SWW - when do notices go out about interviews?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

As somebody who has been reading this forum for years, there is definitely a change in the number of posts/questions about pk3 lists vs middle and high school. Lots more folks playing the lottery game in DCPS/charter in the upper grades in DCUM land

You sure? Or is it that think that when you buy a Jeep you suddenly notice there are sooooooooooooo many Jeeps on the road? Human nature is to notice more the things that matter to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

NP and I do think this is a big part of it.

+1. It’s THIS. Kids are definately not smarter and standards are so much lower. Grade inflation is rampant.

And that's why Walls has to rely so much on teacher recs to try to distinguish between good vs exceptional students. Which is really unfortunate because there is no consistent baseline for assessment in the recs across different teachers and different schools.

Grades supply insufficient differentiation, while the recs differentiate but with great subjectivity.

Not exactly a winner of a process, but DCPS only aims for mediocre. Excellence is too much work to shoot for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

NP and I do think this is a big part of it.

+1. It’s THIS. Kids are definately not smarter and standards are so much lower. Grade inflation is rampant.

And that's why Walls has to rely so much on teacher recs to try to distinguish between good vs exceptional students. Which is really unfortunate because there is no consistent baseline for assessment in the recs across different teachers and different schools.

Grades supply insufficient differentiation, while the recs differentiate but with great subjectivity.

Not exactly a winner of a process, but DCPS only aims for mediocre. Excellence is too much work to shoot for.

Good points. Don’t kid yourself. The school is mediocre at best. You want excellence, go to the burbs in schools where there is G & T in elementary, tracking in middle schools, and testing in addition to grade, recs to get into magnets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

As somebody who has been reading this forum for years, there is definitely a change in the number of posts/questions about pk3 lists vs middle and high school. Lots more folks playing the lottery game in DCPS/charter in the upper grades in DCUM land

You sure? Or is it that think that when you buy a Jeep you suddenly notice there are sooooooooooooo many Jeeps on the road? Human nature is to notice more the things that matter to you.

Probably a bit of both, and I am not going to go back and dig up old threads, but the number of panicked ECE/lottery threads used to overwhelm this forum. And the data confirms that there are more students in the middle/high school grades - both a result of birth rates rising/falling, as well as less families leaving the district for various reasons (choosing to stay, or stuck with interest rates, etc.). From my observation of the middle schools, I am not focusing as much on the grades which may or may not be inflated, but the novels they are reading, projects they are doing, math they are learning etc. From my impression, my kids are learning similar content to their cousins in suburban schools. My kids are going to school, doing the assignments, and participating in class. The data gets skewed by kids who are absent, don't do the work, etc.

[Anonymous]

DP: Hardy has student read whole novels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DP: Hardy has student read whole novels.

Didn't help my Hardy 4.0 kid get an interview this year. I guess we really are the new Deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP: Hardy has student read whole novels.

Didn't help my Hardy 4.0 kid get an interview this year. I guess we really are the new Deal.

Not saying this is the right or wrong way to do things, but I wonder if they do a certain number/ percentage of interviews across various schools.
Making it less likely to get an interview if you go to a larger MS with more applications? I know this is the case when kids from big high schools apply to colleges, so it wouldn't surprise me if it is the same in this situation.

[Anonymous]

Some schools have no representation while others are overrepresented, which suggests that there aren’t school-specific quotas. It seems that teachers have the final say in the process, likely grouping students into tiers so that their top candidates are selected for interviews.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some schools have no representation while others are overrepresented, which suggests that there aren’t school-specific quotas. It seems that teachers have the final say in the process, likely grouping students into tiers so that their top candidates are selected for interviews.

What's your source for this? Are you actually comparing number invited to middle school size, or you just guessing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools have no representation while others are overrepresented, which suggests that there aren’t school-specific quotas. It seems that teachers have the final say in the process, likely grouping students into tiers so that their top candidates are selected for interviews.

What's your source for this? Are you actually comparing number invited to middle school size, or you just guessing?

Not the PP you’re responding to but the Edscape school enrollment pathways data show this information. You can see which middle schools Walls students come from, and how many students specific middle schools send. PP is correct. Deal and Hardy consistently send a greater proportion of students than other middle schools. https://edscape.dc.gov/node/1640846

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

As somebody who has been reading this forum for years, there is definitely a change in the number of posts/questions about pk3 lists vs middle and high school. Lots more folks playing the lottery game in DCPS/charter in the upper grades in DCUM land

You sure? Or is it that think that when you buy a Jeep you suddenly notice there are sooooooooooooo many Jeeps on the road? Human nature is to notice more the things that matter to you.

I agree with the earlier poster and my kids are still in ES. I’m guessing it’s because of when parents joined this board and never left, but there is *so* much more discussion of MS and *especially* HS here than when I started reading it in 2017. It’s extremely notable and I’m not interested in HS at all yet (none of my kids are even middle school aged yet), so it’s not that phenomenon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools have no representation while others are overrepresented, which suggests that there aren’t school-specific quotas. It seems that teachers have the final say in the process, likely grouping students into tiers so that their top candidates are selected for interviews.

What's your source for this? Are you actually comparing number invited to middle school size, or you just guessing?

Not the PP you’re responding to but the Edscape school enrollment pathways data show this information. You can see which middle schools Walls students come from, and how many students specific middle schools send. PP is correct. Deal and Hardy consistently send a greater proportion of students than other middle schools. https://edscape.dc.gov/node/1640846

But my guess is they send a smaller proportion of kids who are even plausible candidates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some schools have no representation while others are overrepresented, which suggests that there aren’t school-specific quotas. It seems that teachers have the final say in the process, likely grouping students into tiers so that their top candidates are selected for interviews.

What's your source for this? Are you actually comparing number invited to middle school size, or you just guessing?

Not the PP you’re responding to but the Edscape school enrollment pathways data show this information. You can see which middle schools Walls students come from, and how many students specific middle schools send. PP is correct. Deal and Hardy consistently send a greater proportion of students than other middle schools. https://edscape.dc.gov/node/1640846

But my guess is they send a smaller proportion of kids who are even plausible candidates.

Circular argument. If Walls was admitting a quota from each middle school, as the PP suggested, the strongest applicants from each middle school would be plausible candidates by definition.

There’s just no direct or statistical evidence that Walls uses middle school quotas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feeling a bit down about kid not getting SWW interview. I know there are many more qualified applicants etc.

+1. And I'm not sure there are too many *more* qualified applicants -- I think there must just be a big cluster at the top (4.0, top math track, etc.)

Much easier said than done this week, but if you think bigger picture and not about individual students, it is a good problem that there are so many high performing students applying to high schools.
Already in the past few years we have seen increased enrollment at Banneker, McKinley, and the beginning of an increase at Eastern. (I am not as familiar with all of the high schools, there may be more too).
I am the parent of a 7th grader so I know I will be stressing this time next year as well, but I do think it is not as dire as people think

I really wish you were right but I fear what's really happening is rampant grade inflation and ever lower standards.

As somebody who has been reading this forum for years, there is definitely a change in the number of posts/questions about pk3 lists vs middle and high school. Lots more folks playing the lottery game in DCPS/charter in the upper grades in DCUM land

You sure? Or is it that think that when you buy a Jeep you suddenly notice there are sooooooooooooo many Jeeps on the road? Human nature is to notice more the things that matter to you.

The number of kids staying in DC for middle and high school has in fact gone up. If you do a statistical analysis of attendance numbers, year over year, most of the increase in the system is due to increases in these grades, especially high school. This makes sense because our kids are some of the youngest kids who came of age in a situation where charter schools were a substantial part of the mix, so there is a certain level of trust in the system and an inclination not to leave at later grades.

[Anonymous]

Has there ever been a FOIA unified effort on SWW process? The children who were selected (or not) from our charter school for interview make no sense when it comes to academic apples to apples.