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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This this board is anonymous I'll share that my 4.0 Deal kid in Algebra 2 last year was accepted to Sidwell, Potomac, St. Albans, GDS, Maret and the Scholar's program at St. Johns but not Walls.   :lol:   Quite a few of these schools had 9th grade acceptance rates around 5% last year (so we have since learned). 
He was waitlisted at Walls. He is now doing extremely well at one of the privates.  He's an outgoing kid, travel athlete who is now on a varsity team, national-level debater, and had 99% PARCC scores from 3rd grade on.  
His Walls interview was literally 90 seconds long last year.   :x [/quote]

Similar experience (though my slightly less high-flying DC was in geometry not Algebra 2 and didn't get admitted to quite as many privates, though some).  FWIW, I have heard rumors that Walls prefers to not take too many advanced math students--they see themselves as a "humanities" school.  Whatever, DC reads voraciously and actually loves ELA and history far more than math...and if they had spent more than 3 minutes with her in the interview, they would have known this.  But I wonder if they see the higher math tracks as some sort of flag and those kids have a harder time getting in.[/quote]

Geometry was once a sticking point because Walls included some questions on the entrance exam but not every MS feeder offered Geometry and thus some candidates were at a disadvantage unless they learned it independently of school or the school offered it as an elective supplement.  Not many MS even offer Algebra 2 so that's definitely beyond anything a Walls test would cover.

The mediocre students at above private schools start younger.  By HS admission process they can get more selective.  The mediocre students never leave.[/quote]

The geometry on the entrance exam was from the 8th grade common core standards.  If 8th grade teachers didn’t teach the standards that is not Walls’ fault.  But this rumor that geometry was on the test just out of the blue is nonsense.  The test was an 8th grade test.  8th grade includes several strand of math including probability, number sense and basic geometry.[/quote]

You missed the point.  It's not that it was "out of the blue" (weird that you read that but whatever).  Geometry may be included in 8th grade curriculum but in DCPS schools without a substantial cohort it was often not taught as a practical matter.  Highly motivated students in these schools could get exposure through other avenues (mind you this is pre- Kahn Academy) but it put them at a greater disadvantage than kids who were exposed through math curriculum at their MS.  Geometry isn't a high bar but it was a bar that could ding some students on the test.  Guess who got dinged most?[/quote]

So Walls shouldn’t have written the 8th grade test using 8th grade standards? They should have just guessed what middle school teachers taught and chose not to teach that year?  This seems to be really grasping at straws.  You can have issues with admissions but this criticism seems like you just want to complain about everything.[/quote]

Look at PARCC scores for MS when it was in place and when Walls test was in place.  There are like 2 DCPS schools with reliably high 7th/8th grade math scores and a larger number of schools with no high scorers, mostly clustered in Wards 7 & 8.

One test for everyone clearly disadvantaged potential candidates from Wards 7 & 8.  I think there should be a test and equity seats to address that, but one size fits all does not work.  The current high stakes Zoom interview doesn't work either.[/quote]

What kind of magnet school is it then if they have to admit students with low math scores? It just seems like any regular school. [/quote]

This.[/quote]

+1.  This is ridiculous.  They tested what constitutes the 8th grade curriculum in math.

If your school did not cover what was required in 8th grade, well that is the failure of the school.  But ultimately it is the failure of DCPS because they don’t have G & T or tracking at the elementary and middle school levels for low income students.

Their answer is to always either lower the standards to make exceptions in the name of equity.  Race to the bottom for all.
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