Reply to When will Walls interview notices come out??

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No dog in this fight but such a dumb system.

1) in DCPS, you can get B+, A-, A-, and A in each quarter and still get an A.  If you do this for every class, you get a 4.0 for Walls admission.  A student getting the identical grades at a school using a 100-point scale could get a 90 for every class, which counts as a 3.7 for Walls admission.  In other words, students getting identical grades at two different schools receive different GPAs for Walls admissions.

2) Walls doesn’t weight the grades, so an A in PE at a failing school counts more than an A- in Algebra 2 at a rigorous school.  With rampant grade inflation and social promotion at all DCPS schools, any average DCPS student can be a 4.0.

3)  Anyone in the Walls pool of 500 still has to interview with a current student and teacher.  That interview counts for 31/36 points.  Last year, some interviews were just a few minutes and non-substantive.  Reportedly, many average kids were admitted, and significant number were particularly attractive.  No one really knows why this short interview counts as over 86% of your overall score.

4) The remaining possible 5 points come from GPA.  Most kids in the pool of 500 will be 3.8 or higher, so they get the obligatory 5 points; those at 3.79 and below only get 4 points.  This just reinforces the bias noted in point one above.
  
Overall, this is a ridiculous way to select a magnet school class.  DC should follow the lead of NYC, which reinstituted an exam for magnet schools after the pandemic and schools’ ability to prioritize top-performing students using fairer, more objective criteria.

Not surprisingly, the average SAT score at NYC’s top magnet high school is 1510; the average SAT score at Walls is 1275.[/quote]

Excellent post, PP.   Signed - Stuyvesant grad who's glad the SSHAT admissions test in back in force in NY, along with free city-wide test prep for it at special centers open to all in all 5 boroughs[/quote]

Lowell in SF also brought back the admission test [/quote]

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