Reply to If not Basis or Latin, where?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

If Ivy admission happens to be most relevant metric for your white or Asian upper-middle-class family, without the mulla for privates in the mix, MoCo, Fairfax.  Most kids who get into Ivies from DCPS and now DCPC are low-SES, benefitting from afirmative action admissions (and so they should).  Social elitism of Ivies?  Right, tell that to my father, the dairy farmer.  Go for it, turn down Harvard, Yale and Princeton for MIT or Caltech this time of year once your BASIS kid has reached 12th grade.  I've Skype interviewed half a dozen BASIS Tuscon kids in recent years, none admitted, none wait-listed, weak extra curriculars, no national science competition entries, pleasant but boring group cramming for APs night and day.  Buyer beware.

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You've been on here bashing AZ BASIS grads before. I am curious -- what local high school grads were you impressed by? [/quote]

Over the years, I've interviewed kids from Wilson, SWW, Dunbar, Banneker, TJ, the Blair magnets, as well as Gonzaga, St. Anselm's and a dozen non-sectarian privates.  I also phone interview kids in areas of the country without enough alums on the ground to provide full coverage, e.g. Hawaii, Idaho, Arizona.

TJ and Blair kids are my out and out favorites, around one-third get in (vs. maybe one in a dozen from Wilson and SWW) and they're almost always fun to talk to.  The parochial boys in NE are generally a pleasure to meet as well.  Gonzaga makes the boys work in a soup kitchen and do service projects on school breaks, which pays off.   The Jesuits don't mess around and the kids are obviously encouraged to think for themselves.  I've given up on St. Albans and Georgetown Prep and most of the other NW cocoons.

Sure, half a dozen BASIS Tuscon kids is hardly a representative sample, but all were in the top 10% (or so they claimed) and none seemed to have much to say.  My expectations were clearly too high, after all the DC hype.  One question I answer for the school is "Did you enjoy talking to this applicant?" With the BASIS kids, honestly, not much.   I'll offer to try again over the winter.   If I were a harsh or indifferent interviewer, I'd be surprised if my Ivy would ask me to interview as many as a dozen kids an application season.

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