What Is Enough?

When examining admissions data from past years, the glaring disparity in demographics in the “Big Three” school systems—Richmond, Henrico, and Chesterfield—has led many students, parents, administrators, and alumni to question Maggie Walker’s admissions process.

Admission to MLWGS is an extensive and highly competitive process, pulling academically gifted students from 14 different jurisdictions. As part of the application process, students must submit recommendations, writing samples, and a school transcript. After submitting an application, each applicant is required to attend an evaluation session held by each respective district, where students complete a standardized aptitude test. 

Following the completion of each district’s aptitude test, a regional committee composed of members from each school division evaluates all applicants. During this process, all assessments are evaluated, and writing samples submitted by students are scored on composition, expression, and mechanics. 

Each part of the application is weighted differently; the ability assessment, consisting of an aptitude or standardized test seeking to measure an individual’s potential to do well, weighs 25% of the total composite score, the writing samples are 25%, an applicant’s GPA is 30%, rigor of classes taken in middle school is 5%, and recommendations are 15%. These factors add up to a composite score that is given to each applicant. 

Maggie Walker’s Planning Committee, a committee composed of fourteen representatives from each of Maggie Walker’s districts responsible for managing admissions criteria, then composes a list of students for each district sorted by composite score, and sends this list to each school division. 

In the past year, the Planning Committee has made changes relating to Regulations 1030-R1 and 1030-R2, specific policies relating to admissions. These changes involved a reweighting of the categories of the composite score, increasing the weighting of the writing samples from 15% to 25%, and decreasing the weighting of the standardized test to 25% from the 2017 weighting of 35%. This change occurred as a result of the removal of the Social Studies achievement test from the application by the MLWGS Regional School Board in 2021, after evaluations found low efficacy in determining student potential.

Chesterfield, whose 374 MLWGS seats make it the largest contributing school system, changed its admissions process in 2021 after long grappling with a lack of diversity in its admissions. Prior to the admissions change, Chesterfield sent only one Black student to Maggie Walker in 10 out of the past 22 years. After thorough discussions and examinations of admissions data from the past four years, the county decided to change their admissions process to make it more equitable. Under the new two-phase admissions system, the test and composite scores are still given by the regional committee, but rather than admission being administered on a county-wide level, a certain number of seats are allotted to each individual school based on its size. After the proportionate number of students from each school have been accepted in the first phase, the remaining Chesterfield slots are given to the highest remaining scorers county-wide in the second phase. 

Chesterfield’s changes led to an immediate increase in admissions diversity; the Class of 2025 has 12 Black students from Chesterfield, more than the past four years combined. Chesterfield Gifted Education Coordinator George Fohl noted the significant impact Chesterfield’s increased admissions diversity has had on the overall diversity of the freshman class due to Chesterfield having the largest number of MLWGS seats: the Chesterfield freshmen for the 2021-22 school year are the “most diverse group of freshmen students [sent] to Maggie Walker in history,” and “more accurately reflect the application pool.”

The Henrico student population is similarly lacking in minority representation, and Henrico’s demographic remained stagnant even after the removal of the admissions test. There are currently only seven Black students and two Hispanic students from Henrico County at Maggie Walker, while 85 of Maggie Walker’s Henrico students are Asian and 65 are white, numbers disproportionate to the county’s overall population. However Henrico administrators have made few changes to improve diversity other than streamlining the application process.

Both of these districts have acknowledged these glaring differences in student representation, but have kept their selection process the same due to policy established by admissions regulations and legality issues. 

Most of the legality issues preventing districts from drastically changing their admissions processes are based on several Supreme Court rulings around affirmative action. The most relevant case  in the context of Maggie Walker admissions is Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which declared affirmative action constitutional but invalidated the use of racial quotas. Affirmative action allows race to be a factor when deciding whether someone can be admitted to any institution that receives government funding; however, racial quotas are admitting or hiring individuals to institutions based on desired percentages of individuals of a certain race. Simply put, no government funded institution is allowed to discriminate against students due to racial preference.

School board members have acknowledged that much of the demographic issues for all three districts lie in lack of gifted programs for minorities, as well as general lack of information for minority students in relation to MLWGS. Micky Ogburn, former Henrico Schoolboard Chairwoman, spoke on the issue of minority application, saying, “It’s an accessibility problem that we have, I think. The kids just don’t think that they can get in. They also don’t understand what it is that Maggie Walker does.” Alina Atkins, Varina District board member, also expressed similar beliefs, saying, “Minority students don’t view admission to Maggie Walker as a viable option, while others may not be exposed to the possibility or even know about the application process.” Christina Turner, mother to Dominant Turner (‘22), also shared her experience with a general “lack of information” for students of color regarding gifted programs. Many others have shared similar experiences for gifted persons of color, describing limited access to gifted programs and little guidance for parents and students.

Amidst the Black Lives Matter movement, 2020 saw increased scrutiny placed on the lack of Black representation in many gifted programs across Virginia and the nation. Fellow governor’s school Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) faced widespread criticism for the fact that only six Black students were admitted into the Class of 2025, despite 160 applications from Black students and 486 total spots in the class. On top of Black and Latino students feeling discouraged from applying, many students expressed frustrations over access to the expensive test preparation classes that are ubiquitous in TJ admissions and Northern Virginia gifted programs as a whole; it’s not unheard of for parents to send their second-grade children to Saturday classes to prepare for Fairfax county’s gifted program. 

In response, TJ overhauled their admissions process, eliminating the previous application fee of $100, the admissions exam, and the teacher recommendation. The most significant change came in implementing a 1.5% quota for every contributory middle school. Of the 550 spots for the Class of 2025, the top 1.5% of scorers at each middle school were offered admission into TJ. TJ saw definite progress towards a more diverse student body, with the percentage of Black students in the admitted class increasing from 1.23% in the previous year to 7.09% and the percent of students from historically underrepresented schools skyrocketing to 30.73%. 

A number of parents as well as some students and alumni, however, criticized the decision to remove the test and implement holistic review, claiming that the change would lower the academic standards of admission and result in TJ losing its status as one of the top public schools in the nation, as well as push potentially “unprepared” students into TJ’s notoriously rigorous environment. Additionally, some have accused the middle school quotas to be blurring the line between diversity efforts and the racial quotas prohibited under Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, despite the motion to change the application process having stated, “The admissions process must use only race-neutral methods that do not seek to achieve any specific racial or ethnic mix, balance, or targets.”

The tumultuous process of TJ’s admissions change and its ensuing controversy provides a contrast to a hypothetical course of action for MLWGS’s comparatively fluid policy. Both schools have received criticism from both sides of the issue, both for their action and inaction on an issue that has long plagued the two governor’s schools as well as gifted programs across the nation. The inequity of gifted programs is widely recognized, but the course and extent of admission changes has proved to be a divisive topic. To quote assistant director Max Smith, “For some people, this change will be way too much; for some it will be way too little.”

The most common argument against making substantial changes to the admissions process, and the one that was levied by some parents and alumni in response to the removal of the social studies admissions test, is that it will lower the standards of admissions and negatively affect Maggie Walker’s academic integrity. Board member John Axselle expressed his extreme hesitancy to vote for the change for this exact reason, but Dr. Lowerre emphasized that the object of the changes is not to alter standards but to create a more inclusive environment, saying, “We [the planning committee] came to the conclusion that the achievement tests needed some work particularly because, well why would we give you a test on something we're going to teach you when you get here to determine whether or not you should be here? That's like taking the bar exam before you go to law school.”

Below the surface of an already complex admissions process lies a much deeper problem of systemic challenges faced by gifted students of color, especially Black and Latino students. Unequal access to resources for gifted students severely hinders minorities’ application rates and admission to Maggie Walker. A 2009 UVA study on MLWGS admissions pointed out the lack of resources for applicants, especially for those not in gifted programs or competitive schools. The majority of MLWGS’s recruitment efforts are focused on 8th graders, but, due to the high number of prerequisite courses, a large number of students find that they are already ineligible to be accepted before they even apply. On top of information being presented earlier (in 5th or 6th grade) to allow prospective applicants time to enroll in the qualifying courses, as students surveyed for the UVA report suggested, there has been consideration of removing the Algebra 1 requirement for admission; “In my mind, removing the requirement is low-hanging fruit for me—why not? We’re not a math school, we’re not STEM-based. If kids haven’t taken Algebra I, why not let them apply?” says Smith, “the math level does not have a significant relationship with admissions… removing the requirement wouldn’t necessarily give us a radically different group of kids.”

No admissions policy change can single-handedly remove these barriers, but steps can be and have been made towards making the application process more equitable. Given that all 14 contributing school systems, represented by the respective county’s gifted coordinator on the Maggie Walker planning committee, need to agree to make school-wide changes, the most substantial changes are being made on a county level instead. The effects of different admissions processes become apparent, however, just by looking at two of the largest counties: Chesterfield and Henrico, respective portraits of change and stagnation. While Chesterfield’s admissions still struggle with a multitude of inequities, most notably outreach and accessibility according to gifted coordinator George Fohl, the changes they made on a county level have led to a school-wide change, with the Class of ‘25 being one of the most diverse to date. Henrico’s admissions policy, on the other hand, has arguably remained the most stagnant of the “Big Three,” with only one seat reserved for each middle school (the rest going to the highest scorers indiscriminately) and county leadership pushing back against proposals for change at both county and MLWGS-wide levels.

The changes made at a county level have led to one of the most diverse classes to date in the Class of ‘25, and MLWGS administration has expressed their sincere dedication through their words and actions alike to continuing to make admissions more equitable and diverse for students of all backgrounds and ethnicities while continuing to foster Maggie Walker’s academic environmental. But in order for students of color to have a truly fair chance of acceptance regardless of which county they live in, changes must be enacted by the planning committee to affect all 14 counties equally, which means that the gifted coordinators from all the counties must together agree to the changes. At this moment, Maggie Walker stands at a crossroads, the path of a stagnation that has long underrepresented Black and Latino students unfolding forward, while a path of change that offers a controversial course to greater diversity and admissions equality diverges.