school without walls essay prompt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe -- and I say this as someone with a kid already at Walls -- is that the school knows they need more rigor in the application process, but they still want wiggle room to choose who they want without getting sued. An essay is subjective, unlike a standardized test.

+1...Kid also at Walls. The Principal wanted a more holistic admissions system. Going by GPA or just a test eliminates a lot of kids that would do well given the opportunity. A family event, bad teacher, etc. can easily lead to a lower grade than normal. Can't please everyone but hopefully this will give more kids a chance.

It doesn't give more kids a chance -- the numbers are the same.

It just gives the Principal the power to play God with kids' educations.

Right — to me it would be more fair to do a test, but take the top X finishers by zoned school to make sure kids from across the city get a chance. Interview & essay still feels pretty subjective.

Sure. But if they did that, they'd have to keep track of test scores. You could foia it and argue with the choice, in either direction. Maybe you could even argue its legality, if zoned school proxied very closely for race. But this way, they don't even touch student test score data in the admissions process. The opaqueness of the process protects them.

I had visibility to the process as the school had exposed it accidentally. I will tell you from what I saw:
- If you had the minimum required GPA you were allowed to sit for the test. They used to also require a "4" on PARCC/the previous test for DCPS/DCPCS students.
- Top ~ 2x 9th grade enrollment from the test qualified to interview. If students had the same score from the test and that score was the cut-off, all students with that score were invited to interview.
- They interviewed (Black box on how they scored)
- From the interview score and test score, they created a ranked list and this created the list for who was accepted and who was put on the waitlist and the order they were on the waitlist

This process - although not perfect - was a bit of an equalizer.
If you had the minimum GPA set by walls (I think it was a 3.0 at the time) it removed the issue of your child having the hard grader. It also equalized for kids who may have struggled with executive functioning (which is a lot of middle school) but had the intelligence and things had not quite evened out yet.

Interesting. Thanks for posting. I had wondered if there was a component to spread acceptances among middle schools around the city (ie cutoff at deal might be higher).

NP who has knowledge of the process. There is no spread of acceptances among middle schools. Walls continues to be dominated by former Deal kids and Basis kids. Perhaps that will change over time but for now that has been the case.

More Basis kids than Hardy kids?

[Anonymous]

I didn’t realize they used an interview to rank even when they had the test. That’s as arbitrary as the grade cutoff to get an interview last year, so I’m less annoyed at them dropping the test! They probably interviewed 2x the class last year, too, just picked by grade. I still think the interview is really bad, for all the many reasons that have been discussed.

In many ways the big switch was not dropping the test but going from interviewing 2x the class (300 students) to 3.33x the class (500 students). In the old days the waitlist typically cleared or came close to clearing, so basically everyone who interviewed got in. Now even by count day 100+ students are left on the waitlist, so the interview score is what determines whether or not students are admitted.

This is why it’s so interesting to me that this year Walls isn’t saying how many kids they will interview. If the number interviewed goes down, the importance of the interview will go down.

At one of the Open Houses they said that they would interview ~350 students this year.

[Anonymous]

Just moved to DC. Why isn't it just like NYC stuyvesant nd bronx: everybody who wants to take test does and top scores get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just moved to DC. Why isn't it just like NYC stuyvesant nd bronx: everybody who wants to take test does and top scores get in?

TJ is like Stuyvesant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just moved to DC. Why isn't it just like NYC stuyvesant nd bronx: everybody who wants to take test does and top scores get in?

That is exactly what DCPS should do but doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

I don’t see why DCPS “should” do it. There is a big Asian lobby in NYC that advocates for test-based admissions. There is no similar lobby in DC. Both school systems have policies that reflect local priorities. Another example is, NYC doesn’t have any by-right neighborhood high schools. Are you saying DC should get rid of those too? Just to be more like NYC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just moved to DC. Why isn't it just like NYC stuyvesant nd bronx: everybody who wants to take test does and top scores get in?

That is exactly what DCPS should do but doesn’t.

It would be amazing if DCPS let schools like this exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see why DCPS “should” do it. There is a big Asian lobby in NYC that advocates for test-based admissions. There is no similar lobby in DC. Both school systems have policies that reflect local priorities. Another example is, NYC doesn’t have any by-right neighborhood high schools. Are you saying DC should get rid of those too? Just to be more like NYC?

DCPS should do this because test scores are a fairly reliable way of predicting who will be most successful at the school, and it will providr those kids with needed advanced programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe -- and I say this as someone with a kid already at Walls -- is that the school knows they need more rigor in the application process, but they still want wiggle room to choose who they want without getting sued. An essay is subjective, unlike a standardized test.

+1...Kid also at Walls. The Principal wanted a more holistic admissions system. Going by GPA or just a test eliminates a lot of kids that would do well given the opportunity. A family event, bad teacher, etc. can easily lead to a lower grade than normal. Can't please everyone but hopefully this will give more kids a chance.

It doesn't give more kids a chance -- the numbers are the same.

It just gives the Principal the power to play God with kids' educations.

Right — to me it would be more fair to do a test, but take the top X finishers by zoned school to make sure kids from across the city get a chance. Interview & essay still feels pretty subjective.

Sure. But if they did that, they'd have to keep track of test scores. You could foia it and argue with the choice, in either direction. Maybe you could even argue its legality, if zoned school proxied very closely for race. But this way, they don't even touch student test score data in the admissions process. The opaqueness of the process protects them.

I had visibility to the process as the school had exposed it accidentally. I will tell you from what I saw:
- If you had the minimum required GPA you were allowed to sit for the test. They used to also require a "4" on PARCC/the previous test for DCPS/DCPCS students.
- Top ~ 2x 9th grade enrollment from the test qualified to interview. If students had the same score from the test and that score was the cut-off, all students with that score were invited to interview.
- They interviewed (Black box on how they scored)
- From the interview score and test score, they created a ranked list and this created the list for who was accepted and who was put on the waitlist and the order they were on the waitlist

This process - although not perfect - was a bit of an equalizer.
If you had the minimum GPA set by walls (I think it was a 3.0 at the time) it removed the issue of your child having the hard grader. It also equalized for kids who may have struggled with executive functioning (which is a lot of middle school) but had the intelligence and things had not quite evened out yet.

Interesting. Thanks for posting. I had wondered if there was a component to spread acceptances among middle schools around the city (ie cutoff at deal might be higher).

NP who has knowledge of the process. There is no spread of acceptances among middle schools. Walls continues to be dominated by former Deal kids and Basis kids. Perhaps that will change over time but for now that has been the case.

More Basis kids than Hardy kids?

No. Maybe Deal and Basis kids are "dominating" Walls but, at least for Basis, not in admission numbers. In fact, the number of Basis kids switching to Walls in 9th grade has gone down in recent years because Basis offers a more rigorous curriculum than Walls, improves every year, and doesn't offer a compelling reason to leave in 9th grade. Plus, by scrapping their admission test a few year years ago and substituting a dumb system based on GPA, teacher recs, and a short interview, Walls just incentivizes and rewards applications from schools with massive grade inflation and/or that stop in MS.

Here are the numbers of kids who left middle schools for Walls for SY 23-24:

Deal: 41
Hardy: 24
DCI: 13
Oyster: 10
Other schools including Basis: <10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see why DCPS “should” do it. There is a big Asian lobby in NYC that advocates for test-based admissions. There is no similar lobby in DC. Both school systems have policies that reflect local priorities. Another example is, NYC doesn’t have any by-right neighborhood high schools. Are you saying DC should get rid of those too? Just to be more like NYC?

Actually, every major city with magnet schools has an entrance exam except for Washington, DC.

It is not about a "big Asian lobby" (which, frankly, is a pretty offensive reference). It is about providing a decent high school option for the best students in DC. Otherwise, they will just move to the burbs or private, as many now do. Or wither away in bad in-bounds schools.

Why should DC be the outlier when NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, etc. all have an admission test for magnet schools?

Plus, no one can possibly defend Walls' current ridiculous admission system based on a GPA cut-off from grade-inflated, generally poor middle schools, teacher recommendations from overworked math and English teachers, and a 10-minute interview with a current high-school student/teacher. Literally, NO other big city does anything like that.

[Anonymous]

In the words of both the wise and unwise, “it is what it is.” Be sure to cast a wide net for your kid’s high school search.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the words of both the wise and unwise, “it is what it is.” Be sure to cast a wide net for your kid’s high school search.

This. Accept it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the words of both the wise and unwise, “it is what it is.” Be sure to cast a wide net for your kid’s high school search.

This. Accept it.

What people really need to accept is that the number of high-scoring kids in DC is rising. The number of 7th graders scoring 5 on ELA rose from 140 in 2015, to 377 in 2019, to 434 in 2023. Meanwhile the number of seats at Walls has risen … from 149 to 158.

Just a decade ago, there used to be room at Walls for every kid scoring 5 on ELA in 7th grade. Now, no matter how they do admissions, most of those kids will be excluded.

[Anonymous]

Is there any evidence that these gifted programs are necessary or that they produce genuine innovators or scholars?

I went to an HYP with lots of kids from Stuyvesant and Lowell. Do some have impressive outcomes? Sure. More impressive than the kids who were just the smart kid at the local public high school? Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the words of both the wise and unwise, “it is what it is.” Be sure to cast a wide net for your kid’s high school search.

This. Accept it.

What people really need to accept is that the number of high-scoring kids in DC is rising. The number of 7th graders scoring 5 on ELA rose from 140 in 2015, to 377 in 2019, to 434 in 2023. Meanwhile the number of seats at Walls has risen … from 149 to 158.

Just a decade ago, there used to be room at Walls for every kid scoring 5 on ELA in 7th grade. Now, no matter how they do admissions, most of those kids will be excluded.

How much of that is due to other states dropping out and our standards getting weaker?