Reply to If not Basis or Latin, where?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "If not Basis or Latin, where? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][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.

[/quote]

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.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I smell a rat.  The 6 BASIS kids (out of the multitudes of candidates you claim to have interviewed) "were in the top 10% (or so they claimed)" - aren't you given enough info about these kids to tell whether they are lying?  Transcripts, etc?  You seem to know they had weak extra currics - or did you skilfully draw that out of them?  Any chance their reticence had something to do with your lack of skills at interviewing people who are not like you?  Ever think maybe the culture in Arizona is different?  My interviewer had a sheet of paper about me on her desk when I walked in the door... But I forgot, you are telepathic.  Because you knew that those kids were cramming for the AP's
an

And having the "hype" here about Basis affect your evaluations of the college bound students in Tucson.. This is DCUMS.  Those kids have nothing to do with DC, and the oldest kids here are in 8th grade.  The school started this year.  You said AFTER all the hype here you were disappointed - so I guess you interviewed 6 kids between this year and last year?  That means they were 1/4 of all your candidates in the last two years as you interview "as many as a dozen kids a season."  Have you read any hype about St. Albans on DCUMS?  Done a similar kind of research on any of the other schools since the info here about Basis seems to have influenced you so much?

A lot of this makes no sense to me, and your snide comments about future Basis kids here turning down Harvard and your dairy farmer father are over my head I guess or maybe just too far below the belt.  Perhaps the kids did not get your sophisticated sarcasm.  You seem pretty full of yourself. er mDoes your reference to your father mean you were a legacy? Maybe you need to go work at Martha's Table for a while.

Do  you bond with them  Idaho kids about milking cows having grown up on a dairy farm?  OOps.  Potatoes come from Idaho not milk.  But your stereotypes seem to come from lots of mysterious places.

I'm really glad that you are willing to give BASIS kids another chance unlike the poor doomed kids at St. Albans who you have "pretty much given up on".  But despite your purported open mind, I beg you not to volunteer to interview more Basis kids.  Why don't you give someone else a chance next winter. You seem to have been working very hard for many years.

You also seem to only like boys.  Well, not the ones at St. Albans or Georgetown Prep.  Ever interviewed an applicant from Landon?  Or maybe you really like Catholic boys.  If they cannot come from TJ or Blair at least those Jesuits may have given them something interesting to say.  I'm sure you ask them all about the soup kitchens and mention them in your evals.  How do you feel about Quakers?  Same as Episcopalians?

Does your Ivy know of your prejudices?  Do the kids in the NW "cocoon" have more to say than those withdrawn Tucson kids but you just don't like the content? Or do they also become suddenly quiet when faced with your awesomeness/oddness? If I could forward your posts to your alma mater. I think your days as an alumni interviewer would be over. You have "pretty much given up on St. Albans."  So when those "poor" rich kids walk in the room, you are just going through the motions? I don't think you are doing a great job, and I think revealing your prejudices along with your position makes your posts unprofessional.  Certainly the St. Albans college guidance counselor would love to know who you are and which school you interview for to make sure his boys avoided you like the plague.

I am damn glad you were not the interviewer for the Ivy I went to.  I don't think the chemistry would have been that good between us. But  then I am  female, not Catholic, came from that "NW cocoon"  and did not take calculus.  I think your posts on here as an alumni interviewer do a disservice to whatever hallowed halls you used to walk in, in more than one way.  You may be recommending the wrong kids!

As for the idea that you can't be that bad because you get 12 kids a year, when they give you some from Hawaii, Idaho and Arizona and you live in Washington DC I would not necessarily take that as a complement.  And this is not Goldman Sachs.  There are no 360 reviews.  You have no idea what the kids think about you or how they feel about your school after talking to you.

Just some food for thought.  Now go visit that soup kitchen with those nice Catholic boys for some food for your soul.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics