New to DCI at middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's confusing to throw the word entitled around. Wouldn't a higher bar help everyone if appropriate supports and supplementation are provided across the bar, to low- and high-achieving students. Neglecting the needs of high achieving families ultimately could weaken a school.

Of course, that means starting with the feeders, so admittedly the vision will take time to achieve.

I'm going to argue that neglecting the needs of "low-achieving families" who happen to be raising brilliant students not only "could weaken" a DCI feeder and DCI itself but already does. I'm thinking of a YY student from a low SES family who really impressed our Chinese au pairs (we hosted several while at YY). The au pairs would say, wow, that kid's tones are unusually good. The boy was also an impressive math student. Flash forward 5 or 6 years and the kid is at DCI without ever having had access to real Chinese immersion or very advanced math (like at BASIS). No big deal you say, well I disagree.

[Anonymous]

The math rigor situation has actually improved a lot at dci in just the last 2 or 3 years. Agree that language instruction is lagging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You "plan to give DCI a try." Great, come talk to us several years in, after you're tired of supplementing.

Last year, we hired tutors for math, language and writing. This year, we won't return.

Um, "supplementing" is not the norm even among high-ses families at DCI. At least not in HS, where the program is quite rigorous. My child is a 2021 grad who had an enviable list of college acceptances this year, as did many classmates. And my child received a great score on the IB diploma. Based on what I've heard from my child and friends, the high performers are very well prepared for their selective colleges, including humanities, stem and their respective languages.

Other misinformation - DCI offers HL diploma classes in all languages as well as Language A in 3 languages, with the potential for bilingual diplomas.

Class of 2021 definitely didn't suffer mass defections in 8th-to-9th, and I have heard the retention rate grows every year. So no, high-ses families are not giving up on DCI by a longshot. And many families are buying into the surrounding neighborhoods, feeling like they've won the lottery, so to speak.

Ask the school to refer you to parents of recent grads if you have doubts. I think there is a lot of repeat posting on these sites by a disgruntled heritage family from a DCI feeder who really isn't representative of most parent views/experience with DCI (or its feeder for that matter).

NP trying to keep an open mind. It's nice that DCI offers higher l evel diploma classes in all languages. Not so nice if kids are scoring 2 and 3s on the exams (high score is 7 for those who don't know).

OK then, how great? Low 30s? Mid 30s? High 30s? Low 40s? Serious question.

We corresponded with IB Diploma Geneva recently and were told the June 2021 DCI average pass was in the high 20s.

I understand that's around a C- in IB Diploma terms.

PS. I admit that I don't mind haering from "disgruntled heritage families" who point out that very few DCI students (if any) mainly speak French or Chinese at home. It's a valid criticism, difficult to whitewash.

First of all, I am willing to bet that the majority of these negative posts are coming from one or two people pretending to be lots of different people. It happens all the time when DCI IB results are discussed. Second of all, these posters have no inside knowledge about dci results, which have not even been published by the school and have only been provided individually to students. Based on my knowledge of a small subset of students, my guess is that DCI has at least as many super high-scoring (40s) and high scoring (upper 30s) students as the US/international average proportionally - for example, only like 6-7% of students in the world score in 40s (as prior posters must know). For context, you're pretty much guaranteed admission to Oxford and Cambridge with IB scores in that range. Just like only a small percentage of SAT takers score 1400, 1500s on SATs. Yet, DCI has kids in these ranges, and probably a higher than average number of students in these ranges.
For context, you're guaranteed admission to Oxford and Cambridge with IB scores in high of 40+.
Of course, I know some in this forum think that isn't good enough. But let's stop making stuff up.

[Anonymous]

You stop making stuff up. Geneva IBD freely releases average pass points totals and other info about scores coming out of individual IB World Schools. HQ does not release scores attached to names, teachers or languages, but raw data on school scores isn't hard to come by if you go through a simple process for researchers. I know this because I've taught at more than one IB World school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You "plan to give DCI a try." Great, come talk to us several years in, after you're tired of supplementing.

Last year, we hired tutors for math, language and writing. This year, we won't return.

Um, "supplementing" is not the norm even among high-ses families at DCI. At least not in HS, where the program is quite rigorous. My child is a 2021 grad who had an enviable list of college acceptances this year, as did many classmates. And my child received a great score on the IB diploma. Based on what I've heard from my child and friends, the high performers are very well prepared for their selective colleges, including humanities, stem and their respective languages.

Other misinformation - DCI offers HL diploma classes in all languages as well as Language A in 3 languages, with the potential for bilingual diplomas.

Class of 2021 definitely didn't suffer mass defections in 8th-to-9th, and I have heard the retention rate grows every year. So no, high-ses families are not giving up on DCI by a longshot. And many families are buying into the surrounding neighborhoods, feeling like they've won the lottery, so to speak.

Ask the school to refer you to parents of recent grads if you have doubts. I think there is a lot of repeat posting on these sites by a disgruntled heritage family from a DCI feeder who really isn't representative of most parent views/experience with DCI (or its feeder for that matter).

NP trying to keep an open mind. It's nice that DCI offers higher l evel diploma classes in all languages. Not so nice if kids are scoring 2 and 3s on the exams (high score is 7 for those who don't know).

OK then, how great? Low 30s? Mid 30s? High 30s? Low 40s? Serious question.

We corresponded with IB Diploma Geneva recently and were told the June 2021 DCI average pass was in the high 20s.

I understand that's around a C- in IB Diploma terms.

PS. I admit that I don't mind haering from "disgruntled heritage families" who point out that very few DCI students (if any) mainly speak French or Chinese at home. It's a valid criticism, difficult to whitewash.

First of all, I am willing to bet that the majority of these negative posts are coming from one or two people pretending to be lots of different people. It happens all the time when DCI IB results are discussed. Second of all, these posters have no inside knowledge about dci results, which have not even been published by the school and have only been provided individually to students. Based on my knowledge of a small subset of students, my guess is that DCI has at least as many super high-scoring (40s) and high scoring (upper 30s) students as the US/international average proportionally - for example, only like 6-7% of students in the world score in 40s (as prior posters must know). For context, you're pretty much guaranteed admission to Oxford and Cambridge with IB scores in that range. Just like only a small percentage of SAT takers score 1400, 1500s on SATs. Yet, DCI has kids in these ranges, and probably a higher than average number of students in these ranges.
For context, you're guaranteed admission to Oxford and Cambridge with IB scores in high of 40+.
Of course, I know some in this forum think that isn't good enough. But let's stop making stuff up.

I'm willing to bet you don't have a clue what kind of IB language scores came out of DCI in the last two June testing cycles at either the standard or higher level.