School without Walls High Admission test results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC and many of her friends all had interviews yesterday. All had positive experiences, so not sure what all the fuss is about in these previous posts..? Maybe they revamped the format? We had a small panel, one teacher and two students. They were friendly and professional. DC said the questions were challenging only because they were creative and thought provoking, but not in a "gotcha" sort of way. We found it to be a very smooth operation, with additional students there to greet us in the waiting area, many of whom were freshman who introduced themselves to us and chatted with our daughter before taking us to the interview location. All in all a very nice experience and I really hope she is accepted!

the fuss was about a thread from interviews last year, where a student posted that s/he rejected an applicant b/c applicant admitted to spending 3 hours a night on homework at school student had a sibling at which was not a rigorous MS so said student in a really obnoxious way explained that student had decided applicant could not handle the "rigorous" academics at Walls. Interviews were hostile, unprofessional, disorganized, student interviewers lacked the skills to conduct a professional interview and the judgement not to post here afterwards sounding incredibly obnoxious - they rejected kids they thought were too "full of themselves" and one mother concluded that her attempt in her interview to talk up the accomplishments of her shy child might have led to the decision............

Student comments on old thread were recently deleted by Jeff Steele, but the great thing about DCUM is that someone from Walls was reading the thread.... and the fact that some of the interviews were so bad the parents opted for Wilson instead, or private, must have woken someone up.

Dc interviewed yesterday, small panel, friendly crowd, no interrogation style tactics.

The fuss from the other thread seemed legitimate b/c it was unanimous on the part of the parents who had been interviewed last year plus the idiotic student who piped up about what was clearly bad decision making and was bragging about it.

I think Walls finally got that they have to sell their school now during interviews, not necessarily the other way around, and did it this year. Kudos to them for being proactive, and lowering the arrogance hostility and lack of professionalism in the interviews. Having a bad, demeaning interview conducted by a student who lacks the skills to properly conduct one but has the authority to make the decision (they and the teachers apparently are given equally weighted votes) and then has the idiocy to come on DCUM and explain the bad decision making process made Walls wake up and change their game on this one front. Good job to DCUM parents who posted that for them, the interview process last year made them decide not to let their children attend the school. Good job by Walls for changing, fast.

So sorry DCPS is bent on their destruction and has refused to give them their own principal etc

I really don't know much about this school but I wouldn't assume that this has been the usual policy of the school. Dc interviewed with Walls some years ago and the interview was pleasant and informative. Not saying that those particular interviews cited above weren't awful but it was not my experience nor the experience of dc's friends some years ago.

Pp again. That said, I agree with the pps who are saying that the Walls application process is disorganized and that it's annoying that not only can the kids not shadow before acceptance but you can't visit the school period.

[Anonymous]

dc had a very pleasant interview, was talking to an adult tonight, and the question was how would dc know that Walls was the right fit, etc. dc observed that they do not allow shadowing until students are accepted, but that is probably because they are so competitive and have so many applicants....

If you make it to the interview, you ought to have earned your right to a shadow day. Seriously.

dc met a babysitter from Wilson for younger kids (a senior) who offered a shadow day and to answer all questions. We are in boundary for Wilson, but babysitter apparently had the authority to offer this without prior approval, probably the IB question came up, but nothing more.

So dc will be doing a shadow day at Wilson with this wonderfully voluble girl, and maybe wait and wait for the opportunity to shadow at Walls. The difference is stark, and for a "school without walls" they have put up numerous walls in terms of how the qualified applicants can determine whether Walls is a good fit....

Quite frankly, many kids who apply to Walls have other options - staying where they are, Wilson, private, Latin (just to give parents hope, we know a child who got in for 9th, but the sibling preference that meant the other child was in at 5th may have had an impact, but there is still hope.) I do not believe that there is another school that does not allow you to shadow pre lottery, so you at least know where to list it...

Again, Walls is still I think coming down from the idea that they were a star in the DCPS constellation, as opposed to a political chip and a school that the present (and former Rhee) administration were probably hostile towards. Points to the moral integrity of Rhee and Henderson, take whatever is working in DCPS (for primarily AA students according to their stats) and destroy it. Apparently, as a pp enlightened us, SWW even under the Rhee regime had the rep has School With Whiners, and the fact that they do not have their own principal and had to fight hard against alleged principal's idea to have all the 11th graders walk to classes at SWW Francis Stevens, where he is spending all of his time, does not bode well for the only school in DC that was nationally ranked last year in the US News & World Report, at #198.

Wilson is Yale or Jail and in the 700s? I think, and Banneker probably was higher than Wilson, but with SAT scores below the national average ( as parents have explained here over and over, 4 years at Banneker cannot make up for the crappy education most kids were coming from). So the options for high school for an academically advanced kid are admittedly limited (BASIS stops accepting kids in 6th grade), and although maybe Walls got the message about the interview process from DCUM, I am not sure they got the entire message.

Given that they had to go back and grant interviews to kids who for some reason had not made the placement test or grade cut to fill their 9th grade class, one would think that not only would they reconsider their interview process, but also the idea that students have to be accepted to have a shadow day. And apparently, the shadow day last year (for the parents who were not so put off by the interview process that they crossed Walls off their list - and they were vocal here) given the timing here, will occur very close to decision time.

Gut check? I would prefer my kid to stay where they are and if we have issues go into honor classes at Wilson. "Without Walls" should signal openness, but instead it does not equal transparency at all, and certainly not transparency allowing kids to make an informed decision with the best information they can get before the decision time, which is essential. They are only (grudgingly?) granted a shadow day once they have been accepted.

Walls, think about giving a shadow day to everyone who made the interview cut, because it might make for more substantial interviews.....

Sincerely,
a potential Walls parent, but most likely Wilson, all as a result of what Walls has done (and not done during this process), in order to make my highly qualified child make an informed decision....

[Anonymous]

I did not think it was very crowded at either test day or interview day. I had a DC graduate from SWW and both days seemed much more crowded in the past. It will be interesting to see if they fill the freshman class this year. It won't surprise me if they don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:dc had a very pleasant interview, was talking to an adult tonight, and the question was how would dc know that Walls was the right fit, etc. dc observed that they do not allow shadowing until students are accepted, but that is probably because they are so competitive and have so many applicants....

If you make it to the interview, you ought to have earned your right to a shadow day. Seriously.

dc met a babysitter from Wilson for younger kids (a senior) who offered a shadow day and to answer all questions. We are in boundary for Wilson, but babysitter apparently had the authority to offer this without prior approval, probably the IB question came up, but nothing more.

So dc will be doing a shadow day at Wilson with this wonderfully voluble girl, and maybe wait and wait for the opportunity to shadow at Walls. The difference is stark, and for a "school without walls" they have put up numerous walls in terms of how the qualified applicants can determine whether Walls is a good fit....

Quite frankly, many kids who apply to Walls have other options - staying where they are, Wilson, private, Latin (just to give parents hope, we know a child who got in for 9th, but the sibling preference that meant the other child was in at 5th may have had an impact, but there is still hope.) I do not believe that there is another school that does not allow you to shadow pre lottery, so you at least know where to list it...

Again, Walls is still I think coming down from the idea that they were a star in the DCPS constellation, as opposed to a political chip and a school that the present (and former Rhee) administration were probably hostile towards. Points to the moral integrity of Rhee and Henderson, take whatever is working in DCPS (for primarily AA students according to their stats) and destroy it. Apparently, as a pp enlightened us, SWW even under the Rhee regime had the rep has School With Whiners, and the fact that they do not have their own principal and had to fight hard against alleged principal's idea to have all the 11th graders walk to classes at SWW Francis Stevens, where he is spending all of his time, does not bode well for the only school in DC that was nationally ranked last year in the US News & World Report, at #198.

Wilson is Yale or Jail and in the 700s? I think, and Banneker probably was higher than Wilson, but with SAT scores below the national average ( as parents have explained here over and over, 4 years at Banneker cannot make up for the crappy education most kids were coming from). So the options for high school for an academically advanced kid are admittedly limited (BASIS stops accepting kids in 6th grade), and although maybe Walls got the message about the interview process from DCUM, I am not sure they got the entire message.

Given that they had to go back and grant interviews to kids who for some reason had not made the placement test or grade cut to fill their 9th grade class, one would think that not only would they reconsider their interview process, but also the idea that students have to be accepted to have a shadow day. And apparently, the shadow day last year (for the parents who were not so put off by the interview process that they crossed Walls off their list - and they were vocal here) given the timing here, will occur very close to decision time.

Gut check? I would prefer my kid to stay where they are and if we have issues go into honor classes at Wilson. "Without Walls" should signal openness, but instead it does not equal transparency at all, and certainly not transparency allowing kids to make an informed decision with the best information they can get before the decision time, which is essential. They are only (grudgingly?) granted a shadow day once they have been accepted.

Walls, think about giving a shadow day to everyone who made the interview cut, because it might make for more substantial interviews.....

Sincerely,
a potential Walls parent, but most likely Wilson, all as a result of what Walls has done (and not done during this process), in order to make my highly qualified child make an informed decision....

I agree about the necessity of offering a shadow day, but it has to come sooner. This year the interviews took place two days before the cutoff date for changing your school rankings in the lottery, so there would be no time for all of those students to shadow before the rankings were set in stone. Anyone who applies and passes the grade and standardized test score cutoff should be allowed to shadow, even if only for half a day. Again, every other school in the area, including private schools, allows this. If all the fancy NW private schools can do it, Walls can do it.

I also think your "former rock star" assessment is correct. The Walls admin doesn't seem to understand that they now have serious competition and are no longer the default first choice for kids with good grades.

[Anonymous]

Well, for my part, it would honestly be great if people feel that they can't deal with whatever gripes they may have with Walls, as this leaves some space for lots of other bright and motivated students such as my DC. Despite stellar SSAT score and good interviews he was rejected from all the privates to which we applied (actually our back ups as Walls is first choice). However, now he REALLY needs to get himself into Walls because we don't have any back ups!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um...I'm in no way affiliated with SWW but I just don't see why there's SO MUCH animosity towards this school. Hopefully I don't ever see it. I'm sorry but schools do have cultures. With any culture, there are subcultures that do vary but schools do have cultures. My undergrad was a very communal, hippie, heal the world culture and I'm sorry but someone with a technological, business, profit oriented outlook would not be a part of that culture. None of this is rocket science. Just because we don't like the way that it sounds doesn't mean that it's not true.

Also, it's an INTERVIEW. Interviews judge people's ability to fit into a an office's or team's climate or culture. Job interviews aren't about accolades or accomplishments, those are called resumes. I'm sorry that the concept of interviews makes people so uncomfortable for their children, but consider this a dose of the real world. It may not be soft a cuddly like a crib's bumper, but its actually pretty reflective of the real world. Lets just try to deal with it and hope for the best.

read the "gems" a pp quoted from the other thread above. The interviews were not being conducted professionally to such a degree that they turned parents off and those parents sent their kids to Wilson or private schools. That is not the way the interview process is supposed to work in the real world - it should be an exchange of information, not such an awful experience that parents decide not to send their kids there because of the conduct of the student interviewers.

This was not much ado about nothing. Sounds like you must have gone to a SLAC. Care to define the "culture" at Harvard, Yale or Princeton? Good luck. Your best shot would be off by miles. Care to define the culture at UVA? That, my friend, can be done. There is a difference, and the fact that you use your college as an example just illustrates your tendency to judge everything through the lense of your own personal experiences - myopic, idiotic, and wrong.

If you are going to complain about a fuss, read about it first to see whether people were making legitimate complaints. They were, and it seems to have been a game changer for Walls much to their benefit.

You did not "see" because you did not look. That is known as myopic.

Lady, please have a seat. Following this alleged "SLAC" I went on to an ivy league law school. I would talk about the culture there but it's clear that I'm going back and forth with an angry brick wall in denial. Take your discomfort with reality up with your therapist. Lol. Good day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um...I'm in no way affiliated with SWW but I just don't see why there's SO MUCH animosity towards this school. Hopefully I don't ever see it. I'm sorry but schools do have cultures. With any culture, there are subcultures that do vary but schools do have cultures. My undergrad was a very communal, hippie, heal the world culture and I'm sorry but someone with a technological, business, profit oriented outlook would not be a part of that culture. None of this is rocket science. Just because we don't like the way that it sounds doesn't mean that it's not true.

Also, it's an INTERVIEW. Interviews judge people's ability to fit into a an office's or team's climate or culture. Job interviews aren't about accolades or accomplishments, those are called resumes. I'm sorry that the concept of interviews makes people so uncomfortable for their children, but consider this a dose of the real world. It may not be soft a cuddly like a crib's bumper, but its actually pretty reflective of the real world. Lets just try to deal with it and hope for the best.

read the "gems" a pp quoted from the other thread above. The interviews were not being conducted professionally to such a degree that they turned parents off and those parents sent their kids to Wilson or private schools. That is not the way the interview process is supposed to work in the real world - it should be an exchange of information, not such an awful experience that parents decide not to send their kids there because of the conduct of the student interviewers.

This was not much ado about nothing. Sounds like you must have gone to a SLAC. Care to define the "culture" at Harvard, Yale or Princeton? Good luck. Your best shot would be off by miles. Care to define the culture at UVA? That, my friend, can be done. There is a difference, and the fact that you use your college as an example just illustrates your tendency to judge everything through the lense of your own personal experiences - myopic, idiotic, and wrong.

If you are going to complain about a fuss, read about it first to see whether people were making legitimate complaints. They were, and it seems to have been a game changer for Walls much to their benefit.

You did not "see" because you did not look. That is known as myopic.

Lady, please have a seat. Following this alleged "SLAC" I went on to an ivy league law school. I would talk about the culture there but it's clear that I'm going back and forth with an angry brick wall in denial. Take your discomfort with reality up with your therapist. Lol. Good day.

Actually you are going back and forth with a HYP undergrad who majored in anthropology, and learned a lot about (and continues to be interested in) all sorts of cultures - dominant cultures, subcultures, separate cultures, etc. I think an argument for a uniform culture at HYP is ridiculous - Oberlin is a different story. I then went to a law school which, perhaps like yours, definitely had a culture. And a white shoe law firm that had only two cultures - corporate and litigation. And they were very well defined, and being an anthropologist helped me stay on partnership track.

It was more your lecture on interviewing that got to me - as you admit, you have no vested interest here, so you were doing a hit and run not having read the previous thread about the interviews - again, look at the post a couple above here where the gems of the student's comments on the way he interviewed are quoted, and the previous thread where the interviews were so bad they turned parents and students away from the school to Wilson or private school. That indisputably is NOT what an interview is supposed to do.

Yes, as a law student I had a couple of interviews that made me decide I did not want to go those firms as a summer associate, so it happens in the professional world as well - but there I realized I would not be a good fit from the honest description I was getting about their "firm" culture, not having some teenager judge my child.

Some high schools do have an easily defined culture, some don't. Is Wilson's "Yale or Jail" a culture? It is a large high school and undoubtedly that is an oversimplification, but it is true as far as it goes.

I was just curious as a potential parent since this student went on and on about the culture and fitting in - if SWW has a culture, to know how people would describe it. And that question has not been answered.

Unlike you, since I do have a child involved in the process, I read all the threads, saw the posts by the arrogant student, heard the comments of the parents from last year, and thought that teenagers deciding whether other teens would "fit in" to a culture that no one described was a little much. Especially since the "culture" they apparently displayed at the interviews last year came off almost uniformly as unfriendly, hostile, and like the interviewing students were full of themselves. Again, a teen judging whether another teen is "full of himself" from a ten minute interview makes me uncomfortable period, but as people pointed out neither the students nor the faculty who conducted these interviews last year had adequate skills to be interviewers, and that observation was made at least once by someone in the corporate world who conducts interviews. So enough.

Don't lecture if you haven't been involved in the conversation. It is obnoxious and arrogant and undoubtedly that was the culture of your Ivy League law school which seems to have rubbed off on you.

[Anonymous]

I'm not the PP to whom you're responding, but I think it would be good to note that there's more than one year separating us from that arrogant student interviewer's posts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not the PP to whom you're responding, but I think it would be good to note that there's more than one year separating us from that arrogant student interviewer's posts.

so noted. And as I said, our interview was pleasant if not all that informative.