Reply to Are chances to get into DCI without feeder near zero?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I would put another spin on this - 
as it becomes harder to get into BASIS, more families are staying with DCI as they do not have other options.
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I think you are mistaken. DCI is not seen as the "consolation prize" for those who did not get into BASIS. DCI is the preferred school for most of the families from our feeder school. [/quote]

DP. I truly don’t understand why because DCI doesn’t seem to be performing well. I’m not at all saying Basis should be the preference, but why DCI would be preferred over other options is puzzling. [/quote]

I've thought about this a lot. I think it's a more sophisticated form of marketing and sales tactics like the elementary schools do. It's not expeditionary learning and Montessori, it's IB and extracurriculars. But US families know so little about the IB program that they just listen to the marketing and aren't savvy enough to actually evaluate how the school is performing, so they compare it to their IB and equate better than with good. Parents from our feeder actually say things like, "I believe it's very hands on, Montessori like learning" and are shocked when I tell them every kid gets a Chromebook. They just don't know and don't care to go looking for problems.[/quote]

Ooops, messed up the formatting; fixed here:
We have a kid who did all of MS at DCI and just started HS. We (both parents) also work for local school systems.  We know a lot about all the DC schools (DCPS, charter, private & religious), and we checked out our options, including touring BASIS & Latin while DS was in 4th grade (and also, because we work in schools, sneaking into tours of DCI & a couple other schools with other prospective 6th graders though DS was going into 5th. Just to have an idea of what we'd be missing if we didn't go to DCI.

And with all that research, we didn't even apply to BASIS or Latin, and though DCI is definitely not perfect by a long shot, we don't regret keeping DS there for MS at all.  And so far his HS experience is much better than MS, which we weren't sure would be the case.  Full disclosure we did apply to SWW and Banneker for HS, and DS got into Banneker but not SWW, and because Banneker's IB program is a sub-program and there's no guarantee that if you accept there you'll be in the IB track, we stayed with DCI.  And so far so good. And now that DS is playing sports with older HS students and we're meeting the parents of those older students and talking to them about their high school experiences, we're also feeling good about the decision.  DCI isn't for every student, but it's working well for ours and the vast majority of parents and students we meet/talk to. We're grateful to be there.[/quote]

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