Sidwell throttling down college admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These shifts are universal and parental expectations need tobe realistic.

So true. The Sidwell college office (and the college offices at other local schools) can't do anything about:

1. Demographic forces -- larger numbers of college-age students vs. static size of selective colleges
2. Democratization of admissions -- the Common App and computers (no need to re-type your essay every time) have exponentially increased applications
3. International interest in U.S. colleges, further increasing the number of applicants
4. Colleges placing a value on geographic diversity
5. Colleges placing a value on students from "first in their family to attend college"

These are universal factors. There are still plenty of spots in highly selective, excellent colleges available for DC independent school students. But if you fixate only on 10-12 you will run into some disappointments.

Bottom line: don't pay $45,000 in tuition unless you value the education for itself -- if you think you're buying a ticket to the Ivies you'll probably feel you didn't get your money's worth and end up throwing shade at underpaid school counselors on an anonymous website.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see any issues with the Sfs advising process.

Where you stand may depend on where you sit (and on who your child's advisor is).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see any issues with the Sfs advising process.

Where you stand may depend on where you sit (and on who your child's advisor is).

Maybe your kid is an underachiever; or wrote a bland, insipid essay; or is just indistinguishable from thousands of other East Coast private school students. Other people's kids must just be better college applicants than your kid.

(Hey! Anonymously questioning people's competency turns out to be kind of fun!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see any issues with the Sfs advising process.

Where you stand may depend on where you sit (and on who your child's advisor is).

Maybe your kid is an underachiever; or wrote a bland, insipid essay; or is just indistinguishable from thousands of other East Coast private school students. Other people's kids must just be better college applicants than your kid.

(Hey! Anonymously questioning people's competency turns out to be kind of fun!)

Well, it's more like you're insulting their kids on the basis of no information, but you do you.

[Anonymous]

The vast majority of sfs kids are not hitting Ivy League schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t see any issues with the Sfs advising process.

Where you stand may depend on where you sit (and on who your child's advisor is).

Maybe your kid is an underachiever; or wrote a bland, insipid essay; or is just indistinguishable from thousands of other East Coast private school students. Other people's kids must just be better college applicants than your kid.

(Hey! Anonymously questioning people's competency turns out to be kind of fun!)

Well, it's more like you're insulting their kids on the basis of no information, but you do you.

If their kid didn't get into a good enough college, that's information. As much information as these total assholes picking on the college counselors have. They choose to blame outcome on the college counselors, I choose to assume their kid is a sub-par applicant. INFERENCES ARE FUN M'FERS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of sfs kids are not hitting Ivy League schools.

The day is rapidly approaching where the best that SFS and other DMV privates' kids can reasonably hope for is UMaryland, GW and American U.

[Anonymous]

I went to GW and myself and friends all went to top grad programs in our fields (Ivy League or equivalent for that field).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of sfs kids are not hitting Ivy League schools.

The day is rapidly approaching where the best that SFS and other DMV privates' kids can reasonably hope for is UMaryland, GW and American U.

Speak for your own kids ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The vast majority of sfs kids are not hitting Ivy League schools.

The day is rapidly approaching where the best that SFS and other DMV privates' kids can reasonably hope for is UMaryland, GW and American U.

People say this every year and every decade.

You do also realize some pick UMD because of money. Many kids on partial financial aid can’t afford 70K in college tuition.

[Anonymous]

SFS did not have a disastrous year, but it was not on par with the past 3-4 years. There seemed to be a shift. And a lot depends on which of the three counselors you draw.

[Anonymous]

Sidwell faces the following issue in college admissions, among others.

The top universities and colleges are no longer as willing, or able, to exempt Sidwell students from rigorous testing (AP exams or SAT subject tests) requirements simply because they are a Sidwell product. It is an elitist standard to allow Sidwell students who largely forgo AP or SAT Subject testing to compete on equal footing with students from other private and public schools alike who submit to a lot of such testing, simply because they are Sidwell students.

Consider the current lawsuits alleging discrimination in college admissions for example. Why should an Asian student from TJ in Fairfax Couty or Gunn in Palo Alto have to prove themselves by taking 9-11 AP exams/SAT subject tests to gain admission into H/MIT/P/S/Y, while a Caucasian student from Sidwell (and Sidwell is largely white and affluent), takes only 2-4 of such standardized exams at most, and demonstrates the ECs those others also have? The exempted-from, old-boy vouching model of Sidwell is not looked up favorably in today's more meritocratic world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell faces the following issue in college admissions, among others.

The top universities and colleges are no longer as willing, or able, to exempt Sidwell students from rigorous testing (AP exams or SAT subject tests) requirements simply because they are a Sidwell product. It is an elitist standard to allow Sidwell students who largely forgo AP or SAT Subject testing to compete on equal footing with students from other private and public schools alike who submit to a lot of such testing, simply because they are Sidwell students.

Consider the current lawsuits alleging discrimination in college admissions for example. Why should an Asian student from TJ in Fairfax Couty or Gunn in Palo Alto have to prove themselves by taking 9-11 AP exams/SAT subject tests to gain admission into H/MIT/P/S/Y, while a Caucasian student from Sidwell (and Sidwell is largely white and affluent), takes only 2-4 of such standardized exams at most, and demonstrates the ECs those others also have? The exempted-from, old-boy vouching model of Sidwell is not looked up favorably in today's more meritocratic world.

+100

[Anonymous]

In my observation, Georgetown Day School, National Cathedral School, and St. Albans School have done a better job in understanding this meritocratic shift in college admissions. Those three schools appear to better guide their students who want to earn admission to a top 20 college or university to submit to the rigorous standardized testing models, in addition to, or in support of, their grades, extracurricular accomplishments, and other talents. DH and I see these examples in our respective interviewing for our universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell faces the following issue in college admissions, among others.

The top universities and colleges are no longer as willing, or able, to exempt Sidwell students from rigorous testing (AP exams or SAT subject tests) requirements simply because they are a Sidwell product. It is an elitist standard to allow Sidwell students who largely forgo AP or SAT Subject testing to compete on equal footing with students from other private and public schools alike who submit to a lot of such testing, simply because they are Sidwell students.

Consider the current lawsuits alleging discrimination in college admissions for example. Why should an Asian student from TJ in Fairfax Couty or Gunn in Palo Alto have to prove themselves by taking 9-11 AP exams/SAT subject tests to gain admission into H/MIT/P/S/Y, while a Caucasian student from Sidwell (and Sidwell is largely white and affluent), takes only 2-4 of such standardized exams at most, and demonstrates the ECs those others also have? The exempted-from, old-boy vouching model of Sidwell is not looked up favorably in today's more meritocratic world.

Eh, not totally true. Some private HS's are still doing quite well in college admissions.

The reality is that Sidwell, while a strong school, just isn't as impressive as many who have paid $45K every single year for their kid to attend would like to believe. There's a reason they don't publish single-year matriculation data, as other schools do; if the results were ridiculously impressive, they'd publish them.