Early Decision Results at DS or DD school

[Anonymous]

Eight actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eight actually.

Wow!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where are students getting Early Decision (or EA) admissions in your independent school? How are admissions to the Ivy League, Stanford, Amherst, etc.? Is the class of 2015 shaping up so far to be better, on par, or worse than last year's results? or ?

Why are all the posts only about Sidwell and GDS? What about STA, NCS, Landon, Holton, Potomac, and dozens of other private schools?

[Anonymous]

Do that many kids at SFS actually want to go to Penn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

Fun with numbers. The median Academic Index for students at Yale is roughly 230. This equates to a 2,255 combined SAT and an unweighted GPA of 3.9. The Ivy League guidelines require that any individual recruited sports team has an average AI that is no more than one standard deviation below the overall school's average (technically, the measure is against the incoming class' average, but overall school average is close enough). So, the standard is not some absolute number for the entire league but is measured against the individual school's standards. Back to the numbers. One standard deviation on the AI is roughly 15 points, so this would require that the recruited class for the football team and the hockey team and the swimming team each as a separate matter would have an average AI of at least 215. There are a few ways of getting to the 215. An athlete could have a combined SAT of 2,100 (700 on each section) and clear the bar of 215 with an unweighted GPA of 3.6. Or, if he/she was an exceptional test taker and scored a 2,250 on the SAT, then he/she could make the target with an unweighted GPA of 3.4. Even a 2,400 SAT would not allow you to achieve an AI of 215 with a B- (or 2.7 GPA) as some would suggest here. Granted, there are some athletes who score below the average AI, for whom there needs to be a counterbalancing above average recruit on the other side, and the absolute floor that is discussed is present to remove the moral hazard of sabotaging the school's overall academic standards in pursuit of stronger athletics (leveler for the field of schools). This floor is not at all operable when you are having a serious and factual recruiting conversation with a coach at a place like Yale or Harvard or Princeton.

So, while it is easy to throw out second hand stories about such and such potentially Ivy League recruited athlete, when it comes to formalizing a commitment the numbers just have to add up. Further, to generalize that all recruited athletes fall in one particular place on the spectrum is also a mistake. Bottom line: B- = Rejected at Yale even if you are the next Calvin Hill.

I think you're close on this, but some clarification: The AI floor used to be 169, and I believe now it's 171. I think coaches have the discretion to use the SAT or ACT equivalent for 2/3 of the AI, and an unweighted grade scale is used for the other 1/3. Also, only the reading and math sections are used, so if you score a 1300 on the SAT (130 AI points) and have a 3.3 average (70 points), then your AI score is 200 and you're in the mix at any IVY (but probably below the average even at Cornell and Brown). If you have a 2.7 average (63 AI points), and score an 1100 on the SAT (110 AI points), you're still in the conversation at an AI of 173, just above the absolute floor. But at this level, you would be turning down Alabama football to play for Dartmouth; i.e. you would have to be a superstar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do that many kids at SFS actually want to go to Penn?

They had better. I think Penn is ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do that many kids at SFS actually want to go to Penn?

They had better. I think Penn is ED.

I think many more wanted to. 19 applications to Penn ED.

[Anonymous]

Very interesting approach by Penn over the last couple of years to aggressively use ED to avoid being the HYP back-up school. This year they admitted 1,316 of 5,489 applicants - 24 percent.

That's also about 54% of all the seats in the freshman class already filled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do that many kids at SFS actually want to go to Penn?

That's a very good question, and it goes to the issue of whether the college counseling program actually helps kids figure out what they want. There's a lot of generalized talk about fit -- as there is at every other school in this area -- but not so much one-on-one counseling to help kids understand what this means to them individually. The result: lots of kids apply to Penn, Tufts and Michigan. Why? Because that's where everybody else is applying.

[Anonymous]

As a Penn grad, I'd say part of the draw of the school is that it's a big place with lots of world class opportunities in many fields, so even if you are not sure exactly as a 17yo what you want your college to be, it is a good choice. I suspect Michigan offers the same broad appeal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. There is "in addition" to academic merit, and there is "in place of". Athletes recruited by the Ivies need a minimum of a "B-" GPA according to an agreement signed by all the Ivy schools. Try getting in to an Ivy on merit alone with a GPA of B-. The SAT scores of recruited athletes also have a minimum that are hundreds of points lower than a true merit admission. Legacies do not have the same academic records often times - though there are some like my child who probably would have gotten in on his own. Why take the chance though! And plenty of check-the-box applicants who are held to different standards. See the lawsuit against Harvard for that discussion. So I wouldn't jump all over PP for not saying "in addition to" academic merit. That just simply isn't true in a lot of cases. If you can't admit that, then you don't live in the real world.

Wow are your facts wrong! Parent of a recruited athlete to Yale here. You should do some research on how the Academic Index works before commenting. The ignorance of your comments is astounding.

Actually, this post is pretty darn accurate for Brown and Penn, since I had two sons recruited for different sports at both. Actually, the Washington Post published a lot of these same guidelines a few weeks ago. I remember the SAT minimums being under 2000 and one of my sons told he had to keep his GPA to a B- to get recruited to Penn. Hard to believe that Yale would do things radically different. But there's no doubt that athletes in demand do not need to be on par merit-wise with regular applicants.

Fun with numbers. The median Academic Index for students at Yale is roughly 230. This equates to a 2,255 combined SAT and an unweighted GPA of 3.9. The Ivy League guidelines require that any individual recruited sports team has an average AI that is no more than one standard deviation below the overall school's average (technically, the measure is against the incoming class' average, but overall school average is close enough). So, the standard is not some absolute number for the entire league but is measured against the individual school's standards. Back to the numbers. One standard deviation on the AI is roughly 15 points, so this would require that the recruited class for the football team and the hockey team and the swimming team each as a separate matter would have an average AI of at least 215. There are a few ways of getting to the 215. An athlete could have a combined SAT of 2,100 (700 on each section) and clear the bar of 215 with an unweighted GPA of 3.6. Or, if he/she was an exceptional test taker and scored a 2,250 on the SAT, then he/she could make the target with an unweighted GPA of 3.4. Even a 2,400 SAT would not allow you to achieve an AI of 215 with a B- (or 2.7 GPA) as some would suggest here. Granted, there are some athletes who score below the average AI, for whom there needs to be a counterbalancing above average recruit on the other side, and the absolute floor that is discussed is present to remove the moral hazard of sabotaging the school's overall academic standards in pursuit of stronger athletics (leveler for the field of schools). This floor is not at all operable when you are having a serious and factual recruiting conversation with a coach at a place like Yale or Harvard or Princeton.

So, while it is easy to throw out second hand stories about such and such potentially Ivy League recruited athlete, when it comes to formalizing a commitment the numbers just have to add up. Further, to generalize that all recruited athletes fall in one particular place on the spectrum is also a mistake. Bottom line: B- = Rejected at Yale even if you are the next Calvin Hill.

I think you're close on this, but some clarification: The AI floor used to be 169, and I believe now it's 171. I think coaches have the discretion to use the SAT or ACT equivalent for 2/3 of the AI, and an unweighted grade scale is used for the other 1/3. Also, only the reading and math sections are used, so if you score a 1300 on the SAT (130 AI points) and have a 3.3 average (70 points), then your AI score is 200 and you're in the mix at any IVY (but probably below the average even at Cornell and Brown). If you have a 2.7 average (63 AI points), and score an 1100 on the SAT (110 AI points), you're still in the conversation at an AI of 173, just above the absolute floor. But at this level, you would be turning down Alabama football to play for Dartmouth; i.e. you would have to be a superstar.

PP Here. Helpful refinements to my general statements. As I understand it, there is a specific and very small allocation of Band 3 and 4 slots per school per program, and the overall mix still needs to be within one standard deviation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I'd say part of the draw of the school is that it's a big place with lots of world class opportunities in many fields, so even if you are not sure exactly as a 17yo what you want your college to be, it is a good choice. I suspect Michigan offers the same broad appeal.

Penn and Michigan are great schools, yes, as is Tufts, but their broad appeal isn't inconsistent with the view that Sidwell counselors don't do enough to help kids figure out what they want their college experience to look like. Instead, there's a lemming-like rush to these schools.

[Anonymous]

Oh please. A million people always apply to Penn from every HS in the east coast. People want to go there! It has nothing to do with not "fine tuning" the kids choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I'd say part of the draw of the school is that it's a big place with lots of world class opportunities in many fields, so even if you are not sure exactly as a 17yo what you want your college to be, it is a good choice. I suspect Michigan offers the same broad appeal.

Penn and Michigan are great schools, yes, as is Tufts, but their broad appeal isn't inconsistent with the view that Sidwell counselors don't do enough to help kids figure out what they want their college experience to look like. Instead, there's a lemming-like rush to these schools.

Last year's class of 125 graduates went to 52 different colleges. The students at Sidwell are exposed to a variety of colleges and have the means to visit several before determining their list (for example, three of four applied to colleges in Scotland and England this go round). Do you really think that the counselors are practicing some form of mind control on the students? Nice narrative. It just doesn't hold up to the truth.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I fat fingered the number. It was 62 different schools, with no single college having more than 6. I am sure that a statistician can help me to characterize the concentration.