Sidwell Junior - GPA concerns

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

[Anonymous]

To the OP, my kids graduated from sidwell over the past 4 years and had GPAs in the 3.7X range and their college options were great. It will all work out, just take deep breaths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

I hope so...that said, College office is very very cautious w/ those stats and really pushed a full list of safety/targets

[Anonymous]

They have to. The whole system is a crapshoot now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 11th grader has a 3.0, so a 3.7 seems amazing to me!

Interesting that no one seems to know where the modal GPA even is at Sidwell. Neither students nor parents.

Same at GDS. How would you know if the school doesn't provide the information? I've never talked about grades with another parent, and my kids seem similarly in the dark. That's the way the school wants it. I think it's a good idea to deemphasize competition, but it does introduce yet another large element of uncertainty into the college process.

Agree with PP. It doesn't matter where your kid ranks. You are harking back to your own high school days 35 years ago. Class rank is not important now. If they have good grades, you'll be in better shape than someone without high grades. It's enough to leave it at that.

But a lot of colleges indicate class rank as “very important” on CDS - Brown, for example. I have also sat through multiple college night presentations where presenters have noted that colleges judge you against peers at your school as opposed to students from a different school with different offerings. I understand that official class rank is not used but certainly colleges will consider a kid’s GPA in the context of grades and rigor of peers applying to same school, even if just the context provided in the “school report.”

Our private HS does not provide class rank.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the OP, my kids graduated from sidwell over the past 4 years and had GPAs in the 3.7X range and their college options were great. It will all work out, just take deep breaths.

What colleges did your kids get into?

[Anonymous]

Check out High Point University. It is excellent for people who don’t test well. The campus is gorgeous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this the same way at other private schools in the area- do only a handful of students have 3.9/4.0 at NCS, GDS, Potomac, Holton etc.?

GDS gives A+ grades, so I would think the distribution is higher.

Who at GDS is getting A+s???

Yes, who???

My DC has. Don’t know how common it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the OP, my kids graduated from sidwell over the past 4 years and had GPAs in the 3.7X range and their college options were great. It will all work out, just take deep breaths.

What colleges did your kids get into?

Everything they applied to except the "tippy top" Ivy reaches.

They are both at "T20/T25" schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

I hope so...that said, College office is very very cautious w/ those stats and really pushed a full list of safety/targets

We are at another Big 3 and not thrilled with the list my DC came up with. Counselor is allowing our child to drive the entire thing and they are going off of what their friends think of certain colleges. Counselor pushed them to ED at a third tier school with scores in the top 1 percent on the SAT or ACT. Don't want to out ourselves. Our DC listens to the college counselor and the counselor is listening only to what our child thinks they know or wants. There has been no direction or pushing our child to reach for higher schools and they have an A average as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell 2022/2023 school profile is public on their site and does not have class or grade distributions:
https://www.sidwell.edu/academics/college-counseling

Wait, is this the same one they send to colleges?

Because at the Fall meeting for senior parents, CCO said that parents can't see the college profile that Sidwell sends to schools. It was quickly followed by "this is an administrative decision" to deflect any further discussion.

It’s part of what they send. The part that reveals more or less where the kid stands in relation to peers is only shown to colleges. This may include the breakdown of grades in each math, history, English, etc class.

Please stop spreading false information. At least as of 2021 (and this year) there is no additional part sent to colleges, this is the profile sent along with the SFS transcript to all colleges. Ask your child's college counselor and they will tell you that Sidwell does not have any report that breakdowns grades in classes or gpa distributions at all. SFS does not even report a gpa on the transcript or on any documentation to colleges (like the secondary school report) except for applicants to the military academies because they require it.

This isn't right. The PP is correct about the break down/distributions.

Yes, they send forms that show where the kid stands in relation to peers applying to same college:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1356/97268/20190423135448437_Adetu%20Appendix%20E%20File%20Apr%2023%202019.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell 2022/2023 school profile is public on their site and does not have class or grade distributions:
https://www.sidwell.edu/academics/college-counseling

Wait, is this the same one they send to colleges?

Because at the Fall meeting for senior parents, CCO said that parents can't see the college profile that Sidwell sends to schools. It was quickly followed by "this is an administrative decision" to deflect any further discussion.

It’s part of what they send. The part that reveals more or less where the kid stands in relation to peers is only shown to colleges. This may include the breakdown of grades in each math, history, English, etc class.

Please stop spreading false information. At least as of 2021 (and this year) there is no additional part sent to colleges, this is the profile sent along with the SFS transcript to all colleges. Ask your child's college counselor and they will tell you that Sidwell does not have any report that breakdowns grades in classes or gpa distributions at all. SFS does not even report a gpa on the transcript or on any documentation to colleges (like the secondary school report) except for applicants to the military academies because they require it.

This isn't right. The PP is correct about the break down/distributions.

Yes, they send forms that show where the kid stands in relation to peers applying to same college:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1356/97268/20190423135448437_Adetu%20Appendix%20E%20File%20Apr%2023%202019.pdf

What does this mean? Is this just at Sidwell or at all schools?

Whatever happened to this applicant in the court case? Where did she end up in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

I hope so...that said, College office is very very cautious w/ those stats and really pushed a full list of safety/targets

We are at another Big 3 and not thrilled with the list my DC came up with. Counselor is allowing our child to drive the entire thing and they are going off of what their friends think of certain colleges. Counselor pushed them to ED at a third tier school with scores in the top 1 percent on the SAT or ACT. Don't want to out ourselves. Our DC listens to the college counselor and the counselor is listening only to what our child thinks they know or wants. There has been no direction or pushing our child to reach for higher schools and they have an A average as well.

That is frustrating. You need to push your kid to override the counselor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell 2022/2023 school profile is public on their site and does not have class or grade distributions:
https://www.sidwell.edu/academics/college-counseling

Wait, is this the same one they send to colleges?

Because at the Fall meeting for senior parents, CCO said that parents can't see the college profile that Sidwell sends to schools. It was quickly followed by "this is an administrative decision" to deflect any further discussion.

It’s part of what they send. The part that reveals more or less where the kid stands in relation to peers is only shown to colleges. This may include the breakdown of grades in each math, history, English, etc class.

Please stop spreading false information. At least as of 2021 (and this year) there is no additional part sent to colleges, this is the profile sent along with the SFS transcript to all colleges. Ask your child's college counselor and they will tell you that Sidwell does not have any report that breakdowns grades in classes or gpa distributions at all. SFS does not even report a gpa on the transcript or on any documentation to colleges (like the secondary school report) except for applicants to the military academies because they require it.

This isn't right. The PP is correct about the break down/distributions.

Yes, they send forms that show where the kid stands in relation to peers applying to same college:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1356/97268/20190423135448437_Adetu%20Appendix%20E%20File%20Apr%2023%202019.pdf

What does this mean? Is this just at Sidwell or at all schools?

Whatever happened to this applicant in the court case? Where did she end up in school?

All the schools send forms that show where the kids are in relation to each other. How do you think colleges figure it all out?