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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I really don't understand the appeal of cramming high school into 3 years. What am I missing?[/quote]

An important factor in the US News high school rankings is “CRI,” or the percent of seniors who have passed an AP (or IB) exam during their high school career.

All Basis schools seem to be tied for 100 (first in the nation) on this factor. There are two ways to get to 100%, of course. One of them is to shrink the denominator until it matches the numerator.

If you require kids to pass at least one AP to graduate, and then don’t let seniors take AP courses, you can ensure that the kids who haven’t passed an AP exam by the end of junior year never become seniors, thus maximizing your “CRI” and your ranking in US News. [/quote]

Come on. How many UMC kids in the DMV haven’t managed to pass a single AP by the end of junior year?? This bar is set so low it’s meaningless. This can’t be the reason at all.[/quote]

High-performing affluent suburban high schools in the DMV (eg Whitman, Maclean) typically have CRIs around 80.

Every single Basis school has a CRI of 100.

Maybe Basis DC does systematically exclude all poor students (though I’m sure they’d deny it). But even that would not be enough to get their CRI to 90, let alone 100. [/quote]

There are two elements to CRI, which is just part of the score for USNW&R ranking. One is a participation rate, or the number of 12th grade students who took at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the total number of 12th graders at the school. The other is a quality-adjusted participation rate, defined as the number of 12th grade students who took and earned a qualifying score – which is an AP score of 3 or higher or IB score of 4 or higher – on at least one AP or IB test by the end of their senior year, divided by the number of 12th graders at that school.

Quality-adjusted participation was weighted at 75%, and the simple participation rate was weighted at 25% toward CRI. [b]The maximum CRI possible is 100 if every 12th grader at a school took and earned a qualifying score on at least one AP or IB exam by the end of their senior year.[/b]

BASIS DC doesn’t discourage students from taking AP exams.  In fact, they require AP exams to graduate.  As discussed above, in order to graduate, BASIS students must take at least 6 AP exams and obtain at least a 3 on one exam to graduate. Plus, around 40% of BASIS students are AP Scholars (getting a 3 or higher on at least THREE AP exams), a status that fewer than 10% of students attain.  [b]In fact, the only public high schools in the DMV that have a 100% CRI are BASIS DC and TJ in Fairfax, which is considered one of the best public high schools in the US.
[/b][/quote]

Thanks for confirming that Basis requires a 3 on one AP exam to graduate. Basis itself is extremely cagey about this graduation requirement and doesn’t seem to publish it anywhere.

It’s a very elegant system. Require the score to graduate, don’t allow the student to fulfill that graduation requirement as a 12th grader, and voila, your CRI is always 100.

Any school could do it. All you need is the will to force out every student who hasn’t passed an AP by the end of junior year.[/quote]

Dumb take.

Never heard of anyone not graduating from Basis because of the AP requirement.

Kids are taking 6-15 AP tests and the curriculum is already quite advanced so getting a 3 on 1 test is not a big deal.

TJ requires 6 AP courses as well and most students take more.  Go complain about them as well.[/quote]

This thread is ridiculous.

If BASIS is too challenging for your kid, send him or her elsewhere.

Leave the school for the rest of us.[/quote]

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