Anonymous
01/27/2026 14:22
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
Jefferson and EH both offer Geometry to students whose data indicates that they are ready for it. Do those schools have a lot of kids behind grade level? Yes. Do those kids have a number of kids at or above grade level? Also yes. As a parent of one of those kids, it is exhausting having people on this board with no first-hand (or really even second-hand) experience at these schools make false claims like "this is a poorly performing school that doesn't even offer geometry". We love our kid's teachers, they pay a lot of attention to exactly what our child's strengths and opportunity for growth are, and they've been very clear with us that just because our child is one of the higher performers, they want to keep pushing and challenging them. The kids are placed in cohorts, and because they are providing accelerated math and also intensive remedial classes, that means that for other non-tracked classes, kids actually tend to be in classes with kids of more similar ability levels to them. And we know many kids who've graduated from the school and have gone on to be successful at select high schools. So no, kids who coming as high performers as not falling massively behind and/or relying heavily on tutoring.
So the school does not actually have a geometry class with a good cohort of students in it.
I don’t see how you can say there is a number of kids above grade level. The data is there for both EH and Jefferson. 2% and 1% kids above grade level in math. That is like 1-2 kids per grade.
Well, I met some Stuart-Hobson kids at a Walls open house and they said they are currently in Geometry. I guess we'll see when the next round of testing data comes out.
You need to review the middle school math spreadsheet on the OSSE website to have an informed opinion about this. If an 8th grader is taking Geometry and scores a 4, that's "grade level" in the totals but that student is clearly working above grade level, no?
SH has not offered geometry class since Covid that I know of so not sure when you talked to these kids.
There is only 3 schools where you see geometry CAPE scores and it’s none of the CH middle schools. You need more than 10 kids to be listed, not high bar so I doubt the school actually has a real geometry class.
It was at the Walls open house a few weeks ago. I was talking with a group of kids and some were definitely from Stuart-Hobson, but perhaps there were kids from other schools mixed in.
Here are the schools that had kids participating in Geometry CAPE last year, with the number of kids getting a 4 or a 5. I don't know why you would say it's none of the Hill middle schools. Eliot-Hine is right there with 9 kids scoring a 4 or 5.
Hardy Middle School data suppressed
Oyster-Adams Bilingual School less than 10
Deal Middle School data suppressed
Eliot-Hine Middle School 9 kids passed
Sousa Middle School less than 10
Jefferson Middle School Academy less than 10
Columbia Heights Education Campus less than 10
Washington Latin PCS - Middle School 21 kids passed
Washington Latin PCS - Anna Julia Cooper Middle School 26 kids passed
For the current school year, it might be a longer list. I know ITDS is offering it in the current school year, but you can't really expect a school the size of ITDS to have 10 kids in it.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 14:08
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
Jefferson and EH both offer Geometry to students whose data indicates that they are ready for it. Do those schools have a lot of kids behind grade level? Yes. Do those kids have a number of kids at or above grade level? Also yes. As a parent of one of those kids, it is exhausting having people on this board with no first-hand (or really even second-hand) experience at these schools make false claims like "this is a poorly performing school that doesn't even offer geometry". We love our kid's teachers, they pay a lot of attention to exactly what our child's strengths and opportunity for growth are, and they've been very clear with us that just because our child is one of the higher performers, they want to keep pushing and challenging them. The kids are placed in cohorts, and because they are providing accelerated math and also intensive remedial classes, that means that for other non-tracked classes, kids actually tend to be in classes with kids of more similar ability levels to them. And we know many kids who've graduated from the school and have gone on to be successful at select high schools. So no, kids who coming as high performers as not falling massively behind and/or relying heavily on tutoring.
So the school does not actually have a geometry class with a good cohort of students in it.
I don’t see how you can say there is a number of kids above grade level. The data is there for both EH and Jefferson. 2% and 1% kids above grade level in math. That is like 1-2 kids per grade.
Well, I met some Stuart-Hobson kids at a Walls open house and they said they are currently in Geometry. I guess we'll see when the next round of testing data comes out.
You need to review the middle school math spreadsheet on the OSSE website to have an informed opinion about this. If an 8th grader is taking Geometry and scores a 4, that's "grade level" in the totals but that student is clearly working above grade level, no?
SH has not offered geometry class since Covid that I know of so not sure when you talked to these kids.
There is only 3 schools where you see geometry CAPE scores and it’s none of the CH middle schools. You need more than 10 kids to be listed, not high bar so I doubt the school actually has a real geometry class.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:50
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Its also really useful to talk to people who have gone the good but not necessarily great neighborhood middle school route.
agree but be careful. I heard raves about Stuart and Eliot only to find later that the parents were lottering every year, looking at private schools and trying to move. People love to justify their choices.
This. This. This.
You should be talking to not only parents who are there but more so parents who leave. They will tell all. The ones who leave are much more informative than the ones who don’t because they don’t have other options and want more buy in from families.
Once a kid is in MS, it's too late for buy in from other families to make a difference for them. But maybe could make a difference for a younger sibling?
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:42
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
its on grade level for the advanced math course content. you dont want kids taking algebra or geometry without mastering it because future math courses build on it.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:22
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
Jefferson and EH both offer Geometry to students whose data indicates that they are ready for it. Do those schools have a lot of kids behind grade level? Yes. Do those kids have a number of kids at or above grade level? Also yes. As a parent of one of those kids, it is exhausting having people on this board with no first-hand (or really even second-hand) experience at these schools make false claims like "this is a poorly performing school that doesn't even offer geometry". We love our kid's teachers, they pay a lot of attention to exactly what our child's strengths and opportunity for growth are, and they've been very clear with us that just because our child is one of the higher performers, they want to keep pushing and challenging them. The kids are placed in cohorts, and because they are providing accelerated math and also intensive remedial classes, that means that for other non-tracked classes, kids actually tend to be in classes with kids of more similar ability levels to them. And we know many kids who've graduated from the school and have gone on to be successful at select high schools. So no, kids who coming as high performers as not falling massively behind and/or relying heavily on tutoring.
So the school does not actually have a geometry class with a good cohort of students in it.
I don’t see how you can say there is a number of kids above grade level. The data is there for both EH and Jefferson. 2% and 1% kids above grade level in math. That is like 1-2 kids per grade.
Well, I met some Stuart-Hobson kids at a Walls open house and they said they are currently in Geometry. I guess we'll see when the next round of testing data comes out.
You need to review the middle school math spreadsheet on the OSSE website to have an informed opinion about this. If an 8th grader is taking Geometry and scores a 4, that's "grade level" in the totals but that student is clearly working above grade level, no?
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:20
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
its possible to be reasonably happy at SH/ITDS/EH/John Francis/Jefferson and also still continue to enter the lottery, research and apply to k-12 private options, and/or think about moving because well high school
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:15
Subject: Re:Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line if you have a high performing kid, it is Basis and DCI.
Average kid Latin
If your kid doesn’t get into the above, move to MD or VA. I would pick VA for state school benefit for college.
No good options for middle school other than above EOTP.
Don’t waste your time on settling for a poor middle school only to have to settle for another poor high school or move in high school which is worst.
Totally disagree with this. High performing kids definitely fit in at Latin. ITDS definitely has high-performers -- maybe not as many as some other middle schools because it's small -- and a really good track record of 8th graders getting into Banneker and Walls. I'm sure some Hill parents have something to say as well.
+1. The smartest kids at our DCI feeder went to Basis and Latin. We also know some super high performing kids at ITDS.
When was this? Because from our feeder all the smart kids went to DCI
One family with average kid did go to Latin because he needed more hand holding and smaller class but they are planning on sending younger kid to DCI.
NP, but I'm a parent at ITDS middle now and there are lots of smart kids. Honestly, the kids who leave ITDS for something with a high school tend to be the middling or lower students who don't feel great about their chances at selective high schools.
Sorry but no one is going to risk lottery luck for high school, especially a family with an higher performing kid, with recent changes in admissions with Walls if they have a better option that also includes high school. No one.
Good luck to your kid if you are the outlier. I definitely would have back up plan B to move.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:09
Subject: Re:Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line if you have a high performing kid, it is Basis and DCI.
Average kid Latin
If your kid doesn’t get into the above, move to MD or VA. I would pick VA for state school benefit for college.
No good options for middle school other than above EOTP.
Don’t waste your time on settling for a poor middle school only to have to settle for another poor high school or move in high school which is worst.
Totally disagree with this. High performing kids definitely fit in at Latin. ITDS definitely has high-performers -- maybe not as many as some other middle schools because it's small -- and a really good track record of 8th graders getting into Banneker and Walls. I'm sure some Hill parents have something to say as well.
+1. The smartest kids at our DCI feeder went to Basis and Latin. We also know some super high performing kids at ITDS.
When was this? Because from our feeder all the smart kids went to DCI
One family with average kid did go to Latin because he needed more hand holding and smaller class but they are planning on sending younger kid to DCI.
NP, but I'm a parent at ITDS middle now and there are lots of smart kids. Honestly, the kids who leave ITDS for something with a high school tend to be the middling or lower students who don't feel great about their chances at selective high schools.
Come on, that is BS.
ITDS is known to have high turnover in 4th and 5th. These kids are leaving for Latin or Basis. They get a bu call me if new kids coming in which is not good for stability.
PP they also move to butbs.
typo bunch of new kids
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:08
Subject: Re:Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line if you have a high performing kid, it is Basis and DCI.
Average kid Latin
If your kid doesn’t get into the above, move to MD or VA. I would pick VA for state school benefit for college.
No good options for middle school other than above EOTP.
Don’t waste your time on settling for a poor middle school only to have to settle for another poor high school or move in high school which is worst.
Totally disagree with this. High performing kids definitely fit in at Latin. ITDS definitely has high-performers -- maybe not as many as some other middle schools because it's small -- and a really good track record of 8th graders getting into Banneker and Walls. I'm sure some Hill parents have something to say as well.
+1. The smartest kids at our DCI feeder went to Basis and Latin. We also know some super high performing kids at ITDS.
When was this? Because from our feeder all the smart kids went to DCI
One family with average kid did go to Latin because he needed more hand holding and smaller class but they are planning on sending younger kid to DCI.
NP, but I'm a parent at ITDS middle now and there are lots of smart kids. Honestly, the kids who leave ITDS for something with a high school tend to be the middling or lower students who don't feel great about their chances at selective high schools.
Come on, that is BS.
ITDS is known to have high turnover in 4th and 5th. These kids are leaving for Latin or Basis. They get a bu call me if new kids coming in which is not good for stability.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:06
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
Jefferson and EH both offer Geometry to students whose data indicates that they are ready for it. Do those schools have a lot of kids behind grade level? Yes. Do those kids have a number of kids at or above grade level? Also yes. As a parent of one of those kids, it is exhausting having people on this board with no first-hand (or really even second-hand) experience at these schools make false claims like "this is a poorly performing school that doesn't even offer geometry". We love our kid's teachers, they pay a lot of attention to exactly what our child's strengths and opportunity for growth are, and they've been very clear with us that just because our child is one of the higher performers, they want to keep pushing and challenging them. The kids are placed in cohorts, and because they are providing accelerated math and also intensive remedial classes, that means that for other non-tracked classes, kids actually tend to be in classes with kids of more similar ability levels to them. And we know many kids who've graduated from the school and have gone on to be successful at select high schools. So no, kids who coming as high performers as not falling massively behind and/or relying heavily on tutoring.
So the school does not actually have a geometry class with a good cohort of students in it.
I don’t see how you can say there is a number of kids above grade level. The data is there for both EH and Jefferson. 2% and 1% kids above grade level in math. That is like 1-2 kids per grade.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 13:03
Subject: Re:Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line if you have a high performing kid, it is Basis and DCI.
Average kid Latin
If your kid doesn’t get into the above, move to MD or VA. I would pick VA for state school benefit for college.
No good options for middle school other than above EOTP.
Don’t waste your time on settling for a poor middle school only to have to settle for another poor high school or move in high school which is worst.
Totally disagree with this. High performing kids definitely fit in at Latin. ITDS definitely has high-performers -- maybe not as many as some other middle schools because it's small -- and a really good track record of 8th graders getting into Banneker and Walls. I'm sure some Hill parents have something to say as well.
+1. The smartest kids at our DCI feeder went to Basis and Latin. We also know some super high performing kids at ITDS.
When was this? Because from our feeder all the smart kids went to DCI
One family with average kid did go to Latin because he needed more hand holding and smaller class but they are planning on sending younger kid to DCI.
NP, but I'm a parent at ITDS middle now and there are lots of smart kids. Honestly, the kids who leave ITDS for something with a high school tend to be the middling or lower students who don't feel great about their chances at selective high schools.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 12:58
Subject: Re:Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Here is the bottom line if you have a high performing kid, it is Basis and DCI.
Average kid Latin
If your kid doesn’t get into the above, move to MD or VA. I would pick VA for state school benefit for college.
No good options for middle school other than above EOTP.
Don’t waste your time on settling for a poor middle school only to have to settle for another poor high school or move in high school which is worst.
Totally disagree with this. High performing kids definitely fit in at Latin. ITDS definitely has high-performers -- maybe not as many as some other middle schools because it's small -- and a really good track record of 8th graders getting into Banneker and Walls. I'm sure some Hill parents have something to say as well.
+1. The smartest kids at our DCI feeder went to Basis and Latin. We also know some super high performing kids at ITDS.
When was this? Because from our feeder all the smart kids went to DCI
One family with average kid did go to Latin because he needed more hand holding and smaller class but they are planning on sending younger kid to DCI.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 12:54
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Its also really useful to talk to people who have gone the good but not necessarily great neighborhood middle school route.
agree but be careful. I heard raves about Stuart and Eliot only to find later that the parents were lottering every year, looking at private schools and trying to move. People love to justify their choices.
This. This. This.
You should be talking to not only parents who are there but more so parents who leave. They will tell all. The ones who leave are much more informative than the ones who don’t because they don’t have other options and want more buy in from families.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 12:44
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
Jefferson and EH both offer Geometry to students whose data indicates that they are ready for it. Do those schools have a lot of kids behind grade level? Yes. Do those kids have a number of kids at or above grade level? Also yes. As a parent of one of those kids, it is exhausting having people on this board with no first-hand (or really even second-hand) experience at these schools make false claims like "this is a poorly performing school that doesn't even offer geometry". We love our kid's teachers, they pay a lot of attention to exactly what our child's strengths and opportunity for growth are, and they've been very clear with us that just because our child is one of the higher performers, they want to keep pushing and challenging them. The kids are placed in cohorts, and because they are providing accelerated math and also intensive remedial classes, that means that for other non-tracked classes, kids actually tend to be in classes with kids of more similar ability levels to them. And we know many kids who've graduated from the school and have gone on to be successful at select high schools. So no, kids who coming as high performers as not falling massively behind and/or relying heavily on tutoring.
Anonymous
01/27/2026 12:19
Subject: Ranking assistance - Cap Hill/Brookland area
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Sadly all decent middle school options at extremely hard to get into. This shouldn’t be the case. It’s very frustrating. You’re literally competing for a handful of spots.
I think what's frustrating is that you are not "competing" for those spots. It's luck and money, at least for the public school spots (for private, it's money, luck, and for a small number of schools, merit). Either you can afford to buy in-bound for Deal and Hardy or you can't. If you can't, maybe you get lucky with a lottery spot at a feeder, or a lottery spot at BASIS or Latin. For DCI, you really need to nab a lottery spot at a feeder in ECE, both because spots later in elementary can be hard to come by and because moving a kid to an immersion school in mid to late elementary, if they aren't already at an immersion school, is far from ideal.
So basically you either win the PK3 lottery or you win the 5th grade lottery or you have enough money to buy your way into one of the two DCPS middles that are actually good. Or you move or you pay for private. Literally none of this has anything to do with competing, you cannot prepare yourself or your kid for any of that, there's no way to earn your way into a good program with effort or skill. Which sucks because some kids really are hard working and academically inclined, love learning and want to learn more in an environment where other kids also want to learn. And the system does not care. Not even a little. Put your name in the drawing and see what happens, kid. Sorry your parents aren't rich. Good luck.
These are paths but there is another one, which is to make do at a mediocre-but-not-awful middle school (this is Francis, SH, EH, Jefferson, ITDS) and then get into an application high school. I've been here for 20 years and I know MANY kids in this category, some of whom have now gone on to good colleges.
Sorry but schools above (SH, EH, Jefferson) are not mediocre. They are poorly performing. Look at the other thread. They don’t even offer geometry. There is no tracking in other classes and you are with kids 3, 4 grades apart. Kids are falling behind their peers even with families using tutors.
Things have changed at the high school. Walls is a crap shot now and you can’t rely on it if you have a top performing kids. So many kids who should get in did not. Like PP above says, you have absolutely no control.
This is garbage. The top students at all of those schools are doing very well. SH has probably the best MS performing arts program in the city (just got the top award at the super prestigious Junior Theater Festival, which went to the Top 9 schools of 114 in the country), won the overall WUDC title last year beating the schools you deem worthy (debate) and was among the best performing schools in DC at History Day. They don't offer Geometry so they're poorly performing? (They are actually willing to accommodate individual stand out math students, FWIW, and I suspect Geometry will be back again soon; they used to have it and decided it wasn't serving students well in COVID times.)
(I'm not as familiar with EH and Jefferson, so don't want to speak for them, but this isn't meant to suggest they don't also have similar things to offer. Also, I am nearly positive that EH does offer Geometry.)