DC Selective High School Interviews

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:from last year, what questions were asked during the interview and what was the writing sample about?
having ours coming up wednesday in a week and really want to get into Banneker.
thanks

Re: the interview. I suggest asking a family friend or two to do a mock interview with your kid. Even if over zoom. My kid is shy and this prep helped immensely. Ask about academic goals, study habits, academic challenges and how they’ve overcome, what they’ll do when the going gets rough, college and career goals, things they do for fun, how they’ll try making friends, club interests, etc.

And like a job interview, have your kid practice asking questions of the interviewers. It will be a panel of 2-3 teachers and/or other admins. They may come across as intimidating and warn about how tough school is, ask how your kid handles competition, etc. Or they might be warm and fuzzy; no guarantee who you’ll get.

I’ll be honest — the interview completely turned me off the school and I thought my kid would feel the same way. But it fired him up; he absolutely loved their approach. And the school has been a great fit.

Does anybody know how many people are in the interviews at McKinley and how it is structured? I have heard there are multiple students per interview, it is more a 'group' structure. Is that correct?

McKinley interviews are groups of applicants and a group of interviewers that includes at least one student.

Do they ask the kids questions one at a time, or is more a group discussion/dialogue type interview? I feel like I have seen group interviews handled well, and poorly...

I'll ask my kid tonight and get back to you.

Do they need to bring anything or is the essay portion done on a computer?

[Anonymous]

NVM, they sent out a FAQ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:from last year, what questions were asked during the interview and what was the writing sample about?
having ours coming up wednesday in a week and really want to get into Banneker.
thanks

Re: the interview. I suggest asking a family friend or two to do a mock interview with your kid. Even if over zoom. My kid is shy and this prep helped immensely. Ask about academic goals, study habits, academic challenges and how they’ve overcome, what they’ll do when the going gets rough, college and career goals, things they do for fun, how they’ll try making friends, club interests, etc.

And like a job interview, have your kid practice asking questions of the interviewers. It will be a panel of 2-3 teachers and/or other admins. They may come across as intimidating and warn about how tough school is, ask how your kid handles competition, etc. Or they might be warm and fuzzy; no guarantee who you’ll get.

I’ll be honest — the interview completely turned me off the school and I thought my kid would feel the same way. But it fired him up; he absolutely loved their approach. And the school has been a great fit.

Does anybody know how many people are in the interviews at McKinley and how it is structured? I have heard there are multiple students per interview, it is more a 'group' structure. Is that correct?

McKinley interviews are groups of applicants and a group of interviewers that includes at least one student.

Do they ask the kids questions one at a time, or is more a group discussion/dialogue type interview? I feel like I have seen group interviews handled well, and poorly...

I'll ask my kid tonight and get back to you.

Do they need to bring anything or is the essay portion done on a computer?

NVM, they sent out a FAQ

[Anonymous]

Well now I'm getting worried that my kid has NOT heard from Banneker... but neither have any of their classmates who I would expect to be interviewed. I know one of the recommendations only got submitted Monday night just before the deadline, so fingers crossed.

[Anonymous]

Two years ago I remember Banneker did at least two waves of invites, so I wouldn't worry yet. Also there are two interview days. If no one has been invited yet to Feb 18, then it's definitely too soon to worry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two years ago I remember Banneker did at least two waves of invites, so I wouldn't worry yet. Also there are two interview days. If no one has been invited yet to Feb 18, then it's definitely too soon to worry.

Would you assume that they are going in order of when applications/applications were received? We submitted our application early to try to help the teachers, so I assume since we didn't hear from Banneker that we won't?

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't assume that.

[Anonymous]

Teacher recs weren't even due until 2/9, so it's too early to panic.

[Anonymous]

How did the first set of Banneker interviews go yesterday?

[Anonymous]

DC had a good experience.

[Anonymous]

re: McKinley interviews yesterday: My kid reported a good experience. Interview was 5 kids at a time + two administrators and a current student. Each student was given an opportunity answer each question. Some personal questions, some situational questions and some future aspiration questions. Essay involved reviewing a piece of text and then responding subjectively to it. Overall a good experience and pretty low stress for my kid at least.

[Anonymous]

Walls says my kid will have an interview, but we may not know which date or time until Feb 18 at 7pm. So that's fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walls says my kid will have an interview, but we may not know which date or time until Feb 18 at 7pm. So that's fun.

Does anyone know what the odds are of getting in if granted an interview?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Walls says my kid will have an interview, but we may not know which date or time until Feb 18 at 7pm. So that's fun.

Does anyone know what the odds are of getting in if granted an interview?

It bounces around a bit. Walls waitlists all the kids who interview (unless they match with a higher-ranked school), so we can see from the lottery data that last year, for kids who interviewed and didn’t match with a higher-ranked school, the odds of getting an offer on match day were about 60%, and the odds of getting an offer by count day were about 66%. Not terrible odds but far from a sure thing.

[Anonymous]

If we have not heard from McKinley yet, should we assume it won’t happen?