Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have close friends and relatives with teens in schools in Fairfax, Arlington and MoCo. The friends became our pals in our DCPS ES. It's clear to me that there really isn't any comparison between dysfunctional, low-capacity, ambition challenged DCPS and the high-capacity school systems in the burbs. For starters, those counties support advanced programs for ES and MS. They track academically in middle school in all core subjects by 7th grade. They also run serious test-in HS programs, mostly the school-within-a-school type. Parents in those school systems grumble on these threads because it's all relative - they haven't experienced DCPS middle or high school chaos and ad hocery.

Cool anecdote. You're wildly incorrect, but cool anecdote.

NP. Wildly incorrect? Dream on.

In MoCo, Arlington and Fairfax, advanced middle school students can take honors (aka "intensified" or above-grade-level) classes in 7th and 8th grades in science, social studies, English and math. In DCPS, the best you can do are grade level middle school classes in core subjects, with advanced math at Deal, Hardy and maybe Hobson

Correct, no serious test-in HS programs in the DC public system. We don't have high octane high school programs because we don't have advanced elementary school or middle school programs. Can you make do with Walls, or J-R, or Latin, or DCI, or Banneker? Yes. Can these programs compete with what's offered at the better suburban high school programs? Definitely not.

Former DC resident, current MoCo resident. Again, the bolded is not correct. The only enriched options in MS are in math and social studies. Unless you attend one of the magnets (which are lotteries among qualified students), there is no enriched English or science class available. I mean, sure, MCPS puts everyone in "advanced" English, but this is just to appease parents -- it is just an on-level class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that Banneker and McKinley didn’t match all the seats is meaningless. The number of seats they put down is essentially a guess and a maximum. Then they decide from the pool of applicants who/how many to interview, and then from that who/how many to admit. Only those the school deems “Eligible” after the interview process can be admitted. The the number of kids on the tableau form is how many were deemed “eligible.” It tells zero information about how many applied. If they want to fill to the original number the seats they put down, they would have done it.

It's not meaningless, it indicates that the wait-list may clear, and then what?

There is no waitlist. Banneker wants 180 freshmen, they admitted 245, they’re calculating that 65 will enroll elsewhere. It’s exactly how private school and college admissions work: admit more students than you plan to enroll, calculating that not all of them will enroll. Walls does something similar; they matched 180 but usually have only 150 freshmen.

They did clear their waitlist. They couldn’t fill the 260 seats they had. They only filled 245 seats.

If they have 180 seats and set aside 260 seats, that tells me a lot of kids, over 40% don’t enroll and go there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have close friends and relatives with teens in schools in Fairfax, Arlington and MoCo. The friends became our pals in our DCPS ES. It's clear to me that there really isn't any comparison between dysfunctional, low-capacity, ambition challenged DCPS and the high-capacity school systems in the burbs. For starters, those counties support advanced programs for ES and MS. They track academically in middle school in all core subjects by 7th grade. They also run serious test-in HS programs, mostly the school-within-a-school type. Parents in those school systems grumble on these threads because it's all relative - they haven't experienced DCPS middle or high school chaos and ad hocery.

The bolded is not true for MCPS. MCPS MS offer advanced math class (generally taking algebra in 7th grade) and advanced social studies. There is no advanced English or science. For languages, you take high school classes in middle school. For my kid, those have been the most challenging. The advanced social studies class has some more work than the regular one, but it's not especially challenging. The advanced math class is probably similar to what DCPS does for kids who take algebra in 7th.

MCPS has been fine for us, but we also liked the upper NW DCPS we were in before and think our kid would have been fine with Deal/J-R for high school. I know a lot of people in DC don't have those choices -- but if you play the lottery and have no luck and find yourselves having to move, I would put Deal/J-R just as high on the neighborhoods to consider as the MCPS schools.

- Former DC resident, now MoCo resident, again

It will be nice for you to have an instate flagship

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have close friends and relatives with teens in schools in Fairfax, Arlington and MoCo. The friends became our pals in our DCPS ES. It's clear to me that there really isn't any comparison between dysfunctional, low-capacity, ambition challenged DCPS and the high-capacity school systems in the burbs. For starters, those counties support advanced programs for ES and MS. They track academically in middle school in all core subjects by 7th grade. They also run serious test-in HS programs, mostly the school-within-a-school type. Parents in those school systems grumble on these threads because it's all relative - they haven't experienced DCPS middle or high school chaos and ad hocery.

Cool anecdote. You're wildly incorrect, but cool anecdote.

NP. Wildly incorrect? Dream on.

In MoCo, Arlington and Fairfax, advanced middle school students can take honors (aka "intensified" or above-grade-level) classes in 7th and 8th grades in science, social studies, English and math. In DCPS, the best you can do are grade level middle school classes in core subjects, with advanced math at Deal, Hardy and maybe Hobson

Correct, no serious test-in HS programs in the DC public system. We don't have high octane high school programs because we don't have advanced elementary school or middle school programs. Can you make do with Walls, or J-R, or Latin, or DCI, or Banneker? Yes. Can these programs compete with what's offered at the better suburban high school programs? Definitely not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The main problem is that JR lets all comers into its AP classes. Most suburban schools don't. The kids either meet a cut off in a prerequisite, generally at B+, or they don't qualify to take the AP class up the chain. Same with pre-IB work and IB Diploma. Also, suburban schools generally offer far more APs than JR, which only teaches around 20 subjects. Good suburban high schools teach more than 30 (there are 39 subjects). JR teaches 4 languages. Some suburban schools in the DMV teach a dozen. ECs tend to be far more serious in the burbs as well.

Out of curiosity I went to JR High school website and to McLean High school website and counted. JR has 26 AP classes, and McLean 24 AP classes.

Bethesda Chevy Chase has 34. Oakton HS has 35.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have close friends and relatives with teens in schools in Fairfax, Arlington and MoCo. The friends became our pals in our DCPS ES. It's clear to me that there really isn't any comparison between dysfunctional, low-capacity, ambition challenged DCPS and the high-capacity school systems in the burbs. For starters, those counties support advanced programs for ES and MS. They track academically in middle school in all core subjects by 7th grade. They also run serious test-in HS programs, mostly the school-within-a-school type. Parents in those school systems grumble on these threads because it's all relative - they haven't experienced DCPS middle or high school chaos and ad hocery.

The bolded is not true for MCPS. MCPS MS offer advanced math class (generally taking algebra in 7th grade) and advanced social studies. There is no advanced English or science. For languages, you take high school classes in middle school. For my kid, those have been the most challenging. The advanced social studies class has some more work than the regular one, but it's not especially challenging. The advanced math class is probably similar to what DCPS does for kids who take algebra in 7th.

MCPS has been fine for us, but we also liked the upper NW DCPS we were in before and think our kid would have been fine with Deal/J-R for high school. I know a lot of people in DC don't have those choices -- but if you play the lottery and have no luck and find yourselves having to move, I would put Deal/J-R just as high on the neighborhoods to consider as the MCPS schools.

- Former DC resident, now MoCo resident, again

Anonymous wrote:We have close friends and relatives with teens in schools in Fairfax, Arlington and MoCo. The friends became our pals in our DCPS ES. It's clear to me that there really isn't any comparison between dysfunctional, low-capacity, ambition challenged DCPS and the high-capacity school systems in the burbs. For starters, those counties support advanced programs for ES and MS. They track academically in middle school in all core subjects by 7th grade. They also run serious test-in HS programs, mostly the school-within-a-school type. Parents in those school systems grumble on these threads because it's all relative - they haven't experienced DCPS middle or high school chaos and ad hocery.

Anonymous wrote:The main problem is that JR lets all comers into its AP classes. Most suburban schools don't. The kids either meet a cut off in a prerequisite, generally at B+, or they don't qualify to take the AP class up the chain. Same with pre-IB work and IB Diploma. Also, suburban schools generally offer far more APs than JR, which only teaches around 20 subjects. Good suburban high schools teach more than 30 (there are 39 subjects). JR teaches 4 languages. Some suburban schools in the DMV teach a dozen. ECs tend to be far more serious in the burbs as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that Banneker and McKinley didn’t match all the seats is meaningless. The number of seats they put down is essentially a guess and a maximum. Then they decide from the pool of applicants who/how many to interview, and then from that who/how many to admit. Only those the school deems “Eligible” after the interview process can be admitted. The the number of kids on the tableau form is how many were deemed “eligible.” It tells zero information about how many applied. If they want to fill to the original number the seats they put down, they would have done it.

It's not meaningless, it indicates that the wait-list may clear, and then what?

There is no waitlist. Banneker wants 180 freshmen, they admitted 245, they’re calculating that 65 will enroll elsewhere. It’s exactly how private school and college admissions work: admit more students than you plan to enroll, calculating that not all of them will enroll. Walls does something similar; they matched 180 but usually have only 150 freshmen.

They did clear their waitlist. They couldn’t fill the 260 seats they had. They only filled 245 seats.

If they have 180 seats and set aside 260 seats, that tells me a lot of kids, over 40% don’t enroll and go there.

Also, your math is significantly off.

No it’s not. They set aside 260 seats expecting to fill 180 so that is 80 out of 180 students they don’t expect to attend. That’s just over 44% they don’t expect to enroll and attend.

No. That is 80 out of 260 who they don’t expect to attend, which is about 30%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that Banneker and McKinley didn’t match all the seats is meaningless. The number of seats they put down is essentially a guess and a maximum. Then they decide from the pool of applicants who/how many to interview, and then from that who/how many to admit. Only those the school deems “Eligible” after the interview process can be admitted. The the number of kids on the tableau form is how many were deemed “eligible.” It tells zero information about how many applied. If they want to fill to the original number the seats they put down, they would have done it.

It's not meaningless, it indicates that the wait-list may clear, and then what?

There is no waitlist. Banneker wants 180 freshmen, they admitted 245, they’re calculating that 65 will enroll elsewhere. It’s exactly how private school and college admissions work: admit more students than you plan to enroll, calculating that not all of them will enroll. Walls does something similar; they matched 180 but usually have only 150 freshmen.

They did clear their waitlist. They couldn’t fill the 260 seats they had. They only filled 245 seats.

If they have 180 seats and set aside 260 seats, that tells me a lot of kids, over 40% don’t enroll and go there.

Also, your math is significantly off.

No it’s not. They set aside 260 seats expecting to fill 180 so that is 80 out of 180 students they don’t expect to attend. That’s just over 44% they don’t expect to enroll and attend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Banneker admitted 260 kids to yield 180. 180/260 = 69%

Walls typically admits about 240 students (adding match day numbers plus waitlist offers) to wind up with about 160 freshmen on count day. 160/240 = 67%

The numbers are really incredibly similar. It’s almost like Banneker and Walls are about the same size, located in the same general area, draw from broadly overlapping applicant pools, compete with the same privates and charters, and must conduct admissions through the same weird lottery mechanism. They’re very similar schools, in the grand scheme of things.

Nope....Walls can fit inside of Banneker from maximum student standpoint. Banneker is slowly growing while Walls is over enrolled.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that Banneker and McKinley didn’t match all the seats is meaningless. The number of seats they put down is essentially a guess and a maximum. Then they decide from the pool of applicants who/how many to interview, and then from that who/how many to admit. Only those the school deems “Eligible” after the interview process can be admitted. The the number of kids on the tableau form is how many were deemed “eligible.” It tells zero information about how many applied. If they want to fill to the original number the seats they put down, they would have done it.

It's not meaningless, it indicates that the wait-list may clear, and then what?

There is no waitlist. Banneker wants 180 freshmen, they admitted 245, they’re calculating that 65 will enroll elsewhere. It’s exactly how private school and college admissions work: admit more students than you plan to enroll, calculating that not all of them will enroll. Walls does something similar; they matched 180 but usually have only 150 freshmen.

They did clear their waitlist. They couldn’t fill the 260 seats they had. They only filled 245 seats.

If they have 180 seats and set aside 260 seats, that tells me a lot of kids, over 40% don’t enroll and go there.

Also, your math is significantly off.