Reply to BASIS DC will seek to expand to include K to 4th grade

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There's an entrenched tradition on DCUM of BASIS parents jumping on threads claiming not only that the kids who leave "washed out," but asserting that if you left, well, you're a "hater" whose kid couldn't hack the curriculum. This year seems to be something of a turning point. As noted, Walls, JR and Latin got students into Ivy League schools, and other colleges admitting in the single digits, but not BASIS. The two excuses offered on this thread for lackluster college admissions is that, a) this year's senior class was unusually small and that, b) BASIS students gravitate toward merit aid at 2nd tier schools rather than shooting for top tier programs their families couldn't afford.

As the parent of a student who started in this year's graduating cohort and tried the HS, I'm not buying that the small class size was crux of the problem, or family finances either. I'm also not buying that a BASIS expansion to include K-4th grade will solve the problem eventually. What I'm seeing is that BASIS' top-down, one-size fits all approach to teaching and learning at the MS level has caught up with them at the HS level, along with management's tendency to burn out good teachers, weak facilities and subpar HS ECs. We might have stayed though HS, along with other families of strong students we got to know at BASIS, if the curriculum had offered us flexibility, if critical thinking skills and joy of learning had been emphasized, if humanities instruction had been stronger, if the teaching force had been more stable, and if our teen could have pursued serious HS ECs with classmates. There doesn't seem to be any sort of fix for what ails the BASIS HS in the works, no reckoning, no agenda for change. [/quote]

The Basis senior class size is smaller than Walls, JR, and Latin.  This year, kids were accepted to colleges that, according to USN&WR, are ranked more highly than a number of Ivies.  Plus, last year and the year before that and so on, Basis kids were accepted to multiple Ivies.  I always laugh when people mention mention that JR had a bunch of admissions to Ivies because the senior class is literally more than 10 times bigger than Basis.  If you look at, say, what percentage of the senior class is attending a Top 25 or Top 50 or Top 100 college, Basis will match or beat the schools you mentioned.

Since your kid started in this year's Basis graduating cohort and left for greener pastures, let us know what high school he or she attends that you believe is superior and also what Ivy he or she is going to in the fall.[/quote]

Come on, Walls, JR and Latin aren't just serving the highly academic in HS, like BASIS purports to. Case in point: kids don't need to pass 7th grade algebra or to pass a full menu of comprehensive exams in 6th, 7th and 8th grades to avoid repeating a year at their feeder middle schools. BASIS is supposed to cater to the cream of the crop academically, but winds up stifling too much of their top talent with ridiculously controlling management.   If I thought my kid would have a better chance of cracking an Ivy from BASIS than from SJC (already named, thanks), I'd have stayed to save the dough on tuition.  [/quote]

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