Selective HS not that difficult to get into

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Unpredictable” only matters if it’s also difficult. If it’s somewhat unpredictable which of the four major application schools a kid will match with, but it’s a near-guarantee that a college-bound student will match with one, that’s really not a big deal.

No, it's not a near guarantee. I know solid students who have been shut out. I don't know what makes you think you have the data to make these assertions.

I’m an 8th grade teacher at a DCPS middle school (not Deal/Hardy), and this year was tough for our students. A LOT of surprising results—top students shut out of Banneker, waitlisted at McKinley, etc.
DC had a “baby boom” in the early 2010s, and those kids are just starting to enter HS. Those of us who have been here for awhile remember the days of the 600+ waitlists for desirable PK programs—these are those same kids. I imagine the application process for HS will only become more competitive as the years go on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Unpredictable” only matters if it’s also difficult. If it’s somewhat unpredictable which of the four major application schools a kid will match with, but it’s a near-guarantee that a college-bound student will match with one, that’s really not a big deal.

No, it's not a near guarantee. I know solid students who have been shut out. I don't know what makes you think you have the data to make these assertions.

I’m an 8th grade teacher at a DCPS middle school (not Deal/Hardy), and this year was tough for our students. A LOT of surprising results—top students shut out of Banneker, waitlisted at McKinley, etc.
DC had a “baby boom” in the early 2010s, and those kids are just starting to enter HS. Those of us who have been here for awhile remember the days of the 600+ waitlists for desirable PK programs—these are those same kids. I imagine the application process for HS will only become more competitive as the years go on.

Ugh, so sorry to hear that. I had been hoping Latin Cooper plus MacArthur plus more seats at Banneker would make a difference in alleviating the crunch years.

Where do you think disappointed kids will end up?

[Anonymous]

Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

I understand the process fine. The PP said she knew kids “waitlisted at McKinley.” In actual fact, zero kids were waitlisted at McKinley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the teachers and the counselor submit their letters, the student gets a confirmation that x teacher submitted their recommendation letter. The students can track who submitted the letters!

Right. But if a letter or any other element somehow got lost after that point, there's no way to know, until the lottery results come out and the kid is marked incomplete. And more broadly, there's no way to try to correct any of these problems.

It's in an electronic system, so it's not like a paper is going to get lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Walls, for best or worse, is the school of rich and middle class legacy kids. The kids succeed because of their family structure.

Rich?


No

+1. This is laughable. The rich families never even had their kids in DCPS or got out after elementary.

Depends on your lens.
Sorry pumpkin but if your HHI is 250k+ and you have 600k in equity on your home that your parents helped with the down-payment for, you are rich by all my factors.

Am I still rich if we saved for the whole down payment ourselves?

NP. Compared to the general public (including me): Yes, you are. You are in a bubble if you think that you aren't.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the teachers and the counselor submit their letters, the student gets a confirmation that x teacher submitted their recommendation letter. The students can track who submitted the letters!

Right. But if a letter or any other element somehow got lost after that point, there's no way to know, until the lottery results come out and the kid is marked incomplete. And more broadly, there's no way to try to correct any of these problems.

It's in an electronic system, so it's not like a paper is going to get lost.

I thought they hand wrote the essays on site?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Unpredictable” only matters if it’s also difficult. If it’s somewhat unpredictable which of the four major application schools a kid will match with, but it’s a near-guarantee that a college-bound student will match with one, that’s really not a big deal.

No, it's not a near guarantee. I know solid students who have been shut out. I don't know what makes you think you have the data to make these assertions.

I’m an 8th grade teacher at a DCPS middle school (not Deal/Hardy), and this year was tough for our students. A LOT of surprising results—top students shut out of Banneker, waitlisted at McKinley, etc.
DC had a “baby boom” in the early 2010s, and those kids are just starting to enter HS. Those of us who have been here for awhile remember the days of the 600+ waitlists for desirable PK programs—these are those same kids. I imagine the application process for HS will only become more competitive as the years go on.

Except that many people from those years also moved away from DC during the pandemic. IME, things are easier to get into now than they were then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

I understand the process fine. The PP said she knew kids “waitlisted at McKinley.” In actual fact, zero kids were waitlisted at McKinley.

How does this work -- according to the 2025-26 historical waitlist info McKinley had 250 lottery seats, 1,186 applications on results day, only 163 matches, and 0 waitlist.

Does that mean that they're not filling all the seats? Were there not enough qualified applicants? Am I looking in the wrong place? DCPS seems to have data. many places!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

I understand the process fine. The PP said she knew kids “waitlisted at McKinley.” In actual fact, zero kids were waitlisted at McKinley.

How does this work -- according to the 2025-26 historical waitlist info McKinley had 250 lottery seats, 1,186 applications on results day, only 163 matches, and 0 waitlist.

Does that mean that they're not filling all the seats? Were there not enough qualified applicants? Am I looking in the wrong place? DCPS seems to have data. many places!

I suspect they had some type of minimum GPA requirement and so many kids did not meet it. I doubt it’s anything high either, maybe B average? Of course with no transparency and the opaqueness of the system,they are not going to tell you that.

The more important question to ask is why is DCPS failing to educate so many kids when we are one of the top spenders in the country on per student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

I understand the process fine. The PP said she knew kids “waitlisted at McKinley.” In actual fact, zero kids were waitlisted at McKinley.

How does this work -- according to the 2025-26 historical waitlist info McKinley had 250 lottery seats, 1,186 applications on results day, only 163 matches, and 0 waitlist.

Does that mean that they're not filling all the seats? Were there not enough qualified applicants? Am I looking in the wrong place? DCPS seems to have data. many places!

They don't fill all the seats and have no intention of doing so - they don't actually intend to have 250 9th graders. (Not sure what the actual enrollment numbers are, but I think it's closer to 150 each year.)

The 250 is the number of seats they put into the lottery, which means they could accept up to 250 kids. It gives the school admission team maximum flexibility so that they can use discretion within the process to accept they kids they want.

It looks like they offered 247 kids seats in the 24-25 lottery, which was a lot more than in prior years. I wonder if they had higher yield on those offers than they expected/wanted, leading to a lower number of matches this year.

It's terrible that qualified kids were shut out of the selective high schools this year and makes the arbitrariness of the process (and lack of available remedy) that much more glaring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to be cynical, but on DCUM it’s pretty easy to pretend to be someone you’re not. And according to My School, no one was waitlisted for 9th grade at McKinley this year.

Caveat lector.

You don't understand the process. Kids who didn't get into McKinley earlier in the process would not be waitlisted.

I understand the process fine. The PP said she knew kids “waitlisted at McKinley.” In actual fact, zero kids were waitlisted at McKinley.

How does this work -- according to the 2025-26 historical waitlist info McKinley had 250 lottery seats, 1,186 applications on results day, only 163 matches, and 0 waitlist.

Does that mean that they're not filling all the seats? Were there not enough qualified applicants? Am I looking in the wrong place? DCPS seems to have data. many places!

It means that many qualified applicants ranked McKinley below other schools in the lottery and matched with their higher-ranked schools. For example, a 8th grader might apply for Latin, DCI, Walls, Banneker, Duke and MacArthur. But that still leaves six spots on their dance card, so why not add McKinley Tech? The odds that a kid qualified for McKinley matched with one of their top six schools are pretty high: the match rate for rising 9th graders who listed six schools was 95%. And if a qualified kid matches with a higher-ranked schools, they will not be matched or waitlisted with MT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Unpredictable” only matters if it’s also difficult. If it’s somewhat unpredictable which of the four major application schools a kid will match with, but it’s a near-guarantee that a college-bound student will match with one, that’s really not a big deal.

No, it's not a near guarantee. I know solid students who have been shut out. I don't know what makes you think you have the data to make these assertions.

I’m an 8th grade teacher at a DCPS middle school (not Deal/Hardy), and this year was tough for our students. A LOT of surprising results—top students shut out of Banneker, waitlisted at McKinley, etc.
DC had a “baby boom” in the early 2010s, and those kids are just starting to enter HS. Those of us who have been here for awhile remember the days of the 600+ waitlists for desirable PK programs—these are those same kids. I imagine the application process for HS will only become more competitive as the years go on.

This is what I think about all the time - those 2010s babies also live in houses with low mortgages and I think the whole "flight to the suburbs for middle school" thing of the past will slow down significantly. DCPS needs more high schools with challenging programs ASAP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Unpredictable” only matters if it’s also difficult. If it’s somewhat unpredictable which of the four major application schools a kid will match with, but it’s a near-guarantee that a college-bound student will match with one, that’s really not a big deal.

No, it's not a near guarantee. I know solid students who have been shut out. I don't know what makes you think you have the data to make these assertions.

I’m an 8th grade teacher at a DCPS middle school (not Deal/Hardy), and this year was tough for our students. A LOT of surprising results—top students shut out of Banneker, waitlisted at McKinley, etc.
DC had a “baby boom” in the early 2010s, and those kids are just starting to enter HS. Those of us who have been here for awhile remember the days of the 600+ waitlists for desirable PK programs—these are those same kids. I imagine the application process for HS will only become more competitive as the years go on.

Except that many people from those years also moved away from DC during the pandemic. IME, things are easier to get into now than they were then.

They absolutely are not for HS. I know what she's referring to. The year DC was born, Stokes was still pretty realistic for a French seat (our first choice). The year we applied, they had so many applicants that they had to do a lottery of siblings only. The rest of us had no shot. My kid is at Banneker now but has high achieving friends who were relieved to get into McKinley or struck out altogether. My kid was contacted and actually interviewed after the deadline so missed the two major interview sessions that the school typically does. There's a thread I created two years ago pressing for info as we'd heard nada and I was nervous. lol They had THAT many interviews to get through. We were just hopeful for McKinley at the point. McKinley is now competitive as well.

To be clear, the deadline I'm referring to is the one for school submissions for the lottery. We were contacted days after to interview and DC is part of the unusually large freshman class that fall. I can only imagine if Macarthur hadn't opened.