. And if the recs affects all kids, which they do, where is the unfairness? Also, the rankings do not matter. SWW does not know the rankings.

Where did you come up with 1800?

Could you describe the Walls teacher rec form? Did you assign numerical rankings to students in certain categories?

SWW said something about the amount of apps it got last year, which was around 1800 I think. I heard it at the open house. But I could be off a couple hundred either way. Doesn’t matter—the number is very high for how many get in. It’s probably the same this year. There are no rankings in the apps. I was never asked to rank kids or assign some numerical number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

So much conjecture. First of all, you don’t know what the recs say about your kid. A kid might not have gotten an interview because their rec wasn’t as good as other kids, which is valid. The recs ask about all sorts of things, including social skills. Maybe a 4.0 kid isn’t mature, or kind, or whatever….they have to differentiate between the apps, and so the recs add to the big picture. Even if there were no recs, many 4.0 kids would not get interviews because they just can’t interview everyone. I think the system is crazy that everyone is vying for spots for what is really not even a particularly awesome school (we did apply, though), but even I can recognize that recs aren’t inherently an unfair part of the process.

Thank you. Did the recommendation form ask questions to assess your opinion about how a student would fair at a smaller school versus larger school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just have to laugh. This is quite a robust magnet school that DCPS is running. Academic record has completely ceased to be a factor in admissions. 🤔🤪

I just have to laugh at this post. Because a few parents on DCUM post their 4.0 kids didn’t get an interview the school has completely let go of academic records as a factor? Hyperbolic much? My 4.0 kid got an interview. As I’m sure many of 4.0 kids did.

Knowing stats would be helpful. How many applicants were there? How many had a 4.0? How many spots are there total? How many interview invites did they extend? Did all the kids being invited to interview rank school without walls as number one? I really think the recommendation letter process was not fair. This was a lot of extra unpaid work for the teachers, some of whom probably were not too happy, and it might've shown in their letters.

Correct. There were teachers asked to write one letter and teachers asked to write 50.
There were kids whose parents applied in the 11th hour (for a million reasons) and I can imagine that if they asked the teacher writing 50 recs, that might have not have been viewed favorably.

there were teachers who had to be reminded by parents (a process probably also not viewed favorably by the teacher who is already over burdened).

There were kids who were the first kid to ask a teacher (and probably were also not high scorers as recommenders always tend to leave room at the top for those who come later).

All sorts of room for error and bias, which is why recs don't typically count for everything in an admissions process like this. But in this case they did since 4.0s were turned down.

King of crazy. This was ultimately decided entirely by the recs!!

So much conjecture. First of all, you don’t know what the recs say about your kid. A kid might not have gotten an interview because their rec wasn’t as good as other kids, which is valid. The recs ask about all sorts of things, including social skills. Maybe a 4.0 kid isn’t mature, or kind, or whatever….they have to differentiate between the apps, and so the recs add to the big picture. Even if there were no recs, many 4.0 kids would not get interviews because they just can’t interview everyone. I think the system is crazy that everyone is vying for spots for what is really not even a particularly awesome school (we did apply, though), but even I can recognize that recs aren’t inherently an unfair part of the process.

Thank you. Did the recommendation form ask questions to assess your opinion about how a student would fair at a smaller school versus larger school?

Nope.

[Anonymous]

My kid didn’t get an interview, but also didn’t do quite well enough in a few classes last year to give himself a decent chance of getting in.

The silver lining is that he learns an important lesson about the importance of perfect grades.

If he’d got a 4.0 and not received an interview, I have no idea what I would tell him other than “life is not fair”.

The current SWW admissions policy is very clearly sub-standard. Moving away from objective tests to subjective measures is not in the best interests of the city or its students.