High School Guide: Admissions, reviews, and advice

mellowskipper said:Well, that was pure irony. In some small town, you could scrape together enough points to hit the threshold for a high-tier prep school, but in Washington, D.C., those same points might only get you into a vocational trade school. I suppose you really need a perfect 4.0 to even be considered for a serious academy.
And yet, everyone ends up right back where they started.
Obviously, not everyone goes off to MIT or a top research university, but a fair amount of them do.

In Washington, D.C., you could get into at least 10 different high schools with just 60 points. 😬

Susan James said:According to this, the minimum score for a high school is 46.
So, it's really up to each individual school to set their own threshold, like 76.

It’s interesting that nobody challenged the constitutionality of how certain competitions aren't accessible to all kids, since it often depends on whether a teacher is willing to sign them up and mentor them enough to get results.
A couple of points for music school is definitely less discriminatory than the gap between schools with highly motivated teachers for competitions and those without (though, a colleague whose grandson lost those two crucial music points that year explained it was also discriminatory; parents rebelled because their kids went to various private music academies but weren't entitled to those points, so eventually, they just scrapped the bonus for everyone).

Yeah, but the thing is, they weren't allowed to set a cutoff lower than 46—meaning, in a case like a Small town in rural USA, they couldn't just enroll students who had fewer than 36 points.

That was specified in the old Decision on elements and criteria for selecting candidates for high school enrollment for the 2012/2013 school year.

Now, if I understand this correctly, they don't pass a specific decision like that every single year; instead, there's this standing High school enrollment regulations. It's been around since 2015 and has gone through a few updates; you can find the consolidated text here.

But then, every year, they issue a specific Enrollment decision for the 1st grade of high school for that particular year.
. That's where they list how many spots are available at each school and things like that. The public consultation for next year's enrollment decision can be found here.

So, looking at the current High school enrollment regulations regarding the minimum score threshold, it says this:

Article 28. (NN 39/22)

(1) For educational programs lasting at least four years, a school may establish a minimum number of points required to apply for a specific program, which applies exclusively to the common assessment element.

(2) The minimum number of points established in paragraph 1 of this article applies throughout the entire enrollment process for all candidates, except for those mentioned in Article 16 of these Regulations who have the right to direct enrollment.

(3) For vocational qualification programs lasting three years, apprenticeship programs, or programs lasting less than three years but at least one year, no minimum score requirement is established for application purposes..

So, basically, it's still up to the school to decide if they want to set a minimum score, but it seems to me like they aren't strictly limited from below anymore. If they wanted to, say, accept students with fewer than 36 points for four-year programs, they could.

The open house at the NYC high school is happening the day after tomorrow.
In case anyone is actually interested, you might want to swing by and check it out.

http://gimnazija-dvanaesta-zg.skole....=1848#mod_news

Dana Smith2 said:The open house at the NYC high school is happening the day after tomorrow.
In case anyone is actually interested, you might want to swing by and check it out.

http://gimnazija-dvanaesta-zg.skole....=1848#mod_news

Watch out, it's actually tomorrow, not the day after.🙂
The school looks lovely; glad to see a suburban neighborhood has something nice nearby...👍

Wait, so it’s tomorrow?
To be fair, the school looks great. It’s brand new—so I suppose you couldn't really expect anything else.

Susan James said:In Washington, D.C., you could get into at least 10 different high schools with just 60 points. 😬

Which ten?
And please, let's not talk about the cutoff score—that’s just whatever number the application portal accepts to let you hit "submit." The official threshold is one thing, but the actual reality of getting in is something else entirely.
And obviously, I’m not talking about private schools. I suppose you could probably walk into any of those with 20 points if you just made a massive donation to the school's endowment.

My daughter recently checked out that high school over in the suburbs, and I have to say, she really loved the place.
They’ve bumped up the entrance requirement to 70 points.
So, that’s pretty much it—it looks like she’ll probably be staying there for the next few years.

So, the 8mas meetup is happening tomorrow over in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, but looking at the weather forecast, things aren't exactly looking great, I guess.🕺

Hmm, perhaps this afternoon?...
It isn't exactly practical to maintain something outdoors when May in the States has been notoriously rainy lately; I fear we might see the same pattern this year... 👎

Dana Smith2 said:My daughter recently checked out that high school over in the suburbs, and I have to say, she really loved the place.
They’ve bumped up the entrance requirement to 70 points.
So, that’s pretty much it—it looks like she’ll probably be staying there for the next few years.

I’m heading over to the printing house tomorrow—well, if everything stays on schedule—and then I have that meeting at the deli on Wednesday. After all that, they’ll finally make a call on what gets featured in No1. I guess we'll see.

urbantinker8 said:So, the 8mas meetup is happening tomorrow over in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, but looking at the weather forecast, things aren't exactly looking great, I guess.🕺

The forecast isn't looking any good—honestly, from what I can gather, it looks like it won't stop pouring until Wednesday at the earliest.

Do schools usually have open house days? Are those things announced somewhere online?

Posts on my website

Dropped by the local vocational high school today for their open house. Long story short—if you’re aiming for any of the top three programs, you basically need grades that would make an Ivy League recruiter sweat.
They’re only taking in one freshman class per specialization, and honestly, the competition is looking pretty intense.

Almost every high school in Washington, D.C. is seeing way more interest than they have actual seats available—and in the top-tier prep schools, those numbers are five times higher. It’s wild because they say there are 20% fewer teenagers now compared to thirty years ago. If that's the case, what’s happening at the local vocational schools? Are they actually under capacity?

mellowskipper said:Dropped by the local vocational high school today for their open house. Long story short—if you’re aiming for any of the top three programs, you basically need grades that would make an Ivy League recruiter sweat.
They’re only taking in one freshman class per specialization, and honestly, the competition is looking pretty intense.

Do they do portfolio reviews or something?

stormymarlin22 said:Do they do portfolio reviews or something?

They do—but even with that, it’s been noted that for those top three majors, you're mostly looking at kids who are already scoring high enough to get into the elite prep schools. They end up taking 26 students per class across three different departments, I guess.

It’s a mathematical certainty that there will be more interested parties than actual available seats when everyone has the option to apply to six different schools. Essentially, every single student is theoretically generating six separate applications.

Michelle Nelson4 said:It’s a mathematical certainty that there will be more interested parties than actual available seats when everyone has the option to apply to six different schools. Essentially, every single student is theoretically generating six separate applications.

Three apps is plenty.

Larry Walker24 said:Three apps is plenty.

Enough for what, exactly?

Michelle Nelson4 said:Enough for what, exactly?

Look, you've got six schools on your list, but honestly, three is plenty.

I'd love to see someone actually end up at their sixth choice. Like, who does that?