SWW - when do notices go out about interviews?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like near unanimous support here for the entrance exam to return. Let's reach out to the media and start the conversation.

By "unanimous" do you mean the 4-5 repeat posters? On DCUM? LOL Of course, you can "go to the media" with whatever you want, but I find it HILARIOUS that you are basing your idea of "unanimous support" from a DCUM echo chamber. Be sure to tell the media all about your convo on DCUM.

What reasonable person is opposed to an entrance exam?

There are plenty of reasonable people who do not favor an entrance exam. There are reasonable arguments for and against. Just because those arguments against are not your arguments does not make them unreasonable.

No reasonable person would support the current Walls admissions process.

Imagine if a selective college counted GPA for 10%, 2 teacher letter recs as 30%, and a 5-minute interview and 1 paragraph essay as 60%.

Completely absurd.

+1. Sure, they have a floor of 3.7 but that is meaningless in DC with massive grade inflation.

Worse, colleges look the rigor of transcripts and re-weight to ensure that an A in PE doesn't count the same as an A in accelerated math. Walls doesn't do that either.

Totally ridiculous admissions sytem.

+2

And then the cycle continues at Walls...

The junior class at Walls has an average GPA of 3.93, a number school counselor Kathryn Moore called “very high.” She also noted that the median GPA was over a 4.0. That means that well over half the class had a GPA above 4.0 at the start of the 2022-23 school year. This number will likely only increase, as juniors take on more AP classes, which are graded on a 5.0 scale....

Mr. Jordan said that the pandemic-era grading policy “does not push students to excel,” and that students will face a “rude awakening” when they get to college. “It gives them a cushion and a false sense of their performance,” he said. “Colleges do not have a WS or [a] 63 percent [minimum].”

Some students do understand this. “It’s definitely hurt my work ethic,” Douglas said. “When I go to college, it’s going to hurt me because I’m not actively putting in as much effort as I should or as I could because of those policies. So when I go to college, I won’t be as prepared. I won’t have the strong work ethic that I probably could have [had] if those policies weren’t in place.

https://www.swwrookery.com/post/hugely-inflat...-more-harm-than-good

Take this up with DCPS. They set the ridiculous grading policy. Grade inflation is not a Walls’ specific issue. It’s DCPS.

Except the article posted is specific to Walls…

Which follows DCPS policy. Kids at walls are nothing if not compliant and grade driven. But those grades are inflated because of DCPS policies that teachers have to follow.

Wrong again.

You just don’t get it do you?

You just keep doubling down on your lack of reading comprehension.

The article is specific to Walls and in fact from the Walls student newspaper.

Walls doesn’t exactly track DCPS in everything. For instance, Walls requires a couple of AP classes but DCPS doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i have one kid who is thriving at Walls and my 8th grader didn’t get an interview. My younger is a wonderful, smart, kind and athletic kid. I guess i can take solace in the fact that they will likely thrive anywhere.

I'm in the same boat as you and I've heard this has happened to multiple families this year.

[Anonymous]

If people only reviewed the info that's provided......you'd have 95% of the answers you seek!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If people only reviewed the info that's provided......you'd have 95% of the answers you seek!

Do you have skin in the game or just here to troll?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

I agree that 3.0 is the minimum to apply. However, I do wonder how they figure out the 3.7 part of it - it can't be based on the number of students that they decide to interview - otherwise everyone meeting that threshold GPA would be interviewed which is clearly not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

I agree that 3.0 is the minimum to apply. However, I do wonder how they figure out the 3.7 part of it - it can't be based on the number of students that they decide to interview - otherwise everyone meeting that threshold GPA would be interviewed which is clearly not the case.

They figure what the cut off is going to be based on the highest gpa's of the applicant pool. So let's say they have decided ahead of time that they will interview 500 students. They will take the top 500 of the pool, which may mean the cut off ends up being 4.0 if there are 500 with a 4.0, so it will vary each year and they can not give an exact cut off beforehand. Last year it ended up being 3.78 or something like that. If you have read the previous 42 pages of this thread, you will see that adding the teacher recommendations this year made this calculation somewhat different than in previous years, but this is why the "cut off" changes or why they can not tell you exactly what that is when you apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

I agree that 3.0 is the minimum to apply. However, I do wonder how they figure out the 3.7 part of it - it can't be based on the number of students that they decide to interview - otherwise everyone meeting that threshold GPA would be interviewed which is clearly not the case.

They figure what the cut off is going to be based on the highest gpa's of the applicant pool. So let's say they have decided ahead of time that they will interview 500 students. They will take the top 500 of the pool, which may mean the cut off ends up being 4.0 if there are 500 with a 4.0, so it will vary each year and they can not give an exact cut off beforehand. Last year it ended up being 3.78 or something like that. If you have read the previous 42 pages of this thread, you will see that adding the teacher recommendations this year made this calculation somewhat different than in previous years, but this is why the "cut off" changes or why they can not tell you exactly what that is when you apply.

Sure, the cut-off changes based on the particular applicant pool, no question. And yes, adding the teacher recommendations made this calculation somewhat different.

I'm still left wondering what the calculation is - how do they determine what the cut-off is? So if they decide they want to interview 300 kids - do they figure out what GPA will get them 300 kids plus 15, plus 50, plus 100? And then once they have that number, it appears that they then would take the 300 kids with the highest teacher recommendation. I'm wondering how they determine what the plus factor is. One can imagine a scenario where they could just stick with a 3.0 GPA cut-off and take the 300 kids with the highest teacher recommendation scores and then there isn't per se another GPA cut-off.

[Anonymous]

Well Parent Teacher Conferences are March 14th. It's an opportunity to ask your current child's Math/English teacher directly what was in those letters and how your child could have improved their score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people only reviewed the info that's provided......you'd have 95% of the answers you seek!

Do you have skin in the game or just here to troll?

Sounds like you are non-reader! Been thru this-kid is a student at SWW now. So you decide...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

I agree that 3.0 is the minimum to apply. However, I do wonder how they figure out the 3.7 part of it - it can't be based on the number of students that they decide to interview - otherwise everyone meeting that threshold GPA would be interviewed which is clearly not the case.

They figure what the cut off is going to be based on the highest gpa's of the applicant pool. So let's say they have decided ahead of time that they will interview 500 students. They will take the top 500 of the pool, which may mean the cut off ends up being 4.0 if there are 500 with a 4.0, so it will vary each year and they can not give an exact cut off beforehand. Last year it ended up being 3.78 or something like that. If you have read the previous 42 pages of this thread, you will see that adding the teacher recommendations this year made this calculation somewhat different than in previous years, but this is why the "cut off" changes or why they can not tell you exactly what that is when you apply.

Sure, the cut-off changes based on the particular applicant pool, no question. And yes, adding the teacher recommendations made this calculation somewhat different.

I'm still left wondering what the calculation is - how do they determine what the cut-off is? So if they decide they want to interview 300 kids - do they figure out what GPA will get them 300 kids plus 15, plus 50, plus 100? And then once they have that number, it appears that they then would take the 300 kids with the highest teacher recommendation. I'm wondering how they determine what the plus factor is. One can imagine a scenario where they could just stick with a 3.0 GPA cut-off and take the 300 kids with the highest teacher recommendation scores and then there isn't per se another GPA cut-off.

With the teacher recs now, I was thinking that when they say "3.7 was the cut-off" it more meant that the lowest GPA of someone who got an interview was 3.7, but not necessarily that GPA played a role beyond the points they awarded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if we can expect any further transparency without going the route of a letter writing campaign, op-Ed's, council hearings, and FOIA requests. Sherwood walls would save us all the aggravation, and just explain themselves. Report all the stats.

I filed a FOIA request asking for the admissions criteria for this year. Why it is secret? When I asked they refused to share any specifics. They seem to have forgotten they are a public school.

The FOIA request will have to be very specific--you can't just ask for "admissions criteria" or you will get the standard language about GPA, recommendations, interviews etc. Say that you would like to see the interview scoring rubric, any training materials for interviewers, how student interviewers are selected and what (if anything) makes them ineligible to interview a candidate, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tracking here this thread has jumped from:

1. Did you get an interview yes/no?
2. When/Why did the weigh recommendations letter so heavily. Who graded these letter and how?
3. Should they reinstate the entrance exam?
4. They should use PARCC scores or other standardized tests.
5. Students should not be a part of the interview process.
6. What is the most fair and equitable process?

GPA, interview, essay would be my preference for admission. And stop advertising a 3.0 as a minimum when a 3.7 historically has been the minimum for an interview.

In different emails from SWW they told both that 3.0 and 3.7 was the cut-off. How can they not know?

They seem confused by their own standards and can't keep their story straight. The admissions process is a mess, and anything but transparent and fair.

There are two different cut offs - 3.0 is the minimum to apply. Once the applications are in, the cut off for who gets an interview is dependent on the top however many students they decide to interview, which in the past, has been a 3.7 or higher, but it is not an exact "cut off". They "don't know" because it depends on the application pool. I am not trying to argue that the admissions process is not a mess, or is transparent and fair, but just that this is one part that is fairly clear and does make some sense.

Thank you. Why it's necessary to have to hunt through an anonymous forum to get this information is beyond why. Why is SWW so opposed to transparency in the process? It's frustrating and suspicious at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No interview here either. Damn. This letter should've provided some statistics about how many applicants there were for how many spots and what that ultimate GPA threshold was or what the combined score with the recommendation letters was. We had to remind our kid's math teacher three times and she ended up submitting her letter on the last day. I can only imagine how great it wasn't.

You can request this information through DCPS's FOIA process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No interview here either. Damn. This letter should've provided some statistics about how many applicants there were for how many spots and what that ultimate GPA threshold was or what the combined score with the recommendation letters was. We had to remind our kid's math teacher three times and she ended up submitting her letter on the last day. I can only imagine how great it wasn't.

My strong suspicion is that teachers who wrote a generic form letter saying x kid is great without any specifics so they could just insert various kids' names were more effective at getting their students interviews. Those who wrote detailed letters that perhaps highlighted strengths and weaknesses were probably penalized. I wonder if SWW even bothered to flag cut-and-pasted recommendations.

To be clear, I don't blame the teachers many of whom are already overworked and didn't have time to write individualized letters.