Reply to BASIS DC first graduating class college acceptances list

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A useful point of comparison when considering the relative competitiveness of elite college admissions applicant pools is the PSAT-National Merit Scholarship Program cutoffs score for National Merit Semifinalists by state.  Arizona's 2017 cut-off score of 2019 is on the high side, but not in the upper echelon. DC's cut-off score this year is 222. Only one state, MA, attains this score- the other 49 have lower cut-offs.  http://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/

[b]I've been interviewing applicants to my Ivy from this Metro area for a long time.  Interestingly, each winter for the last 6 or 7 years, my Ivy has asked me to volunteer to Skype interview AZ applicants, mostly BASIS seniors.  Apparently, grads of my Ivy--the interviewers--are thin on the ground in the Southwest.  After I've interviewed my assigned AZ applicants, generally 6-8 an admissions season, I invariably predict, privately, that none will be admitted. This is because experience tells me that DC Metro area applicants with similar backgrounds (the applicants I'm more accustomed to) would almost certainly not be admitted, unless perhaps they were legacies or recruited athletes.  But every year, at least one of the AZ applicants I've dismissed as a no-hoper is admitted. Over time, it's become clear to me that the DC applicants are in a different, significantly tougher applicant pool for colleges admitting in the single digits and low teens than the AZ group.  [/b]

BASIS AZ applicants enjoy a clear advantage in elite college admissions by virtue of their location. When they apply to schools with highly competitive admissions, they're applying to colleges in Cal, Chicago, the NE or the Mid-Atlantic states, not in their region. Elite colleges essentially run affirmative action programs for geographically under-represented swathes of the country. They want at least a sprinkling of members of a freshman class from each state.

If BASIS DC wants to wrack up admissions successes that resemble TJ's, the school needs to play TJ's game to a certain extent. DC parents tend to assume that their kids will get a break in admissions for having graduated from a DC public school. From what I've observed, this brand of optimism is unwarranted- the breaks go to low-income students, legacies and recruited athletes. Unfortunately, your high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA BASIS kid is competing against other high SES white-Latino-Asian-AA kids from this Metro area for a spot at a certain college. But on a bright note, your applicant automatically enjoys a significant comparative advantage over MoCo and VA applicants - they live and study much nearer to federal agency HQs, Smithsonian museums, the Library of Congress and other downtown fonts of knowledge.  If a serious STEM-oriented mentoring-research-science competition prep-academic paper publishing program were set up to help them take advantage of their prime location, these well-prepared kids would be in a strong position to level the playing field.  Money sounds like the chief obstacle.

Hope that helps.  
[/quote]

So if these same BASIS Arizona seniors were in the DC market, they wouldn't compare favorably to the elite-level students in the DC Metro area?  What are you seeing as the major differences?  Not as academically strong? Test scores? Something else?  Put another way, how are the DC students who are ultimately successful in getting into an Ivy more accomplished (assuming they are not an athlete, legacy, etc. etc.)[/quote]

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