Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Note to all the I'm an "Ivy interviewer" folks. I worked for 15+ years in undergraduate admissions at an Ivy league school (I won't name it but I can tell you it is in Cambridge, MA). I really wish you people could hear how we talked about you. Long ago (until maybe the early 90s I'm told) the alumni/a interview was a meaningful part of the admissions assessment. That hasn't been true for decades. Now it is an exercise perpetuated by inertia and our alumni office's desire to continue to keep a bunch of self important jerks engaged with their school. If you aren't a member of one the boards and/or a 7 figure donor the school doesn't give a damn what you say. It never fails that the interviewers who are least important always think they are the most essential voices in admissions. You work in some government office next to people with degrees from UMD or UMass and you think the fact that you majored in English Lit in 2004 from "an Ivy" means a thing? You go through life thinking you are special. Trust me, the admissions officers see you as self centered, self-important jerks desperately clinging to degrees from days long ago.

Bitter much?

Anonymous wrote:Note to all the I'm an "Ivy interviewer" folks. I worked for 15+ years in undergraduate admissions at an Ivy league school (I won't name it but I can tell you it is in Cambridge, MA). I really wish you people could hear how we talked about you. Long ago (until maybe the early 90s I'm told) the alumni/a interview was a meaningful part of the admissions assessment. That hasn't been true for decades. Now it is an exercise perpetuated by inertia and our alumni office's desire to continue to keep a bunch of self important jerks engaged with their school. If you aren't a member of one the boards and/or a 7 figure donor the school doesn't give a damn what you say. It never fails that the interviewers who are least important always think they are the most essential voices in admissions. You work in some government office next to people with degrees from UMD or UMass and you think the fact that you majored in English Lit in 2004 from "an Ivy" means a thing? You go through life thinking you are special. Trust me, the admissions officers see you as self centered, self-important jerks desperately clinging to degrees from days long ago.

Anonymous wrote:Note to all the I'm an "Ivy interviewer" folks. I worked for 15+ years in undergraduate admissions at an Ivy league school (I won't name it but I can tell you it is in Cambridge, MA). I really wish you people could hear how we talked about you. Long ago (until maybe the early 90s I'm told) the alumni/a interview was a meaningful part of the admissions assessment. That hasn't been true for decades. Now it is an exercise perpetuated by inertia and our alumni office's desire to continue to keep a bunch of self important jerks engaged with their school. If you aren't a member of one the boards and/or a 7 figure donor the school doesn't give a damn what you say. It never fails that the interviewers who are least important always think they are the most essential voices in admissions. You work in some government office next to people with degrees from UMD or UMass and you think the fact that you majored in English Lit in 2004 from "an Ivy" means a thing? You go through life thinking you are special. Trust me, the admissions officers see you as self centered, self-important jerks desperately clinging to degrees from days long ago.

Anonymous wrote:I suspect that nobody much would complain about the BASIS foreign language program if uptight DC admins had the good sense to leave you alone when you're on track for a high score in an AP language as early as 9th grade. My sibling's kids attend a BASIS AZ school where they have permission for self prep on AP Mandarin (native-speaking family) without having to take the silly middle school linguistics class or any language at a beginning level. Apparently, the BASIS DC approach to language learning isn't universal in the the franchise's national constellation of middle schools and high schools. DC's problem is mainly leadership vs. policy.

Anonymous wrote:I'm an Ivy alum who's interviewed DC applicants, mostly public school students, since the late 90s. My spouse has long interviewed for a different Ivy.

As far as we can tell, no question that impressive off-beat interests and achievements give academically solid applicants a leg up in Ivy admissions these days.

BASIS doesn't seem to get it. I'd wager that more BASIS DC students would be admitted to our Ivies if the school encouraged singular interests and quirky academic achievement. Marine biology, yes. Hint: TJ in Fairfax has a marine biology research lab.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP above is making a valid point that you guys don't want to deal with.

BASIS DC is an ultra-conservative school academically built on a limited AP curriculum--they teach about half of the 32 AP subjects--run by admins chosen by franchise leaders in Arizona. The franchise runs off a hidebound formula for elite college admissions which is almost military in they way it's implemented. Deviate openly from the narrow BASIS AP success path and your family will no longer be welcome in high school. If the BASIS approach works for your family, fantastic.

For example, if the kid wants to study an "obscure" or "exotic" language, like Japanese (AP language), Russian or Arabic, or to prep for Cambridge Islamic Studies or Marine Biology exams, BASIS admins will discourage the kid.

I'm not saying this isn't true, it just seems like a very specific criticism that isn't very relevant to a big group of parents, given that the other places we'd send our kids mostly have the same issues. In the category of "criticisms of BASIS", the building, pressure, and extracurricular limitations are a lot more relevant to me as the parent of a fourth grader because those are things I actually can do better for my kid somewhere else (at the cost of missing out on the things BASIS does better than those other schools.)