BASIS DC first graduating class college acceptances list

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe. They don't seem to be promoting/arranging the STEM mentoring, lab research and publishing relationships that the top public math/science high school programs elsewhere use to help kids stand out when applying to the country's best programs, e.g. MIT, Princeton, Cornell Engineering, Cal Tech. Attend a TJ open house and you'll understand what I'm talking about. Where are the NASA, National Academy of Sciences and Smithsonian Air and Space internships for the BASIS DC crew? They attract the STEM professional parents who could help arrange the mentoring, but hardly use them to do it. They're wasting a hell of a resource.

It isn't a STEM school.

And in fact the graduates headed to Princeton and Barnard did their senior projects with two different Smithsonians (on ocean acidification and astronomy respectively) and are planning on pursuing those fields in college. One had been working with the museum scientists for the last 2 years.

I am not the PP and I hear this. The above is great. However, shouldn't it be sort of an 'everything' school given what it presents as an accelerated in every subject curriculum? As much as we loved Latin, we also saw weakness in STEM in the early years and they also could have tapped into parents and partnerships much more in the early years. I would not be complacent. Even if not a STEM school, it surely has STEM kids and the opportunities above are in this area for the plucking. Perhaps a parent committee if the school is strapped for bandwidth?[/quote]
+100. Of course the school is strapped for bandwidth, big time. It's a DC charter housed in a cramped rehabbed office building.

[Anonymous]

A useful point of comparison when considering the relative competitiveness of elite college admissions applicant pools is the PSAT-National Merit Scholarship Program cutoffs score for National Merit Semifinalists by state. Arizona's 2017 cut-off score of 2019 is on the high side, but not in the upper echelon. DC's cut-off score this year is 222. Only one state, MA, attains this score- the other 49 have lower cut-offs. http://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/

I've been interviewing applicants to my Ivy from this Metro area for a long time. Interestingly, each winter for the last 6 or 7 years, my Ivy has asked me to volunteer to Skype interview AZ applicants, mostly BASIS seniors. Apparently, grads of my Ivy--the interviewers--are thin on the ground in the Southwest. After I've interviewed my assigned AZ applicants, generally 6-8 an admissions season, I invariably predict, privately, that none will be admitted. This is because experience tells me that DC Metro area applicants with similar backgrounds (the applicants I'm more accustomed to) would almost certainly not be admitted, unless perhaps they were legacies or recruited athletes. But every year, at least one of the AZ applicants I've dismissed as a no-hoper is admitted. Over time, it's become clear to me that the DC applicants are in a different, significantly tougher applicant pool for colleges admitting in the single digits and low teens than the AZ group.

BASIS AZ applicants enjoy a clear advantage in elite college admissions by virtue of their location. When they apply to schools with highly competitive admissions, they're applying to colleges in Cal, Chicago, the NE or the Mid-Atlantic states, not in their region. Elite colleges essentially run affirmative action programs for geographically under-represented swathes of the country. They want at least a sprinkling of members of a freshman class from each state.

If BASIS DC wants to wrack up admissions successes that resemble TJ's, the school needs to play TJ's game to a certain extent. DC parents tend to assume that their kids will get a break in admissions for having graduated from a DC public school. From what I've observed, this brand of optimism is unwarranted- the breaks go to low-income students, legacies and recruited athletes. Unfortunately, your high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA BASIS kid is competing against other high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA kids from this Metro area for a spot at a certain college. But on a bright note, your applicant automatically enjoys a significant comparative advantage over MoCo and VA applicants - they live and study much nearer to federal agency HQs, Smithsonian museums, the Library of Congress and other downtown fonts of knowledge. If a serious STEM-oriented mentoring-research-science competition prep-academic paper publishing program were set up to help them take advantage of their prime location, these well-prepared kids would be in a strong position to level the playing field. Money sounds like the chief obstacle.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A useful point of comparison when considering the relative competitiveness of elite college admissions applicant pools is the PSAT-National Merit Scholarship Program cutoffs score for National Merit Semifinalists by state. Arizona's 2017 cut-off score of 2019 is on the high side, but not in the upper echelon. DC's cut-off score this year is 222. Only one state, MA, attains this score- the other 49 have lower cut-offs. http://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/

I've been interviewing applicants to my Ivy from this Metro area for a long time. Interestingly, each winter for the last 6 or 7 years, my Ivy has asked me to volunteer to Skype interview AZ applicants, mostly BASIS seniors. Apparently, grads of my Ivy--the interviewers--are thin on the ground in the Southwest. After I've interviewed my assigned AZ applicants, generally 6-8 an admissions season, I invariably predict, privately, that none will be admitted. This is because experience tells me that DC Metro area applicants with similar backgrounds (the applicants I'm more accustomed to) would almost certainly not be admitted, unless perhaps they were legacies or recruited athletes. But every year, at least one of the AZ applicants I've dismissed as a no-hoper is admitted. Over time, it's become clear to me that the DC applicants are in a different, significantly tougher applicant pool for colleges admitting in the single digits and low teens than the AZ group.

BASIS AZ applicants enjoy a clear advantage in elite college admissions by virtue of their location. When they apply to schools with highly competitive admissions, they're applying to colleges in Cal, Chicago, the NE or the Mid-Atlantic states, not in their region. Elite colleges essentially run affirmative action programs for geographically under-represented swathes of the country. They want at least a sprinkling of members of a freshman class from each state.

If BASIS DC wants to wrack up admissions successes that resemble TJ's, the school needs to play TJ's game to a certain extent. DC parents tend to assume that their kids will get a break in admissions for having graduated from a DC public school. From what I've observed, this brand of optimism is unwarranted- the breaks go to low-income students, legacies and recruited athletes. Unfortunately, your high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA BASIS kid is competing against other high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA kids from this Metro area for a spot at a certain college. But on a bright note, your applicant automatically enjoys a significant comparative advantage over MoCo and VA applicants - they live and study much nearer to federal agency HQs, Smithsonian museums, the Library of Congress and other downtown fonts of knowledge. If a serious STEM-oriented mentoring-research-science competition prep-academic paper publishing program were set up to help them take advantage of their prime location, these well-prepared kids would be in a strong position to level the playing field. Money sounds like the chief obstacle.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for your post! Very informative. I think I know the answer to this question, but I'll ask anyway. So would DC students have a better chance of getting into elite schools on the West coast?

[Anonymous]

Probably not for Stanford (admitting less than 6%), Cal Tech and Pomona, but I'd guess yes, at least slightly, for other, somewhat less competitive, West Coast schools.

It's getting a little easier for out of state applicants to crack Cal state schools because they pay a lot more tuition than state residents, and the state needs the dough.

[Anonymous]

I know this thread is about colleges. I want to say that IF my children don't get into an Ivy coming out of Basis, they will not have wasted their hard work! Gosh people. Seriously! They will have learned!!! My kids have learned amazing things at Basis. Their school has treasures to offer. Quit thinking of it as an institutional nightmare. We love Basis.

[Anonymous]

Basis parent -- how would I even afford an ivy? That is not at all where we are thinking either but rather a smaller more affordable school.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't be so sure that you couldn't afford an Ivy if your kid was admitted to one. Most of them have started giving middle-class families earning up to 200K seriously good financial aid. It's just as tough to get into top liberal arts colleges as Ivies these days. Plenty of kids who are admitted to Cornell, UPenn, Dartmouth, Brown etc. are rejected by Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Bowdoin etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A useful point of comparison when considering the relative competitiveness of elite college admissions applicant pools is the PSAT-National Merit Scholarship Program cutoffs score for National Merit Semifinalists by state. Arizona's 2017 cut-off score of 2019 is on the high side, but not in the upper echelon. DC's cut-off score this year is 222. Only one state, MA, attains this score- the other 49 have lower cut-offs. http://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/

I've been interviewing applicants to my Ivy from this Metro area for a long time. Interestingly, each winter for the last 6 or 7 years, my Ivy has asked me to volunteer to Skype interview AZ applicants, mostly BASIS seniors. Apparently, grads of my Ivy--the interviewers--are thin on the ground in the Southwest. After I've interviewed my assigned AZ applicants, generally 6-8 an admissions season, I invariably predict, privately, that none will be admitted. This is because experience tells me that DC Metro area applicants with similar backgrounds (the applicants I'm more accustomed to) would almost certainly not be admitted, unless perhaps they were legacies or recruited athletes. But every year, at least one of the AZ applicants I've dismissed as a no-hoper is admitted. Over time, it's become clear to me that the DC applicants are in a different, significantly tougher applicant pool for colleges admitting in the single digits and low teens than the AZ group.

BASIS AZ applicants enjoy a clear advantage in elite college admissions by virtue of their location. When they apply to schools with highly competitive admissions, they're applying to colleges in Cal, Chicago, the NE or the Mid-Atlantic states, not in their region. Elite colleges essentially run affirmative action programs for geographically under-represented swathes of the country. They want at least a sprinkling of members of a freshman class from each state.

If BASIS DC wants to wrack up admissions successes that resemble TJ's, the school needs to play TJ's game to a certain extent. DC parents tend to assume that their kids will get a break in admissions for having graduated from a DC public school. From what I've observed, this brand of optimism is unwarranted- the breaks go to low-income students, legacies and recruited athletes. Unfortunately, your high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA BASIS kid is competing against other high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA kids from this Metro area for a spot at a certain college. But on a bright note, your applicant automatically enjoys a significant comparative advantage over MoCo and VA applicants - they live and study much nearer to federal agency HQs, Smithsonian museums, the Library of Congress and other downtown fonts of knowledge. If a serious STEM-oriented mentoring-research-science competition prep-academic paper publishing program were set up to help them take advantage of their prime location, these well-prepared kids would be in a strong position to level the playing field. Money sounds like the chief obstacle.

Hope that helps.

So if these same BASIS Arizona seniors were in the DC market, they wouldn't compare favorably to the elite-level students in the DC Metro area? What are you seeing as the major differences? Not as academically strong? Test scores? Something else? Put another way, how are the DC students who are ultimately successful in getting into an Ivy more accomplished (assuming they are not an athlete, legacy, etc. etc.)

[Anonymous]

She's saying there's a DMV quota -- and the density alone means that it's tougher to get admissions to the most elite schools from DC.

There are simply fewer high scoring kids in a state like Arizona.

You see similar concerns on the Virginia board among parents who want to send their kids to UVa or William and Mary but are from No Va. The seats for in-state students are balanced regionally so a student from rural Virginia may be admitted over a NoVA student with better scores/GPA.

[Anonymous]

Why are people saying BASIS is good based on the college acceptance record? Basically 1 kid in the entire class got into some top schools and the rest --- bad schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She's saying there's a DMV quota -- and the density alone means that it's tougher to get admissions to the most elite schools from DC.

There are simply fewer high scoring kids in a state like Arizona.

You see similar concerns on the Virginia board among parents who want to send their kids to UVa or William and Mary but are from No Va. The seats for in-state students are balanced regionally so a student from rural Virginia may be admitted over a NoVA student with better scores/GPA.

Yes, I get that but I was just curious about how much less "qualified or competitive" the students from BASIS Arizona would have been had they been in DC instead. And it can't just be test scores because perfect scores or near perfect scores which have been seen at BASIS Arizona are still perfect scores in DC. PP made the statement that none of the Arizona students that were interviewed would have been accepted, so I am thinking that these students overall package is somewhat less impressive than in DC. Maybe it is all about the national STEM competitions where TJ really excels...or some other national level results in other areas.

[Anonymous]

Unless the alumni interviewer saw the files of every AZ BASIS grad (not just the ones who applied to her particular alma mater) she can't know the answer to this question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unless the alumni interviewer saw the files of every AZ BASIS grad (not just the ones who applied to her particular alma mater) she can't know the answer to this question.

BASIS network college acceptances 2012-2016 (doesn't include DC). http://basised.com/achievements-and-results/college-acceptances.php

[Anonymous]

But ultimately according to pp, BASIS DC needs to up its game above and beyond that of BASIS Arizona in order to achieve the same results because the DC Metro area is far more competitive than Arizona. So it will be interesting to see whether BASIS DC can stand out among the other schools in DC (public and private) in a few years. If not, does that mean that BASIS, despite having the reputation of being for more rigorous, is in reality no better than any other school? Is using the elite school admissions even a fair barometer or is there too much emphasis on this one aspect and not enough emphasis on other things such as the readiness of the students for college, merit-based scholarships, etc. etc. Perhaps we latch on to elite schools because it is one of the more tangible things we can easily measure whereas looking at how students perform during and after college would be difficult to gauge and would require quite a bit of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But ultimately according to pp, BASIS DC needs to up its game above and beyond that of BASIS Arizona in order to achieve the same results because the DC Metro area is far more competitive than Arizona. So it will be interesting to see whether BASIS DC can stand out among the other schools in DC (public and private) in a few years. If not, does that mean that BASIS, despite having the reputation of being for more rigorous, is in reality no better than any other school? Is using the elite school admissions even a fair barometer or is there too much emphasis on this one aspect and not enough emphasis on other things such as the readiness of the students for college, merit-based scholarships, etc. etc. Perhaps we latch on to elite schools because it is one of the more tangible things we can easily measure whereas looking at how students perform during and after college would be difficult to gauge and would require quite a bit of time.

I'm a BASIS parent who has posted above.

We're not hoping to get our kids into an Ivy and that isn't our yardstick. We are at BASIS because it provides a solid, college prepatory curriculum which is benchmarked externally (the AP tests).

The classes aren't any harder than what you could do at Walls or Wilson (AP is AP), except you start them earlier (8th or 9th grade) and students wind up taking a lot AP classes because that's what is offered (most students are done with AP by end of junior year and spend senior year doing post-AP seminars, senior projects and/or internships)

The one and only thing that makes it more "rigorous" than other DC schools is all students are REQUIRED to take 6 AP exams to graduate, including being required to do them in math, science and English. You can't avoid taking those classes in your 'weaker' subjects (if you have them). And your AP exam scores, pass or fail, are heavily factored into your GPA.

At Walls or Banneker if you enroll in an AP, you must sit for the exam, but the exam grade doesn't count for anything in high school.