Washington Latin's High School Program
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Anonymous
I hope so. My DC is struggling with AP History. |
Anonymous
None of those are public schools. Need to make apples to apples comparisons. |
Anonymous
| Public was a requirement you added and not in the original statement. |
Anonymous
Actually it is - please re-read my 6:23 post. |
Anonymous
|
OK.
And as I said in my 14:10 post (maybe you should re-read it), public was a requirement you added and not in the original statement. |
Anonymous
| Though therein lies the conundrum: While students may not get ample credit for taking AP classes, and indeed often (financially) none a all, schools get ranked in part based on the number of AP offerings and students at least taking those tests. If a school places any emphasis on those rankings - such as for example Basis does - then they'll keep pushing that onto their students, whether or not it's useful for them. |
Anonymous
The value of APs (and IB) classes and exams is that the results can be compared across schools. A 5 is a 5 is a 5 whether you go to school in DC or Alabama. Grades in other classes can be very subjective. Smaller, private schools with strong, well established reputations don't need this validation as much as public schools do. |
Anonymous
I went to a no-name high school that didn't offer AP classes. It didn't hurt me with regards to admissions, which was almost entirely based off SAT scores, but I know that it did with regards to scholarships for exactly the reasons you mention. |
Anonymous
Actually, it wasn't. |
Anonymous
New to town? I've been here 20 years. To create a public STEM HS on a par with TJ or Blair, DC would need to run bona fide test-in ES GT programs and MS programs, and a HS STEM program where the admissions bar is set much higher than at Banneker or Walls. They won't because most of the students who would clear the various admissions hurdles would be white and affluent. DCPS still prioritizes providing remedial education to low-income minority children in planning and budgeting, with the effort sucking oxygen out of all other programming. Period. |
Anonymous
This sounds like my private high school. Great guidance, unlike the monster public high school. College prep high school is high stress, can't really identify with the PP who was reminiscing about when high school was fun. I mean we studied hard, did sports and drama club, founded a debate team, went to the beach a lot senior year. But it was a marathon. |
Anonymous
That was the way it was when I was at GDS a long long time ago, STA was the same way. We actually had no "AP" classes except maybe in science or math (not my strong point), but we still took AP exams at the end of the courses if we were aiming high. I took AP exams in US History, English, and Latin, 5s on all of them. That was enough to be in the class of 1992 at HYP. But I left after 11th grade and went wandering so maybe others took more (I had gotten into Oberlin which did not require SAT scores at the time so I convinced my parents). Back in the day when doing something adventurous and against the grain (and not getting a high school diploma) could still get you in to HYP. And I was pretty set on one of them. Now, with the perspective that comes with age, it matters more for "reach" kids. Back in the day when one reasonable income could get you a reasonable house and private school for 3 kids. However, FACT: We have too many kids to afford private school tuition and I'm not sure I would want my kids in with the uber rich feeling poor - because we are not. We are solidly middle class, and we would seriously qualify for financial aid if my kids got into the school where my husband and I met - I just ran the numbers through their FA calculator and our contribution would be somewhere around $15k. Maybe we are poor. Or maybe they are generous. I am an interviewer for my Ivy, and since the schools have the kids' transcripts and we don't see them EVER - we are told to try to dig deeper - so I have no clue how many AP classes they took. Or what scores they got. And I usually don't ask. You are trying to get sense of the candidate and who they are and to me that doesn't tell me anything, and might make me judge them prematurely. I ask why they are interested in my school in particular, and just try to have a conversation. I want to know what they have to that would make them an asset to my school, and what they would get out of it. I ask them to tell me something that is not on their college application. In fact we are not supposed to interrogate them about their grades or how many AP classes or what their scores were. That implies we have some decisionmaking power over that part, which we absolutely do not But I agree that if the classes at Latin are sufficiently rigorous (like GDS was/is and apparently Sidwell is) you just take the AP exam after taking the course. And my kids' experiences have been that even if it called an AP course sometimes the teachers don't teach to the test, or don't teach at all, so it doesn't necessarily mean you don't have to do a little bit of self help if you are in DCPS or DCPCS and probably a lot depending on which school. NOT GDS. But the geographic area does matter, especially if you are in a public school. My first question for a Latin kid would be how far they got in math and whether they took an AP exam in Latin and another language, but not all kids are zoned for Wilson and the oldest kids at BASIS are only in 11th grade, and Walls really did not impress us. [/b]I think given all the risks in my day and now that teens are exposed to, wherever they are happy is best for them. But the financial aid at the Ivies is incredible. My school has needs blind admission - meaning they admit first and then find out whether the candidate requires financial aid. I think as the quality of the kids at the high school improves at Latin - their low DC CAS scores made the high school a Focus school - while the MS was #3 after Deal and BASIS that last year, maybe the kids will be able to take APs at the end of their courses. Or take more AP courses. When we were considering Latin the parents we knew left after 8th and went private. That was not an option for us. BASIS parents are doing that as well. And when the kids coming up at BASIS have been their longer (the kids graduating next year started in 8th not 5th) I think you will definitely see good college admissions. The 5th graders will be the 4th graduating class. I also interview kids from I guess "flyover country" that others can't get to, in California. In really rural areas and they are "reach kids" who usually would be the first generation to go to college in their family and whose parents are migrant workers etc. But one "reach" kid, for example, who I did a long distance interview with, took all the APs at the high school (which were about 3) and was interested in a particular subject where they did not offer an AP course, so on their own initiative went and took a course at the local community college. The "reach" long distance kids break my heart because so few of them get in, and some of them absolutely knock my socks off. They have done incredible incredible things in their community and for their community - opportunities maybe that are only possible in a small segregated town where there are some very rich people and some very poor people - but I sometimes wonder. Volunteering at Martha's Table just does not cut it with me. I really try hard not to compare the two pools, but last year there was one "reach" who was a shining star..... who made another Ivy very happy because we were stupid enough not to admit them. I rarely get so emotionally invested. But over the years there have been a few "reach" kids - and so few get in. I'm just trying to give the other side here. I remember the alum interviewer from Brown last year who came on here and trashed the candidate from Latin who was accepted. That person should be banned from interviewing and I have been meaning to write to Brown for some time if my facts are right. Latin parents, please confirm I still remember my alumnae interviewer and my husband remembers his. So we may be the first human face of our university they see. That to me is a tremendous honor and a tremendous responsibility - not to put a foot wrong, to know enough about the modern day school and the changes, but also the continuity. And we also have a responsibility to our university - not to bootstrap, not to recommend anyone we think can't handle it, but also not to let our own prejudices and biases come into play. That is why I am glad I don't know their grades. We go in cold. In fact they do not even tell us if we are interviewing an athlete so we have to review all those rules as well. Some of us are human and are doing the interviews for the right reasons and are not as cold and analytical as this alumni interviewer sounds. I am absolutely positive the alumni interviewer did not go to the same school I did!!!!!!! Know why? There are so many of us who want to participate in DC that we each are only going to get one DC interview this year. It was the same last year, and the year before..... Good luck to the seniors at all DCPS and DCPCS schools. May they find a safe and appropriate place to land, and be educated, because that is ultimately all that matters. |
Anonymous
"Ivies" and "college credit for AP classes" don't belong in the same para. Most Ivies will give you credit for only the most obscure AP subjects. For standard courses like Chemistry, your Ivy is probably going to make you take it again even if you got a 5 on the AP Chem test. (Which certainly makes things interesting for the kids in college Chem 101 who didn't take the high school AP class, as my own Ivy kid can attest using the Chem example.) The benefit of APs for Ivy schools is--as somebody posted after you--that you can send your AP test scores of 5 in with your application. This proves that your "A" grade in Chemistry wasn't a fluke of easy grading. Most public school kids do this when applying to the most selective colleges. As that poster also said, schools with established reputations don't need this. |
Anonymous
WLPCS was shooting for really generous aid packages, so far as we could see (DC attended WLPCS for middle school during the first years, before everybody continued to high school, but kept in touch with lots of kids there). We heard about lots of kids getting full rides at excellent 2nd-tier schools. Personally, I think that prioritizing financial aid over Ivies is a great choice. Especially for undergraduate educations for a population that doesn't resemble Sidwell's parent body economically. As you may know, FA is tough for families with incomes over $50,000 (unless we're talking about HYP, but first you have to get in to HYP), and by agreement none of the Ivies offers merit aid. |
Anonymous
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Does anyone know what the MS to HS attrition rate was for this school year (spring/fall 2015)?
And did they admit the same number of new students to backfill? Thanks. |