Anonymous wrote:Spots at the very Ivies and MIT are a lottery. Perfect grades and perfect test scores get you a ticket to the lottery. Then you can put your finger on the scale of the lottery with a combination of other things:
URM, legacy, succeeding at an extracurricular at a regional/national level, coming from a particular school (both a big urban public like JR or a top private like St. Albans may get you this bump), but you really need a few of these things. You're not going to routinely get in if you just happen to have the perfect grades, be an URM and be involved in city politics at a high school level. OR have the perfect grades, be legacy and have attended Jackson Reed. Or have the perfect grades, attend St. Albans AND be a chemistry olympiad champion.

I think sometimes a very challenging school like Basis (my kids are not there but are at NCS which also gives a ton (3-4 hours nightly) of homework) hurts it's graduates for spots at the top schools because the school work is so consuming the kids don't have time to really develop extracurriculars to a regional/national level. So this potential bump is completely off the table for most kids. And remember, you can't get in on grades/test scores alone----regardless of where you go to school (Basis, JR, Sidwell, St. Albans, etc).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread echoes the typical refrain of admins when parents question how BASIS handles college counseling and applications. What you get is, don't complain, BASIS is free and has a fantastic track record in admissions. If you're unhappy it's because your kid isn't all that good.

I see room for improvement. Some DC privates competing with BASIS in admissions are adapting better to a changing admissions landscape.

For example there are privates and public schools in the burbs that have started advising seniors aiming for Ivies to take 1-2 Cambridge A-Levels in Nov of senior year. This approach gives rising seniors 5 months after the last APs they've taken whose scores come in time to go with Jan applications to prep for additional standardized subject tests. A-Levels are on a par with IB Diploma higher level exams. Cambridge scores help seniors stand out on college applications.

At privates, AP course work doesn't wrap up junior year. BASIS could offer seniors more flexibility but the franchise is set in its ways. If you doubt this as a BASIS parent, ask the college counselor about Cambridge exams.

So wait - a big complaint elsewhere in this thread is that BASIS is too focused on tests (APs). So the solution is to focus on a new/different/additional set of tests - Cambridge A levels??! And with respect to college admissions - at this point, doesn't everyone know that a kid needs to have straight As plus top test scores plus extra/outside school activities- and even then admission to the "top" schools is a crapshoot? What is the magic that college counselors can (and are failing to) perform?

Anonymous wrote:Spots at the very Ivies and MIT are a lottery. Perfect grades and perfect test scores get you a ticket to the lottery. Then you can put your finger on the scale of the lottery with a combination of other things:
URM, legacy, succeeding at an extracurricular at a regional/national level, coming from a particular school (both a big urban public like JR or a top private like St. Albans may get you this bump), but you really need a few of these things. You're not going to routinely get in if you just happen to have the perfect grades, be an URM and be involved in city politics at a high school level. OR have the perfect grades, be legacy and have attended Jackson Reed. Or have the perfect grades, attend St. Albans AND be a chemistry olympiad champion.

I think sometimes a very challenging school like Basis (my kids are not there but are at NCS which also gives a ton (3-4 hours nightly) of homework) hurts it's graduates for spots at the top schools because the school work is so consuming the kids don't have time to really develop extracurriculars to a regional/national level. So this potential bump is completely off the table for most kids. And remember, you can't get in on grades/test scores alone----regardless of where you go to school (Basis, JR, Sidwell, St. Albans, etc).

Anonymous wrote:This thread echoes the typical refrain of admins when parents question how BASIS handles college counseling and applications. What you get is, don't complain, BASIS is free and has a fantastic track record in admissions. If you're unhappy it's because your kid isn't all that good.

I see room for improvement. Some DC privates competing with BASIS in admissions are adapting better to a changing admissions landscape.

For example there are privates and public schools in the burbs that have started advising seniors aiming for Ivies to take 1-2 Cambridge A-Levels in Nov of senior year. This approach gives rising seniors 5 months after the last APs they've taken whose scores come in time to go with Jan applications to prep for additional standardized subject tests. A-Levels are on a par with IB Diploma higher level exams. Cambridge scores help seniors stand out on college applications.

At privates, AP course work doesn't wrap up junior year. BASIS could offer seniors more flexibility but the franchise is set in its ways. If you doubt this as a BASIS parent, ask the college counselor about Cambridge exams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Since you're privy to what went wrong, why not share that information with the rest of us? Or are you just going to criticize without any facts to support your statements?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Not really.

College admissions for the BASIS class of 2022 was one of the strongest ever. For example, the BASIS network has some of the most highly nationally ranked high schools in the country and BASIS DC was the only one where kids were accepted to every single Ivy League college.

The lack of MIT admissions was a loss, a bunch of kids applied. Where are you getting the every single Ivy League school data? Grapevine?

I don't understand what people want/expect. I don't think there is some magic sauce that schools can provide to guarantee Ivy admission. Don't most realize that Ivy/elite school admission is kid dependent (plus luck!) . . . so if a school happens to have a crop of high achieving "special" kids - there will be a bunch of elite school admissions? IMO any particular kid year X would have gotten in no matter where s/he matriculated for high school, most likely. Maybe kids on the bubble, a particular school can push them over the top - but generally the cream will rise no matter where they go to school.

BASIS is all about getting you into "the college of your dreams," so expectations are high. IF MIT is the dream, then BASIS should do what it can to make it happen, or tell you to stop dreaming about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Since you're privy to what went wrong, why not share that information with the rest of us? Or are you just going to criticize without any facts to support your statements?

My kid dropped out of BASIS so I'm just going to make up facts to hurt the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Not really.

College admissions for the BASIS class of 2022 was one of the strongest ever. For example, the BASIS network has some of the most highly nationally ranked high schools in the country and BASIS DC was the only one where kids were accepted to every single Ivy League college.

The lack of MIT admissions was a loss, a bunch of kids applied. Where are you getting the every single Ivy League school data? Grapevine?

I don't understand what people want/expect. I don't think there is some magic sauce that schools can provide to guarantee Ivy admission. Don't most realize that Ivy/elite school admission is kid dependent (plus luck!) . . . so if a school happens to have a crop of high achieving "special" kids - there will be a bunch of elite school admissions? IMO any particular kid year X would have gotten in no matter where s/he matriculated for high school, most likely. Maybe kids on the bubble, a particular school can push them over the top - but generally the cream will rise no matter where they go to school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Not really.

College admissions for the BASIS class of 2022 was one of the strongest ever. For example, the BASIS network has some of the most highly nationally ranked high schools in the country and BASIS DC was the only one where kids were accepted to every single Ivy League college.

The lack of MIT admissions was a loss, a bunch of kids applied. Where are you getting the every single Ivy League school data? Grapevine?

Yep. MIT is hard to crack for any school. That info is from BASIS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Not really.

College admissions for the BASIS class of 2022 was one of the strongest ever. For example, the BASIS network has some of the most highly nationally ranked high schools in the country and BASIS DC was the only one where kids were accepted to every single Ivy League college.

The lack of MIT admissions was a loss, a bunch of kids applied. Where are you getting the every single Ivy League school data? Grapevine?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were the Basis College matriculations so mediocre last year?
I just watched the commencement video.
Most "honors" grads going to places like Temple, Penn State, Michigan State.
Valedictorian to Duke
Salutatorian to NW
Only Ivy admits were Brown (URM), Yale (URM), Yale (kid who had done years of Latin quiz bowl competitions at Yale).
Less than 5% of the class to top 20 schools.

I know that college isn't everything but why take years of AP classes if you're going to end up at Penn State?
You could make it there on much, much less.

BASIS DC has 100% acceptance into 4 year colleges and universities, with an average merit scholarship of $150,000 per student. You clearly grew up in privilege where mommy or daddy paid for college. My guess is that you are now surrounded by similarly situated friends. Were you to venture outside your bubble you'd meet people who are still paying for college and grad school into their 30s and 40s. Ask those people if they could go back in time and borrow less money what they'd do.

P.S. Please don't come back with some revisionist history garbage about how you grew up on a dirt patch in poor rural America. No one who had to pay for their own college education would have viewed matriculations through such a lens.

I'm not the person you're responding to, but I'm here to recommend that you dial back your holier than thou rant. Plenty of us went to college on boatloads of fi aid. I attended an Ivy on a Pell Grant, graduating in the early 90s, when the debt burden for Ivy grads from low-income backgrounds was much higher than it is now.

Something went a bit wrong at BASIS DC in admissions to the very most competitive colleges this past spring. Plenty of chatter in the school community about it.

Who knows if the dip was a blip, or will develop into a pattern. I'm guessing the later. The issues should be discussed, analyzed and addressed, vs. whitewashed with the sort of knee-jerk cheerleading you bring to the conversation.

Not really.

College admissions for the BASIS class of 2022 was one of the strongest ever. For example, the BASIS network has some of the most highly nationally ranked high schools in the country and BASIS DC was the only one where kids were accepted to every single Ivy League college.

The lack of MIT admissions was a loss, a bunch of kids applied. Where are you getting the every single Ivy League school data? Grapevine?