Reply to Did Walls interview invites go out?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It all comes down to whether or not you have a teacher who maxes out the recommendation form. When my kid went through this a few years ago at Deal there was one English teacher who didn't max it out for any students on that team and zero kids from that team got in despite many of them having a 4.0 and being school leaders.

It's a deeply flawed process but it's DCPS and that's what they do. [/quote]

My kid suspected this. He was shocked his friends with 4.0’s in geometry, physics, and who are in national junior honors society, student council, etc, did not get interviews. He suspected it was partially because one of the teachers they all had write their recs is pretty tough on them.[/quote]

Yes, but don't blame the teachers. People write recs in different ways and I don't think DCPS communicates to teachers that anyone with less than a perfect rating won't move on. Teachers who know this will pass through everyone who is decent. Teachers who don't have in the past dinged even the top kids because this is a very reasonable way to complete a rec (i.e no one is perfect, there is room for improvement, etc). [/quote]

Honestly if there is one takeaway for me of this process it is that teacher recommendations should not be required. They are a massive burden on teachers and can be arbitrarily unfair if the teacher has a different standard than others or doesn’t understand the game. Grades and essays should be enough - schools that want to assess writing or other skills could do a test, workshop, portfolio or interview. [/quote]

And their effect is magnified when recs play such a big role in deciding who gets an interview. I think it is absolutely true that many teachers (and parents) don’t understand the impact of these recommendations on students’ chances. Middle school leadership or counselors may have some ability to communicate this to teachers, but there is inherently going to be variation from teacher to teacher, especially without some system for norming these recommendations.

The problem remains that the pool of highly qualified kids is larger than the number of spots available. It’s not simple to come up with a fair admissions process and I can appreciate the value of rec letters as part of an overall application package, but the way the current application process uses them seems flawed.[/quote]

Exactly. “The pool of highly qualified kids is larger than the number of spots available.”

That means Walls can conduct a pretty slipshod process and still wind up with a strong class.

And the teachers get paid the same, whether they put in 10 hours for admissions or 100. So they have every incentive to stick with this imperfect process. Just make sure you have a backup plan, and don’t let your kid take the results too seriously. [/quote]

Yea, I wouldn’t take it seriously at all.

Obviously, they are not taking the most highly qualified applicants and there is massive grade inflation at the school which doesn’t help either. [/quote]

Agree on the randomness of admissions, but the "massive grade inflation" claim is silly.  If you took the top students at any high school -- all taking tons of APs and honors -- that by group too would have a 4.whatever average gpa.[/quote]

But the fact is they are not taking top students.  Not when you have 1/3rd of the kids below grade average in math.  And yet, everyone has an A. There is retakes and 50% credit for doing nothing.  You actually are penalizing the top kids who can actually perform the best and should be the only ones getting A’s.  As in any selective schools, not all kids are top.  There will be a range of performance just like in TJ or other magnets.  Not everyone is getting A’s but at Walls yes.  That is massive grade inflation.

https://www.swwrookery.com/post/hugely-inflated-are-pandemic-era-grading-policies-doing-more-harm-than-good

The admissions criteria is flawed and opaque.  The grade inflation helps no one, not the best students and hurts the lower students by giving t hem a sense of false security of mastering subjects when they don’t.  
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