how does BASIS work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the other BASIS thread, I think I'm confused.

Unlike Walls and other application schools, admissions is based only on outcomes to the 5th grade lottery, right?

I always assumed the rigor was just a reputational thing and most kids wouldn't apply if the idea of 90min-3hrs of homework was totally unappealing.

But, do they actually weed out in ways beyond pressuring kids by making them feel unsupported? (Someone mentioned comps?) I have a pretty academically average -- and sometimes not very focused -- but very stem interested 4th grader in another charter school who wanted to consider the school but now am wondering if we skip it altogether?

BASIS parent here. Students being weeded out is fake news, just an urban myth. The school is open for everyone. It is rigorous no matter what the crazies say. It is a perfect fit for some but not for others. There is no social promotion. The amount of homework is another myth. Many students start in class or study hall and have maybe an hour each night in MS. When it is pre-comps and comps it goes up to 2 hours a night, just depends on your student and how efficient they are. Go on a tour. Ask more questions. Let your 4th grader shadow a current student.

Fake news? Urban myth? While it's true that v. few hard-working BASIS DC students are weeded out, it's untrue that none ever are.

Come on. BASIS isn't a perfect fit for any young person or family. No, it's a school offering that you might be able to make the best of for one of several reasons, or some combination. The reasons are as follows: you don't want to move to the burbs or Upper NW, you can't afford a DC private and/or you don't like private cocoon environments. By all means, go on a tour, take a hard look at the dark music and art rooms, search for the media center, look for the windows in the cafeteria and the basketball court on the roof and any space flooded with natural light. Ask yourself if you can do better by your children. Talk to the young admins, try to figure out if you can handle doing just as you're told by these folks for years to come, if you can believe in them and their vision for your family. If you can, by all means, revel in the place from the first minute. Just don't kid yourself about the prospect of a perfect fit. That's Sidwell, with 16 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists last year to BASIS' zero.

[Anonymous]

“Perfect fit” that is $60,000 a year out of pocket? Maybe if you are rich and a connect insider that gets your kid into Sidwell. It’s seriously ridiculous to even compare the school, the demographics, etc. C’mon..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
BASIS DC doesn’t discourage students from taking AP exams. In fact, they require AP exams to graduate. As discussed above, in order to graduate, BASIS students must take at least 6 AP exams and obtain at least a 3 on one exam to graduate. Plus, around 40% of BASIS students are AP Scholars (getting a 3 or higher on at least THREE AP exams), a status that fewer than 10% of students attain. In fact, the only public high schools in the DMV that have a 100% CRI are BASIS DC and TJ in Fairfax, which is considered one of the best public high schools in the US.

Citation for the bolded? I'm guessing that you're misunderstanding the AP awards and the way they're reported. For Basis schools across the country, around 21% earned the AP scholar award, 64% the AP Scholar with distinction award, and another 10% the AP scholar with Honors award in the spring of 2022. Across all basis schools, only about 5% of the kids failed to earn at least the AP scholar award. Unless DC is that much worse than all other basis schools, it is likely that you're missing the data for the other AP awards. You only earn the highest award for which you are eligible.

[Anonymous]

It is also worth pointing out that Basis kids who aren't passing at least 5 or 6 AP exams will graduate with pretty awful GPAs. The score on the AP exam is factored into the course grade, and kids who fail the AP exam are docked pretty heavily in their final grade for the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand the appeal of cramming high school into 3 years. What am I missing?

An important factor in the US News high school rankings is “CRI,” or the percent of seniors who have passed an AP (or IB) exam during their high school career.

All Basis schools seem to be tied for 100 (first in the nation) on this factor. There are two ways to get to 100%, of course. One of them is to shrink the denominator until it matches the numerator.

If you require kids to pass at least one AP to graduate, and then don’t let seniors take AP courses, you can ensure that the kids who haven’t passed an AP exam by the end of junior year never become seniors, thus maximizing your “CRI” and your ranking in US News.

Come on. How many UMC kids in the DMV haven’t managed to pass a single AP by the end of junior year?? This bar is set so low it’s meaningless. This can’t be the reason at all.

High-performing affluent suburban high schools in the DMV (eg Whitman, Maclean) typically have CRIs around 80.

Every single Basis school has a CRI of 100.

Maybe Basis DC does systematically exclude all poor students (though I’m sure they’d deny it). But even that would not be enough to get their CRI to 90, let alone 100.

There are two elements to CRI, which is just part of the score for USNW&R ranking. One is a participation rate, or the number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the total number of 12th graders at the school. The other is a quality-adjusted participation rate, defined as the number of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score – which is an AP score of 3 or higher or IB score of 4 or higher – on at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

Quality-adjusted participation was weighted at 75%, and the simple participation rate was weighted at 25% toward CRI. The maximum CRI possible is 100 if every 12th grader at a school took and earned a qualifying score on at least one AP or IB exam by the end of their senior year.

BASIS DC doesn’t discourage students from taking AP exams. In fact, they require AP exams to graduate. As discussed above, in order to graduate, BASIS students must take at least 6 AP exams and obtain at least a 3 on one exam to graduate. Plus, around 40% of BASIS students are AP Scholars (getting a 3 or higher on at least THREE AP exams), a status that fewer than 10% of students attain. In fact, the only public high schools in the DMV that have a 100% CRI are BASIS DC and TJ in Fairfax, which is considered one of the best public high schools in the US.

Thanks for confirming that Basis requires a 3 on one AP exam to graduate. Basis itself is extremely cagey about this graduation requirement and doesn’t seem to publish it anywhere.

It’s a very elegant system. Require the score to graduate, don’t allow the student to fulfill that graduation requirement as a 12th grader, and voila, your CRI is always 100.

Any school could do it. All you need is the will to force out every student who hasn’t passed an AP by the end of junior year.

Dumb take.

Never heard of anyone not graduating from Basis because of the AP requirement.

Kids are taking 6-15 AP tests and the curriculum is already quite advanced so getting a 3 on 1 test is not a big deal.

TJ requires 6 AP courses as well and most students take more. Go complain about them as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is also worth pointing out that Basis kids who aren't passing at least 5 or 6 AP exams will graduate with pretty awful GPAs. The score on the AP exam is factored into the course grade, and kids who fail the AP exam are docked pretty heavily in their final grade for the class.

Yes. That's why students leave if they know they won't be passing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand the appeal of cramming high school into 3 years. What am I missing?

An important factor in the US News high school rankings is “CRI,” or the percent of seniors who have passed an AP (or IB) exam during their high school career.

All Basis schools seem to be tied for 100 (first in the nation) on this factor. There are two ways to get to 100%, of course. One of them is to shrink the denominator until it matches the numerator.

If you require kids to pass at least one AP to graduate, and then don’t let seniors take AP courses, you can ensure that the kids who haven’t passed an AP exam by the end of junior year never become seniors, thus maximizing your “CRI” and your ranking in US News.

Come on. How many UMC kids in the DMV haven’t managed to pass a single AP by the end of junior year?? This bar is set so low it’s meaningless. This can’t be the reason at all.

High-performing affluent suburban high schools in the DMV (eg Whitman, Maclean) typically have CRIs around 80.

Every single Basis school has a CRI of 100.

Maybe Basis DC does systematically exclude all poor students (though I’m sure they’d deny it). But even that would not be enough to get their CRI to 90, let alone 100.

There are two elements to CRI, which is just part of the score for USNW&R ranking. One is a participation rate, or the number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the total number of 12th graders at the school. The other is a quality-adjusted participation rate, defined as the number of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score – which is an AP score of 3 or higher or IB score of 4 or higher – on at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

Quality-adjusted participation was weighted at 75%, and the simple participation rate was weighted at 25% toward CRI. The maximum CRI possible is 100 if every 12th grader at a school took and earned a qualifying score on at least one AP or IB exam by the end of their senior year.

BASIS DC doesn’t discourage students from taking AP exams. In fact, they require AP exams to graduate. As discussed above, in order to graduate, BASIS students must take at least 6 AP exams and obtain at least a 3 on one exam to graduate. Plus, around 40% of BASIS students are AP Scholars (getting a 3 or higher on at least THREE AP exams), a status that fewer than 10% of students attain. In fact, the only public high schools in the DMV that have a 100% CRI are BASIS DC and TJ in Fairfax, which is considered one of the best public high schools in the US.

Thanks for confirming that Basis requires a 3 on one AP exam to graduate. Basis itself is extremely cagey about this graduation requirement and doesn’t seem to publish it anywhere.

It’s a very elegant system. Require the score to graduate, don’t allow the student to fulfill that graduation requirement as a 12th grader, and voila, your CRI is always 100.

Any school could do it. All you need is the will to force out every student who hasn’t passed an AP by the end of junior year.

Dumb take.

Never heard of anyone not graduating from Basis because of the AP requirement.

Kids are taking 6-15 AP tests and the curriculum is already quite advanced so getting a 3 on 1 test is not a big deal.

TJ requires 6 AP courses as well and most students take more. Go complain about them as well.

This thread is ridiculous.

If BASIS is too challenging for your kid, send him or her elsewhere.

Leave the school for the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the other BASIS thread, I think I'm confused.

Unlike Walls and other application schools, admissions is based only on outcomes to the 5th grade lottery, right?

I always assumed the rigor was just a reputational thing and most kids wouldn't apply if the idea of 90min-3hrs of homework was totally unappealing.

But, do they actually weed out in ways beyond pressuring kids by making them feel unsupported? (Someone mentioned comps?) I have a pretty academically average -- and sometimes not very focused -- but very stem interested 4th grader in another charter school who wanted to consider the school but now am wondering if we skip it altogether?

BASIS parent here. Students being weeded out is fake news, just an urban myth. The school is open for everyone. It is rigorous no matter what the crazies say. It is a perfect fit for some but not for others. There is no social promotion. The amount of homework is another myth. Many students start in class or study hall and have maybe an hour each night in MS. When it is pre-comps and comps it goes up to 2 hours a night, just depends on your student and how efficient they are. Go on a tour. Ask more questions. Let your 4th grader shadow a current student.

Fake news? Urban myth? While it's true that v. few hard-working BASIS DC students are weeded out, it's untrue that none ever are.

Come on. BASIS isn't a perfect fit for any young person or family. No, it's a school offering that you might be able to make the best of for one of several reasons, or some combination. The reasons are as follows: you don't want to move to the burbs or Upper NW, you can't afford a DC private and/or you don't like private cocoon environments. By all means, go on a tour, take a hard look at the dark music and art rooms, search for the media center, look for the windows in the cafeteria and the basketball court on the roof and any space flooded with natural light. Ask yourself if you can do better by your children. Talk to the young admins, try to figure out if you can handle doing just as you're told by these folks for years to come, if you can believe in them and their vision for your family. If you can, by all means, revel in the place from the first minute. Just don't kid yourself about the prospect of a perfect fit. That's Sidwell, with 16 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists last year to BASIS' zero.

Zero NMSF!! Didn't SWW have a bunch, and JR have a few? This doesn't seem to go with the "Basis is for smart kids" line that people try to sell.

[Anonymous]

Train wreck from DC public last year where NMSS goes. Two semi-finalists from J-R/Wilson out of 34 in the District. None from Walls, BASIS, Latin, Banneker.

BASIS parents and admins like to use the excuse that nobody much cares about the PSAT these days, so few of their students bother to take it.

https://patch.com/district-columbia/washingtondc/2022-national-merit-semifinalists-named-washington-dc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the other BASIS thread, I think I'm confused.

Unlike Walls and other application schools, admissions is based only on outcomes to the 5th grade lottery, right?

I always assumed the rigor was just a reputational thing and most kids wouldn't apply if the idea of 90min-3hrs of homework was totally unappealing.

But, do they actually weed out in ways beyond pressuring kids by making them feel unsupported? (Someone mentioned comps?) I have a pretty academically average -- and sometimes not very focused -- but very stem interested 4th grader in another charter school who wanted to consider the school but now am wondering if we skip it altogether?

BASIS parent here. Students being weeded out is fake news, just an urban myth. The school is open for everyone. It is rigorous no matter what the crazies say. It is a perfect fit for some but not for others. There is no social promotion. The amount of homework is another myth. Many students start in class or study hall and have maybe an hour each night in MS. When it is pre-comps and comps it goes up to 2 hours a night, just depends on your student and how efficient they are. Go on a tour. Ask more questions. Let your 4th grader shadow a current student.

Fake news? Urban myth? While it's true that v. few hard-working BASIS DC students are weeded out, it's untrue that none ever are.

Come on. BASIS isn't a perfect fit for any young person or family. No, it's a school offering that you might be able to make the best of for one of several reasons, or some combination. The reasons are as follows: you don't want to move to the burbs or Upper NW, you can't afford a DC private and/or you don't like private cocoon environments. By all means, go on a tour, take a hard look at the dark music and art rooms, search for the media center, look for the windows in the cafeteria and the basketball court on the roof and any space flooded with natural light. Ask yourself if you can do better by your children. Talk to the young admins, try to figure out if you can handle doing just as you're told by these folks for years to come, if you can believe in them and their vision for your family. If you can, by all means, revel in the place from the first minute. Just don't kid yourself about the prospect of a perfect fit. That's Sidwell, with 16 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists last year to BASIS' zero.

Zero NMSF!! Didn't SWW have a bunch, and JR have a few? This doesn't seem to go with the "Basis is for smart kids" line that people try to sell.

Get a clue. The smartest kids in town are far too smart for the PSAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the other BASIS thread, I think I'm confused.

Unlike Walls and other application schools, admissions is based only on outcomes to the 5th grade lottery, right?

I always assumed the rigor was just a reputational thing and most kids wouldn't apply if the idea of 90min-3hrs of homework was totally unappealing.

But, do they actually weed out in ways beyond pressuring kids by making them feel unsupported? (Someone mentioned comps?) I have a pretty academically average -- and sometimes not very focused -- but very stem interested 4th grader in another charter school who wanted to consider the school but now am wondering if we skip it altogether?

BASIS parent here. Students being weeded out is fake news, just an urban myth. The school is open for everyone. It is rigorous no matter what the crazies say. It is a perfect fit for some but not for others. There is no social promotion. The amount of homework is another myth. Many students start in class or study hall and have maybe an hour each night in MS. When it is pre-comps and comps it goes up to 2 hours a night, just depends on your student and how efficient they are. Go on a tour. Ask more questions. Let your 4th grader shadow a current student.

Fake news? Urban myth? While it's true that v. few hard-working BASIS DC students are weeded out, it's untrue that none ever are.

Come on. BASIS isn't a perfect fit for any young person or family. No, it's a school offering that you might be able to make the best of for one of several reasons, or some combination. The reasons are as follows: you don't want to move to the burbs or Upper NW, you can't afford a DC private and/or you don't like private cocoon environments. By all means, go on a tour, take a hard look at the dark music and art rooms, search for the media center, look for the windows in the cafeteria and the basketball court on the roof and any space flooded with natural light. Ask yourself if you can do better by your children. Talk to the young admins, try to figure out if you can handle doing just as you're told by these folks for years to come, if you can believe in them and their vision for your family. If you can, by all means, revel in the place from the first minute. Just don't kid yourself about the prospect of a perfect fit. That's Sidwell, with 16 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists last year to BASIS' zero.

Zero NMSF!! Didn't SWW have a bunch, and JR have a few? This doesn't seem to go with the "Basis is for smart kids" line that people try to sell.

Get a clue. The smartest kids in town are far too smart for the PSAT.

That sounds deranged. Both my husband and I were NMSFs in the day, are "smart" and went to good colleges and this is more data that makes me think we will never send our kids to Basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is also worth pointing out that Basis kids who aren't passing at least 5 or 6 AP exams will graduate with pretty awful GPAs. The score on the AP exam is factored into the course grade, and kids who fail the AP exam are docked pretty heavily in their final grade for the class.

BASIS kids are accountable for their performance. That's a feature not a bug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the other BASIS thread, I think I'm confused.

Unlike Walls and other application schools, admissions is based only on outcomes to the 5th grade lottery, right?

I always assumed the rigor was just a reputational thing and most kids wouldn't apply if the idea of 90min-3hrs of homework was totally unappealing.

But, do they actually weed out in ways beyond pressuring kids by making them feel unsupported? (Someone mentioned comps?) I have a pretty academically average -- and sometimes not very focused -- but very stem interested 4th grader in another charter school who wanted to consider the school but now am wondering if we skip it altogether?

BASIS parent here. Students being weeded out is fake news, just an urban myth. The school is open for everyone. It is rigorous no matter what the crazies say. It is a perfect fit for some but not for others. There is no social promotion. The amount of homework is another myth. Many students start in class or study hall and have maybe an hour each night in MS. When it is pre-comps and comps it goes up to 2 hours a night, just depends on your student and how efficient they are. Go on a tour. Ask more questions. Let your 4th grader shadow a current student.

Fake news? Urban myth? While it's true that v. few hard-working BASIS DC students are weeded out, it's untrue that none ever are.

Come on. BASIS isn't a perfect fit for any young person or family. No, it's a school offering that you might be able to make the best of for one of several reasons, or some combination. The reasons are as follows: you don't want to move to the burbs or Upper NW, you can't afford a DC private and/or you don't like private cocoon environments. By all means, go on a tour, take a hard look at the dark music and art rooms, search for the media center, look for the windows in the cafeteria and the basketball court on the roof and any space flooded with natural light. Ask yourself if you can do better by your children. Talk to the young admins, try to figure out if you can handle doing just as you're told by these folks for years to come, if you can believe in them and their vision for your family. If you can, by all means, revel in the place from the first minute. Just don't kid yourself about the prospect of a perfect fit. That's Sidwell, with 16 National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalists last year to BASIS' zero.

Zero NMSF!! Didn't SWW have a bunch, and JR have a few? This doesn't seem to go with the "Basis is for smart kids" line that people try to sell.

Get a clue. The smartest kids in town are far too smart for the PSAT.

That sounds deranged. Both my husband and I were NMSFs in the day, are "smart" and went to good colleges and this is more data that makes me think we will never send our kids to Basis.

PP was pretty clearly being sarcastic. If the PSAT is good enough for the Sidwell, GDS, NCS etc. crowds, it should be good enough for BASIS students. It's not. I, too, was a NMSFs in the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand the appeal of cramming high school into 3 years. What am I missing?

An important factor in the US News high school rankings is “CRI,” or the percent of seniors who have passed an AP (or IB) exam during their high school career.

All Basis schools seem to be tied for 100 (first in the nation) on this factor. There are two ways to get to 100%, of course. One of them is to shrink the denominator until it matches the numerator.

If you require kids to pass at least one AP to graduate, and then don’t let seniors take AP courses, you can ensure that the kids who haven’t passed an AP exam by the end of junior year never become seniors, thus maximizing your “CRI” and your ranking in US News.

Come on. How many UMC kids in the DMV haven’t managed to pass a single AP by the end of junior year?? This bar is set so low it’s meaningless. This can’t be the reason at all.

High-performing affluent suburban high schools in the DMV (eg Whitman, Maclean) typically have CRIs around 80.

Every single Basis school has a CRI of 100.

Maybe Basis DC does systematically exclude all poor students (though I’m sure they’d deny it). But even that would not be enough to get their CRI to 90, let alone 100.

There are two elements to CRI, which is just part of the score for USNW&R ranking. One is a participation rate, or the number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the total number of 12th graders at the school. The other is a quality-adjusted participation rate, defined as the number of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score – which is an AP score of 3 or higher or IB score of 4 or higher – on at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

Quality-adjusted participation was weighted at 75%, and the simple participation rate was weighted at 25% toward CRI. The maximum CRI possible is 100 if every 12th grader at a school took and earned a qualifying score on at least one AP or IB exam by the end of their senior year.

BASIS DC doesn’t discourage students from taking AP exams. In fact, they require AP exams to graduate. As discussed above, in order to graduate, BASIS students must take at least 6 AP exams and obtain at least a 3 on one exam to graduate. Plus, around 40% of BASIS students are AP Scholars (getting a 3 or higher on at least THREE AP exams), a status that fewer than 10% of students attain. In fact, the only public high schools in the DMV that have a 100% CRI are BASIS DC and TJ in Fairfax, which is considered one of the best public high schools in the US.

Thanks for confirming that Basis requires a 3 on one AP exam to graduate. Basis itself is extremely cagey about this graduation requirement and doesn’t seem to publish it anywhere.

It’s a very elegant system. Require the score to graduate, don’t allow the student to fulfill that graduation requirement as a 12th grader, and voila, your CRI is always 100.

Any school could do it. All you need is the will to force out every student who hasn’t passed an AP by the end of junior year.

Dumb take.

Never heard of anyone not graduating from Basis because of the AP requirement.

Kids are taking 6-15 AP tests and the curriculum is already quite advanced so getting a 3 on 1 test is not a big deal.

TJ requires 6 AP courses as well and most students take more. Go complain about them as well.

This thread is ridiculous.

If BASIS is too challenging for your kid, send him or her elsewhere.

Leave the school for the rest of us.

That’s fine I guess, but BASIS shouldn’t be a “public” school and a subsidy for cheap, UMC families who are unwilling to pay for private school tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Train wreck from DC public last year where NMSS goes. Two semi-finalists from J-R/Wilson out of 34 in the District. None from Walls, BASIS, Latin, Banneker.

BASIS parents and admins like to use the excuse that nobody much cares about the PSAT these days, so few of their students bother to take it.

https://patch.com/district-columbia/washingtondc/2022-national-merit-semifinalists-named-washington-dc

The link is last year's news. This year there were 5 at SWW; 1 at BASIS; 2 at JR

https://www.reddit.com/r/psat/comments/16kmgsx/delaware_national_merit_2024_2_pages/