The only important question is whether what BASIS offers is a good fit for your kid. For mine, it seems to be. I’m sure not for many others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of competitive kids at BASIS play serious sports and do other intensive extra curriculars (from music to advanced languages in middle school, to acting programs etc.). But, yes, as a parent, you get to pay the dough and do the leg work to make it all happen. Be prepared.

If your UMC BASIS kids to have a shot at highly competitive colleges, it's v. short-sighted to stick with what the school offers. This past spring, there was a great deal of disappointment at BASIS, even shock, at how many of the top 10 or 15 kids didn't wind up with options at colleges admitting in the single digits. IMHO, weak EC accomplishments were mainly to blame. The 2022 admissions results were an eye-opener for the parents community, though a handful of kids cracked MIT, Harvard, Yale. The class in question was particularly strong academically, the first group that came all the way up from 5th grade.

Disappointment and shock? Not really. In fact, the class did well in college admissions. For example, its results were better per capita than a lot of other top public schools in the area such as Montgomery Blair and Whitman that, because of their larger size, offer many more extracurricular activities.

Anonymous wrote:It all sounds fantastic, but the reality is that the facilities and resources simply just aren't there to support serious versions of most of these clubs. Musicals, and debates for that matter, are only so good without an auditorium or school orchestra. Cooking isn't too hot without a decent kitchen. Parents generally must pay for competitors to travel to Yale etc. for Certamen. ASL isn't taught as a language class at BASIS (often the case in suburban middle schools and high schools in this area). Even Science Olympiad isn't all that great without great labs for robotics and research. The clubs are much better than nothing of course, but I'd take it all with a grain of sale if you're interested in BASIS. JR has much more serious ECs overall and so does Walls. My kid rows on the joint JR-Walls crew team out of the Georgetown boat house.

Does your kid do competitive cooking too?

Every child's dream is to prepare a delicious croque madame in the Walls/JR rustic French gourmet kitchen before heading out with his crewmates from the Georgetown boathouse.

You mean supplement at most public schools in DC other than BASIS? You’re not presenting anything like the full picture. We supplemented plenty for Spanish at BASIS from 5th-8th because admins and teachers didn’t mind if our kid forgot all the Spanish she’d learned before enrolling. There was no Spanish club, Spanish lunch table, after school Spanish at BASIS and a ridiculously easy Spanish class when she was finally able to take Spanish at BASIS. We volunteered to organize these options with other parents whose middle school kids spoke decent Spanish and were told no by admins. We also supplemented for writing because the instruction wasn’t very good. On top of that, we paid for music and sports outside BASIS. Switching to a good parochial HS wasn’t a problem financially after all we’d paid to supplement/for enrichment while at BASIS…

It does seem many parents supplement ECs at BASIS (we do for music and sports) but we figured it was easier to supplement ECs than academics, which it seems people do at most schools other than BASIS. Supplementation by those with means to do so is commonplace in this area. Parents should ask themselves which types of things, if any, they are better able to supplement, if they are aiming high in college admissions.

Anonymous wrote:Lots of competitive kids at BASIS play serious sports and do other intensive extra curriculars (from music to advanced languages in middle school, to acting programs etc.). But, yes, as a parent, you get to pay the dough and do the leg work to make it all happen. Be prepared.

If your UMC BASIS kids to have a shot at highly competitive colleges, it's v. short-sighted to stick with what the school offers. This past spring, there was a great deal of disappointment at BASIS, even shock, at how many of the top 10 or 15 kids didn't wind up with options at colleges admitting in the single digits. IMHO, weak EC accomplishments were mainly to blame. The 2022 admissions results were an eye-opener for the parents community, though a handful of kids cracked MIT, Harvard, Yale. The class in question was particularly strong academically, the first group that came all the way up from 5th grade.

Charter school extracurriculars and clubs are always more expensive than public school ones.
They have Taekwondo, not karate, and that club is terrific.

Lots of competitive kids at BASIS play serious sports and do other intensive extra curriculars (from music to advanced languages in middle school, to acting programs etc.). But, yes, as a parent, you get to pay the dough and do the leg work to make it all happen. Be prepared.

Lots of competitive swim kids at BASIS, FWIW. They swim on the city team.

It all sounds fantastic, but the reality is that the facilities and resources simply just aren't there to support serious versions of most of these clubs. Musicals, and debates for that matter, are only so good without an auditorium or school orchestra. Cooking isn't too hot without a decent kitchen. Parents generally must pay for competitors to travel to Yale etc. for Certamen. ASL isn't taught as a language class at BASIS (often the case in suburban middle schools and high schools in this area). Even Science Olympiad isn't all that great without great labs for robotics and research. The clubs are much better than nothing of course, but I'd take it all with a grain of sale if you're interested in BASIS. JR has much more serious ECs overall and so does Walls. My kid rows on the joint JR-Walls crew team out of the Georgetown boat house.

Lots of clubs and the school has a musical theater production each semester.

Here are some of the other clubs offered: (students are invited to start additional clubs if they can get enough support)
Chess
Magic the Gathering
National Honor Society
National Junior Honor Society
Speech & Debate
Junior Classical League/Certamen
Model UN
Science Olympiad
Acts of Kindness
American Sign Language
GSA
Knitting
Cooking
Yearbook
Student Leaderships
Art in the City (Museum Field Trips)
Karate

How about clubs or theater?

BASIS MS baseball practices and plays at RFK. Hoping to have a high school team in 2024. Basketball uses different DPR gyms near metro.

Cross country and track practice on the Mall. And the MS cross country team is #1 across charter schools. High school cross country is #3.

The only sport available to 5th graders is cross country.
Beyond 5th grade:
Cross country (coed)
Flag football (coed)
Soccer (boys and girls)
Basketball (boys and girls)
Baseball (more recently offered)

For flag football, soccer, and track, the school uses the National Mall and The Fields at RFK and sometimes DPR fields.
I would imagine similar for baseball and likely DPR courts for basketball.
The school offers a dance team as well.

What sports does Basis DC have at the middle school and at the high school? And where do they play? I understand they have no fields or gym.