Capitol Hill - middle school and beyond?
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Anonymous
| You should start a new thread to compare the schools you want to know about. But before you do, try to search threads already on here discussing all of the schools you mentioned. You will get a good sense of what people think about those schools and may be able to ultimately ask more nuanced questions about them. Also, get ready for a lot of complaining and school bashing. Middle School is an especially touchy subject on this forum and is somehow brought into every other post. |
Anonymous
Their trumpeting of those rankings is one of the things I don't like about the school. - Another Basis parent. |
Anonymous
Just another booster claiming that BASIS is strong across the board when it's not. Yes, BASIS is far better than DCPS academically, because DCPS is mediocre at best, particularly at the MS level. The far more useful and valid comparison is how BASIS measures up to the ready alternatives for its families: the Latins, if families have lottery luck, the better suburban high schools in this Metro area if families move, and strong Metro area privates if families can afford them, perhaps with fi aid. Speaking from personal experience, ELA at BASIS isn't too hot. Their arts program is weak for a glaringly obvious reason: their arts facilities stink. The program makes poor use of the Smithsonian museums nearby, almost never taking students to them, something I used to complain about to admins when my kids were at BASIS. Yes, BASIS has plenty of sports, unserious sports. Which sports at BASIS are high-octane, varsity, highly competitive? Arguably, none. Foreign languages? Lousy. No language instruction prior to 8th grade. The 2 years of linguistics doesn't cover anything but kiddie linguistics of dubious value. All language instruction is at the beginning level in from 8th grade, meaning that former immersion students routinely end up studying languages they speak, read and write well at the beginning level, completely ridiculous. The reality is that high teacher turnover and weak fundraising by the franchise bogs down almost everything but math instruction at BASIS. Hint: advanced math is cheap to teach. |
Anonymous
| One of the nicest things about sending kids to Latin is that Latin parents aren’t DCUM posters. |
Anonymous
Ironic |
Anonymous
This matters a lot for some options. We were encouraged at the progress at EH when we toured recently even though ours ended up other places. It probably still won't be a first choice for most for a few more years, but it's changing. In fact, I'd suspect (without having dug into the numbers) that the changing student body is part of the reason for the point that the wpost was touting in the articles from the president's visit that EH is one of the few schools with higher scores post pandemic than pre. (If that's not a factor, surely someone here will weigh in to DCUMsplain) |
Anonymous
Latin parents don't post much because their school is balanced and quite well-run in a decent facility. Some of the strongest Latin 8th graders still leave for Walls and it's not a great school for STEM, but other than that, Latin's pretty OK. BASIS seems to have much bigger problems, permanent ones. |
Anonymous
Not really, as I don't have kids old enough to send to Latin. My neighbor told me this, and seeing this thread, I see what she means. |
Anonymous
| I've noticed that parents of Walls/Banneker/Duke Ellington/McKinley also don't post much on here. |
Anonymous
I think some of this is parent self-selection. BASIS has more hyperacheiving Type A parents who want their kids to be the same & are more likely to have kids capable of being the same. Latin parents tend to be a bit more laid back about academics. Latin seems like a lovely, well-run school where kids are happy, but I look at the college outcomes and cringe. Why is virtually no one getting into the kind of school my DH & I went to? BASIS seems to have many issues, but some kids are getting into such schools. Most normal, laid back parents rank Latin over BASIS given everything else... I'd love to be one of those parents. BUT... I have this decision to make very soon & I'm not sure I can be. |
Anonymous
Because times have changed and the college landscape has changed. It's a generational thing, it's not just Latin. The kids I interview for my alma mater come from all different schools, are 1000x better than I ever was, and don't get in. |
Anonymous
That doesn't change the fact that SOME of them come from BASIS and virtually none seem to come from Latin. I don't disagree at all that it's much harder to get into such schools these days. Absolutely true. |
Anonymous
+1, if you went to an Ivy or a place like Williams or University of Michigan and have the expectation that your child can perform as you did in school and in extra-curriculars and have the same outcome, you are going to be very, very frustrated by the college application experience. I think the PP is right that there is a self-selection bias with BASIS but she's not following it through to it's conclusion. Yes, BASIS tends to attract much more hyper achieving (not merely high achieving) Type A parents. But their kids aren't getting into elite colleges because of BASIS, nor because they are inherently smarter. They are getting in because these families do whatever it takes. Fourteen years of piano lessons plus camp for composing? Okay. Private fencing coaches and traveling to meets all over the country to get ranked status in a sport that gets recruited at elite colleges? Okay. Helping DC found a non-profit at age 15 in an interest area? Sure. Oh, and this stuff is a give: college consultants and private tutors to ensure perfect applications and perfect grades. And it's easier to justify this stuff when your kid is at BASIS because you aren't paying for private school tuition, and your kid gets a boost from that too. If you think simply sending your kid to BASIS and being laid back will result in your kid getting into Princeton or whatever? No. First you will wind up dealing with BASIS hounding you if your kid's test scores drop. Second, since BASIS does not offer a super well rounded education, your kid won't have the additional extra-curriculars necessary for admission to a school like that through school, so you have to provide it. If you are cringing about Latin kids who wind up at UMD or JMU or University of Denver or Sarah Lawrence of whatever, then you need to decide. Do you want to do whatever it takes to get your kid into what you consider to be an elite college? Or are you willing to accept the new reality of college education, where simply being a smart and hardworking kid who is above average at one sport and also does great on the debate team doesn't mean you get to go to a top school, and decide that maybe that means you can still give your kid that same upbringing and be okay with them going to a school that would have been considered a let down when you attended college. BASIS attracts whatever it takes parents. That might be good or bad depending on who you are. |
Anonymous
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Hmm. I'm looking at the 2023 outplacement instagram for Latin, and I see Princeton, UVA, Bucknell, Boulder, GWU, Georgetown, Bryn Mawr, Richmond, Trinity, Vanderbilt, Cornell, Northeastern, Penn, USC, Middlebury, Boston College, to name a few.
It's not a large class. What more are we asking for here? And you get this all from "laid-back," well-rounded and HAPPY kids? I'll take it. |
Anonymous
| If a BASIS parent would do whatever it takes, wouldn't they move to the suburbs in the first place? |