Anonymous wrote:This thread makes abundantly clear that DC is operating in a scarcity mindset when it comes to high-achieving high schools. We need to transition to an abundance mindset. We need more academically challenging HS programs. Perhaps they should make another Walls campus (or two).

No. This is not it at all. Dcps is all about offering “challenging” classes to kids who are ill prepared. The problem
Is that dcps does not like to let a critical mass of high performers cluster at one school. As it is there are not enough students prepared for what dcps wants to offer. These kids try to congregate at a place like walls and dcps does its best to dilute.

Anonymous wrote:I have you all beat with my rejected kid.

-4.0; straight A's every quarter at Deal for 6th, 7th, 8th (no A minuses in any quarter).
-PARCC 99% in 7th grade for Deal, DCPS and DC for both ELA and Math
-IB Student of the month at Deal for a month in 6th grade, 7th grade and 8th grade.
-Highest ELA average, end of year award in 7th grade


No interview.
She's a quiet, well liked girl. Not a trouble maker and not loud or obnoxious.

As a parent of a Deal student who was offered an interview, and is a great hard working kid with a 4.0 but does not have all of these other achievements, my heart aches reading this. I know achieving all this is not easy at a place like Deal. Honestly I feel like the top kids get a lot more hand holding at the other middie schools in DC where being a strong student makes you stand out more. At deal high achievers are just one of many and it sounds like your daughter has found a way to distinguish herself. I am not sure what your other options are but on the upside, hearing how the walls process is shaking out is making me feel more and more confident about the 9th grade cohort at JR next year!

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately the letter of recommendation didn’t meet the threshold for an interview and essay submittal opportunity in which he might of been able to share some of who he is and what he has accomplished. Following is some of what I wrote to his school OA & Walls:

“Something doesn’t seem fair and this just isn’t a parent complaining and trying to make him better than he is. My son is a well rounded student, vast international travel experience, trilingual, ( English, Spanish, Chinese), multi cultural parents/ family, climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at age 13, achieved a green belt in karate at 11, developing into a strong and able soccer player, has had a high lexile reading/ comprehension score since 4th grade reading then at 11 grade level and now at 12 grade level; he has always performed well in math, high spelling bee placements over the years , he plays piano superbly and is a good singer and performed in several talents shows, has been in the school musical, at a young age he has produced some incredible color animes figures. He is and has been in the OA swim team the last 2 years as well as the soccer team this year. He has the uncanny personality that allows him to have a wide range off different type of friends and relate well to them all. He is a good friend to many and is always willing to help and truly would of been an asset to Walls which offered a more intimate and demanding educational opportunity and environment to achieve his potential .”
Acceptance as difficult as it is, is in the works.
Thanks for reading.

Oh yeah? I’ve got you beat. My kid didn’t get an interview, and this was my letter to Walls. “My child is a well-rounded student. He is a polyglot who speaks seven languages, English, Chinese, French, Klingon, Elivish, Dothraki, and Lapine. He comes from a multicultural family, British on one side and a quarter Atlantean and a quarter Betazoid on the other. His Betazoid side makes him extremely empathetic, and at the age of 13, he won the Nobel peace prize. At age eleven, our splendiferous child won the mixed IMMAF championship in Serbia. They offered to make him president, but he declined, because he doesn’t think the view from the President’s house is very good. I agree! Over the years, our perfect spawn has won every Geography Bee he entered, no doubt to his vast international travel that we paid for, in the efforts to ensure his entry into a specific public school that would be lucky to have him because they aren’t really good enough to have him anyway. Our travel was a hardship when the nanny could not come along, and we had to tend to our child unit ourselves, but then again, why should we have to pay for her first-class ticket to galivant around the world on our dime? Really! Our kid has had premier tutors, because we are so rich, and so our dear mini us reads far above his teachers. His last tutor, Jon Fosse, said our child unit has the best Lexile number of any 13-year-old he has ever met. Of course he does; it’s the best Lexile number money can buy. I have been told Fosse knows what he is talking about, but I haven’t read any of his books. Lee Kiefer and Aron Szilagyi dueled almost to the death to be our son’s fencing tutors. I made sure they knew they could each have a turn. And because our dear child unit is such a superb swimmer, Michael Phelps offered to come and teach our child, but I told him that he was yesterday’s champion and to get lost. Like we need him—really! Our child has friends. Did I mention he has friends? You should be grateful that we considered gracing your halls with a child so superb, so splendiferous, so splendorous, so resplendent, so precious, so rich, so privileged, so fortunate, so everything that no other child there could be, so everything that money can buy. And just so you know, we wouldn’t go to your school now if you begged. But if you sent us an interview date we would go, just so you know. Do you have my number? My email? You can use this email. Now that you have read this email, I am sure you will have changed your mind.”

Thank you for reading. I am in the acceptance phase, and telling all of you how much better my child is than yours, and letting the world know through DCUM, makes me feel so much better.

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately the letter of recommendation didn’t meet the threshold for an interview and essay submittal opportunity in which he might of been able to share some of who he is and what he has accomplished. Following is some of what I wrote to his school OA & Walls:

“Something doesn’t seem fair and this just isn’t a parent complaining and trying to make him better than he is. My son is a well rounded student, vast international travel experience, trilingual, ( English, Spanish, Chinese), multi cultural parents/ family, climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at age 13, achieved a green belt in karate at 11, developing into a strong and able soccer player, has had a high lexile reading/ comprehension score since 4th grade reading then at 11 grade level and now at 12 grade level; he has always performed well in math, high spelling bee placements over the years , he plays piano superbly and is a good singer and performed in several talents shows, has been in the school musical, at a young age he has produced some incredible color animes figures. He is and has been in the OA swim team the last 2 years as well as the soccer team this year. He has the uncanny personality that allows him to have a wide range off different type of friends and relate well to them all. He is a good friend to many and is always willing to help and truly would of been an asset to Walls which offered a more intimate and demanding educational opportunity and environment to achieve his potential .”
Acceptance as difficult as it is, is in the works.
Thanks for reading.

This is nothing more than programming.

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately the letter of recommendation didn’t meet the threshold for an interview and essay submittal opportunity in which he might of been able to share some of who he is and what he has accomplished. Following is some of what I wrote to his school OA & Walls:

“Something doesn’t seem fair and this just isn’t a parent complaining and trying to make him better than he is. My son is a well rounded student, vast international travel experience, trilingual, ( English, Spanish, Chinese), multi cultural parents/ family, climbed to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at age 13, achieved a green belt in karate at 11, developing into a strong and able soccer player, has had a high lexile reading/ comprehension score since 4th grade reading then at 11 grade level and now at 12 grade level; he has always performed well in math, high spelling bee placements over the years , he plays piano superbly and is a good singer and performed in several talents shows, has been in the school musical, at a young age he has produced some incredible color animes figures. He is and has been in the OA swim team the last 2 years as well as the soccer team this year. He has the uncanny personality that allows him to have a wide range off different type of friends and relate well to them all. He is a good friend to many and is always willing to help and truly would of been an asset to Walls which offered a more intimate and demanding educational opportunity and environment to achieve his potential .”
Acceptance as difficult as it is, is in the works.
Thanks for reading.

All this does is reek of privilege. I understand that you and your child are disappointed but perhaps you should consider this an opportunity to humble yourself. It just seems that you've built a resume for a middle schooler and are now pissed that everything you wanted isn't what you're going to get. You've tried to really stick it to them, but more than likely an email like this will elicit gratitute for avoiding another set of delusional parents.

This thread makes abundantly clear that DC is operating in a scarcity mindset when it comes to high-achieving high schools. We need to transition to an abundance mindset. We need more academically challenging HS programs. Perhaps they should make another Walls campus (or two).

Anonymous wrote:It would probably be helpful for everyone’s stress levels if we all started to think of Walls as what it is: a lottery school for kids with reasonably good GPAs.

FWIW, I don't think this is just Bowser...I think Walls is fine with this model...they do not necessarily want the "smartest" kids. Very high achieving kids can be a challenge to educate...they know this and would prefer classes of reasonably smart, well behaved kids.

It would probably be helpful for everyone’s stress levels if we all started to think of Walls as what it is: a lottery school for kids with reasonably good GPAs.

Your kid wasn't rejected as much as the District has rejected the Jeffersonian meritocracy model for Walls. At least you're in-boundary for J-R, PP. Down here on Capitol Hill, families sometimes move over Walls rejections, particularly where kids struck out at BASIS and Latin.

I have you all beat with my rejected kid.

-4.0; straight A's every quarter at Deal for 6th, 7th, 8th (no A minuses in any quarter).
-PARCC 99% in 7th grade for Deal, DCPS and DC for both ELA and Math
-IB Student of the month at Deal for a month in 6th grade, 7th grade and 8th grade.
-Highest ELA average, end of year award in 7th grade


No interview.
She's a quiet, well liked girl. Not a trouble maker and not loud or obnoxious.

Anonymous wrote:OP above, you're thinking like a New Yorker or Bostonian aiming for a child's admission to a bona fide test-in magnet HS with a stable and transparent admissions process. Unfortunately, what Mayor Bowser seems to care most about in the ed sphere is strong AA representation in DCPS' highest-performing cohorts. She shows no sign of giving a hoot about high-achieving Asian students like yours. She runs unopposed and faces no real political headwinds on this one. Yes, your super high-achieving and multi-talented son should have been admitted. Indeed, four years ago, it sounds like he'd have been a shoe-in. Find your greener pastures knowing that the fact that Walls has started rejecting dozens of applicants as worthy as yours says that you have little to lament in his unjust exclusion. Walls is going downhill year on year. Sounds like you belong in the burbs.

Bowser only cares about money which is why you have so many cameras everywhere, but that's a different topic. SWW is only 26% AA if you look at current demographics, but was historically a majority AA school just like the city was. The changing demographics of the city also changes the demographics of the school systems. Bowser can't control that. Look at the graduation pictures in the hall of the school and you'll see what the past student body mix was. Most of the non AA SWW students came from families that stayed in the city after white flight of the 60s or from families that lived on Bolling AFB. They use to bus the kids back and forth from the school to the base. Most Deal kids went straight to Wilson. I'm not sure when the trend started of Deal kids going to Walls began. The student body was also mostly AA historically because they selected kids from all over the city which again was majority AA at that time. AA kids came in the 9th grade. Deal historically extended to the 9th grade so an influx of kids would come in the 10th grade, but even most of them were AA.

Anonymous wrote:For some kids this is just an option because they may go to a private school or its their 2nd or 3rd choice. If this was your 1st choice and you didn't get an interview. It really stings.

This. I know of a number of kids who got interviews for whom Walls is the very last choice. I really think if they're going to use something like recs to eliminate kids from even getting a shot in an interview, they should include something else pre-interview - personal statement, 3rd rec from teacher of choosing, something. I get they wanted to expand the GPA range and this was their way to do it, but all it ended up doing was giving far far far too much weight/power to recommendations from teachers who have taught these kids for half a year.

Anonymous wrote:For some kids this is just an option because they may go to a private school or its their 2nd or 3rd choice. If this was your 1st choice and you didn't get an interview. It really stings.

+100

For some kids this is just an option because they may go to a private school or its their 2nd or 3rd choice. If this was your 1st choice and you didn't get an interview. It really stings.

*Shoo-in.