Selective Admissions High Schools - Testing Requirements

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone that I know that was accepted to school without walls has a 4.0 GPA. My guess is that these kids also have high cape scores. I don’t think adding a test will change the results very much.

Wrong.

Most of Walls is BELOW grade level in math, as measured by CAPE scores.

The DCPS school profile page shows 68% of students scoring 4 or 5 on the math CAPE test for 23-24.

+1

And that doesn’t include the strongest ninth grade students who are in PreCalculus. So it’s probably closer to 75%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone that I know that was accepted to school without walls has a 4.0 GPA. My guess is that these kids also have high cape scores. I don’t think adding a test will change the results very much.

Wrong.

Most of Walls is BELOW grade level in math, as measured by CAPE scores.

The DCPS school profile page shows 68% of students scoring 4 or 5 on the math CAPE test for 23-24.

+1

And that doesn’t include the strongest ninth grade students who are in PreCalculus. So it’s probably closer to 75%.

It does include them, actually. After DCUM first noted this glitch in the data, DCPS changed its policy so all 9th graders take a math exam. They take Algebra 2 if they’re enrolled in precalc or calc. You can see the changed policy in the data: for many years at Walls and JR, the number of 9th graders taking any math PARCC was noticeably smaller than the number taking ELA. Starting with the exams given in the spring of 2023, those numbers even out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone that I know that was accepted to school without walls has a 4.0 GPA. My guess is that these kids also have high cape scores. I don’t think adding a test will change the results very much.

Wrong.

Most of Walls is BELOW grade level in math, as measured by CAPE scores.

The DCPS school profile page shows 68% of students scoring 4 or 5 on the math CAPE test for 23-24.

+1

And that doesn’t include the strongest ninth grade students who are in PreCalculus. So it’s probably closer to 75%.

It does include them, actually. After DCUM first noted this glitch in the data, DCPS changed its policy so all 9th graders take a math exam. They take Algebra 2 if they’re enrolled in precalc or calc. You can see the changed policy in the data: for many years at Walls and JR, the number of 9th graders taking any math PARCC was noticeably smaller than the number taking ELA. Starting with the exams given in the spring of 2023, those numbers even out.

Kids in PreCalculus in 9th grade don’t take the cape test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The most selective academic high school in DC has kids who aren't at grade level. Do you think that's true at Harvard and MIT?

Harvard now has remedial math.

Harvard is quick to blame these math gaps on pandemic learning losses — but, in truth, administrators brought this mess on themselves by scrapping standardized testing requirements during the pandemic, all in the name of equity.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/harvard-univ-the-ivy-league-teaching-remedial-math/

Many top schools are bringing back standardized testing because of issues above and that these students tend to fail out and not graduate at all.

Walls has been test-free for 5 years now, and there has been no issue with kids failing out or not graduating.

Well that's a low bar.

It is good enough compared to the systemic issues that DC public schools face. The solution is not to add a standardized test to selective schools admission process.
The problem is systemic and requires solutions that are systemic, starting from K and elementary levels with tracking kids, testing, and getting rid of social promotion. In addition to addressing the huge socioeconomic gaps in the city and the disparities from one ward to another. Again, as mentioned in other posts, kids performance in standardized tests tends to be connected to the parent’s educational and socioeconomic levels. If we care for our city, then we have to care about closing those inequities and uplift the city as a whole.

NYC has a simple transparent test only admissions process. The top school-Stuyvesant—was 48% free lunch. Compare that to SWW or Banneker and you will see they do better at closing inequities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trying to gauge interest--would anyone join/support a group seeking require dcps only use objective and transparent examination process for admission to Banneker and SWW?

You seem to know very little about admissions processes. This is not a thing. Even "objective" measures have subjective components. Do you think colleges and elite prep schools take all GPAs at face value in the admissions process? Spoiler alert: they do not. There is a multiplier for every school in the US. Harvard isn't evaluating a kid with a 4.0 from Eastern high the same as one from Exeter. Exeter isn't evaluating a kid with a 4.0 from Sousa MS in DC the same as a kid with a 4.0 from Fieldston MS in NYC. In order to make an "objective" measure work they'd have to adjust DC MS GPAs. Can you just imagine the optics and uproar from the performative DC "equity" crowd when it is discovered that [GASP] BASIS's GPAs are given more weight than schools from poor black neighborhoods!

+100

Honestly the only objective way is to have a low GPA minimum (3.0) to take a test and then if you score above a certain score on the test (75%?) then you are put in a lottery and its luck of the draw from that group.

Because even when Walls had an admissions test it wasn’t that if you scored above a certain score you got an interview. They interviewed the top 200 scores on the test no matter what. So the cutoff could be 70% one year and 60% another year.

+1 this would be a fine transparent process as long as the lotto was the end and we get rid of the ridiculous interviews and recommendations currently used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my understanding the issue is that there are not enough seats to take all worthy students - just like at universities. Many top students are turned away at Harvard, MIT, etc.

The teacher recommendations actually add a layer that I appreciate. Future job skills require collaboration, communication, and other soft skills that a teacher is better at fielding. Tests cannot determine if a students has high emotional intelligence or some other incredible skill that made them stand out.

Interviewers I spoke with said that the students selected all had an “it” factor. Something that made them unique and stand out as being a future leader. The selection decisions are not all academic although almost all of them had 4.0s.

I would not want “take the highest test takers” and they are in. That is very short-sighted and very old school. We have evolved from that model. Colleges use a holistic approach.

Why do you want to take our kids backwards?

. Holistic models are backward-they hide biases and secret quotas. Transparency builds trust. Selective colleges are the ones that need to evolve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trying to gauge interest--would anyone join/support a group seeking require dcps only use objective and transparent examination process for admission to Banneker and SWW?

https://www.change.org/p/implement-objective-admissions-examinations-in-selective-dcps-high-schools