Reply to NMSFs in DC 2026

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "NMSFs in DC 2026"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Someone just posted list on private school forum:

BASIS (2)
Edmund Burke (1)
DC International School (1)
Georgetown Day School (4)
Georgetown Visitation (2)
Jackson-Reed (3)
MacArthur HS (1)
Maret (1)
National Cathedral School (5)
School Without Walls (3)
Sidwell Friends (4)
St Albans (2)
St Anselm's Abbey (3)
St John's College HS (1)
Washington International (1)
Washington Latin Public Charter (3)
[/quote]

Interesting...usually Sidwell has nearly double digits.  NCS had a banner year.  Latin did well this year. The BASIS folks must be unhappy.

What's interesting is private schools with 0 NMSFs.  Gonzaga and Field off the top of my head.[/quote]

It’s surprising to me how low the numbers for semifinalists for all the DC privates are.  You would think for 55k a year they would be getting more output.  A Maryland private, Holton Arms has 12 semifinalists this year.

The MD and VA magnets of course leave all these schools in the dust.  Thomas Jefferson has more than 100 semifinalists this year.  [/quote]

What is the cut off for VA and MD? You can't compare apples and oranges.[/quote]

Yeah, it's this.  Even a one point or two point difference in the cutoff will result in double digit differences.[/quote]

Maryland and VA have a cutoff of 224 and DC is 225.  but to argue that the point difference explains the double digit and sometimes triple digit numbers of semifinalists at schools, is not a robust conclusion.  [/quote]

Yeah, it’s also the suburban cram-school culture. You can’t make NMSF in DC if you get confused on even one question or make even one careless error, and it’s not much easier in the suburbs.

For perspective: my kid has an SAT score in the 99+ range. That SAT score is over the 75th percentile mark at every college in the country. They also had a PSAT score in the 99+ range, with a selection index of 218. That is simultaneously an excellent result and [i]6 points too low[/i] to be NMSF anywhere in the DMV.

To get large groups of kids getting NMSF in this setting, you really need a culture where a large number of families devote time and money to professional test-prep during the summer before junior year, with the specific goal of being NMSF. Not only does DC not have a cram-school culture, I think we have a bit of an anti-cram-school culture, because some parents stay in the city in part to avoid suburban cram-school culture. [/quote]

To be fair, NMSF are chosen by doubling the Verbal score and adding it to the math score.  It’s not as easy to “cram school” the verbal score as it is the math score.  [/quote]

A perfect math score is the foundation of NMSF prep. If you have a perfect 760 math, you can be an NMSF with down to a 740 verbal in the suburbs, or a 750 verbal in DC. (And yes, you can lose more than 20 points with one wrong answer.) [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics