Walls- Is it really as great as people say

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This conversation is a weird one to me. OP started it by asking if Walls is so great. That somehow devolved into how many kids got into/go to Ivies from Walls, as if that's the measure of a good school. But it got me thinking, at the private HS that I attended, we had not a single kid go to an Ivy League school. It just feels a bit warped to be like, this public high school in Washington DC ONLY sends about a dozen kids to Ivies in a year. And the kids they send are only URM or hooked. I'm not sure if the comments are coming from the private sector forum parents trying to justify their decisions, or the same poster who keeps commenting on every Walls post about how all their son's brilliant friends who are now at Sidwell and Gonzaga are doing just fine but couldn't get into Walls.

Either way,

it seems pretty great to me that a public school in DC is sending any kids to Ivies.

And for those who care about such things, that seems like an indicator of a good school.

I can't answer whether Walls is a great as everyone says since there's an equal number of haters as those who boost it. From my vantage point, it's a great public school option that, as previous posters have said, puts a select group of smart, motivated kids all together. Peers mattered a lot in my education experience and I think that is a pretty significant measure to consider. We've been happy with the teachers and activities available to our child. And they are enjoying the school and environment. They love being in a more urban setting in Foggy Bottom and the independence that that entails.

You have a low bar. My public school in the Deep South sent and sends several students to Ivies every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This conversation is a weird one to me. OP started it by asking if Walls is so great. That somehow devolved into how many kids got into/go to Ivies from Walls, as if that's the measure of a good school. But it got me thinking, at the private HS that I attended, we had not a single kid go to an Ivy League school. It just feels a bit warped to be like, this public high school in Washington DC ONLY sends about a dozen kids to Ivies in a year. And the kids they send are only URM or hooked. I'm not sure if the comments are coming from the private sector forum parents trying to justify their decisions, or the same poster who keeps commenting on every Walls post about how all their son's brilliant friends who are now at Sidwell and Gonzaga are doing just fine but couldn't get into Walls.

Either way,

it seems pretty great to me that a public school in DC is sending any kids to Ivies.

And for those who care about such things, that seems like an indicator of a good school.

I can't answer whether Walls is a great as everyone says since there's an equal number of haters as those who boost it. From my vantage point, it's a great public school option that, as previous posters have said, puts a select group of smart, motivated kids all together. Peers mattered a lot in my education experience and I think that is a pretty significant measure to consider. We've been happy with the teachers and activities available to our child. And they are enjoying the school and environment. They love being in a more urban setting in Foggy Bottom and the independence that that entails.

You have a low bar. My public school in the Deep South sent and sends several students to Ivies every year.

You are going to have to reset your expectations for an East Coast city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right.

10 went to an Ivy, mostly Cornell and Penn. 1 to Stanford.

That is 6-7% of the class.

I seem to remember a Harvard admit as well

[Anonymous]

Last year was an exceptional year at Walls.
It seemed like 30% of the class went to a high to well regarded college/university. It was also a very tight knit class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year was an exceptional year at Walls.
It seemed like 30% of the class went to a high to well regarded college/university. It was also a very tight knit class.

True but I believe the class preceding them was lackluster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s only “great” as compared to the other DCPS high schools. And with a cherry-picked cohort of on-grade, motivated kids it should be the best HS in DC. But, it would really only be considered a normal, average school in most upper middle class suburbs.

DCPS for whatever reason has decided that their application schools will be "better" than comprehensive schools, but not even close to the magnet programs in the area.

If you look at TJ, it of course pulls the best-and-brightest, but also provides the best facilities/resources of any public school in NoVa and offers courses and activities that none of the NoVA publich HSs come close to matching. Walls arguably has some of the worst facilities, or more accurately no facilities.

That said, Walls is also an outlier for the area. I am not aware of any non-STEM magnet schools in our area. Walls definitely offers STEM classes, but it is not the reason for its existence like TJ, Blair Magnet, Poolesville Magnet, etc.

I know Walls had a very progressive reason for its existence when it was founded. It was supposed to incorporate experiential learning as core to the process...i.e., we are learning about US Government, let's go to the US Capitol right now and see Congress in action...it was supposed to be a School Without Walls. It is now a very traditional school.

This is interesting.

Is there any movement to get back to that experiential model?

I haven’t heard of any, but since dropping the (math heavy) entrance exam I think they have been emphasizing the “humanities” part of their mission statement more.

None of what you’ve said is true. The exam was not math heavy- it was 50% math, 50% English. There has been no increase in emphasizing the humanities mission of the school. It’s a pretty typical HS at this point- tons of APs, just humanities instead of English.

[Anonymous]

Oh and lots of kids bombed the math portion of the entrance exam and still got into the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year was an exceptional year at Walls.
It seemed like 30% of the class went to a high to well regarded college/university. It was also a very tight knit class.

True but I believe the class preceding them was lackluster

This seems unfair. They had school closed for half of their sophomore and their entire junior year. They really had a sh**y HS experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year was an exceptional year at Walls.
It seemed like 30% of the class went to a high to well regarded college/university. It was also a very tight knit class.

True but I believe the class preceding them was lackluster

This seems unfair. They had school closed for half of their sophomore and their entire junior year. They really had a sh**y HS experience.

Well, also because Walls did a sh**y job with DL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right.

10 went to an Ivy, mostly Cornell and Penn. 1 to Stanford.

That is 6-7% of the class.

I seem to remember a Harvard admit as well

Yes. And admits at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton, and Yale. I believe two chose Yale, three Penn.

[Anonymous]

Walls is not that great considering kids test in and it excludes most kids with disabilities, ESOL learners, and poor kids. Look to schools like DCI to see real education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walls is not that great considering kids test in and it excludes most kids with disabilities, ESOL learners, and poor kids. Look to schools like DCI to see real education

So SWW intentionally ignores the kids mentioned that meet the GPA cutoff...Got it! There is no test anymore.

[Anonymous]

Someone upthread said that students have a better chance of getting into Walls if they are a minority. That is not true. If the student is from an underrepresented school or ward, then maybe. But upper middle class minorities and non-minorities have the same chance. That would explain why some UMC black students who excel at school were not accepted at Walls. Race has nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous]

White UMC studnets have the best chance of getting in.

[Anonymous]

Don't have as much science, math & engineering as Jackson-Reed or McKinley Tech. More drug/alcohol use on the average. Some kids are happy there but if you are not - it's harder to find your niche as it is smaller.