Sidwell Obsession

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I was not specific. My comments refer to the elite and prestigious D.C. private schools not the garden variety editions.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I was not specific. My comments refer to the elite and prestigious D.C. private schools not the garden variety editions.

[Anonymous]

Wow, this is the most pointless 9 page pissing contest I've ever seen. Is your school among in the top 1% or the top 1.5%? Is your school's endowment $50 million or is it $55 million? Does 56% of your school's graduating class get into an Ivy League university or 56.3%? Does your school have 3 Olympic sized swimming pools and an ice rink, or only 2 and a squash court? Is the graduating class' average combined SAT score 2350 or 2353?

Frankly, these are all completely meaningless comparisons in any tangible way. This is all about parents (and in some cases, students who apparently have nothing better to do) comparing the size of their penises (metaphorical or literal), and nothing about getting their children a good and enriching education that meets their specific intellectual and social needs. The same child who may excel at Andover may fail at Sidwell. The same child who might fail at Andover may succeed at a DC area public. In these cases, I define "succeed" as getting into a good college, getting a good job, and having the skills to make enough money to achieve what one wants to achieve. Arbitrary measures of "success" like those in my first paragraph above do nothing to indicate what will be the best educational path for your specific child. By getting all wrapped up in which school is statistically marginally better than some other school in its peer group simply indicates that this is all about the parents' egos and nothing about their child's education.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you're feeling vulnerable and inadequate again? Take some time off and take a deep nutritious breath. Stop reading this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you're feeling vulnerable and inadequate again? Take some time off and take a deep nutritious breath. Stop reading this board.

While I'll admit to being a subject troll here, it's not out of any feelings of vulnerability or inadequacy. Quite the contrary, it speaks to deep feelings of inadequacy for somebody to need to engage in a venomous argument over whether any particular school is "better" than any other. I'm not knocking any of the schools discussed here. Rather I'm knocking the people who spend 9 pages kicking dirt all over each other over statistically and tangibly meaningless distinctions. Whether a child goes to Andover or Sidwell, they're going to get a top-notch education from a well-regarded school that all but guarantees a successful future. But, at this level, any difference in final result will have more to do with the specific child than any difference between the schools. Therefore my assertion that parents who go to such lengths to argue over meaningless distinctions are more concerned with measuring their "potency" against others than they are with the actual quality of education that their children are receiving.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. Some still prefer Sidwell. Sidwell is better.

[Anonymous]

lol

[Anonymous]

Sidwell over Exeter...? I don't think so. No offense, but there's no contest.

[Anonymous]

Oranges over apples...? I don't think so. No offense, but there's no contest.

[Anonymous]

Let me chime in about the Sidwell thing. I had one kid at Sidwell for 10 years, another for 9. The older one graduated in the middle of his class from Sidwell (with average Sidwell SAT scores, which are about 2100, not 2350!), went to a very good but not ivy-level liberal arts college, and is now doing well in his chosen career (finance). The second kid was a stellar student at Sidwell in grades K-8, and then transferred to a top Montgomery County public school, where he continued to be a stellar student, and is now attending an Ivy-level college and doing quite well there. Sidwell did not "produce" wither #1 or #2 kid; they both received fine educations there, but I can't honestly say that the public high school was, all things considered, an inferior experience, or that Sidwell was superior. It all depends of the kid. In fact, there were some things #2 got to do - and excell at - at the public high school that
were not available at Sidwell.It was amusing to me that when we told some of #2 classmates' parents, at the end of 8th grade, that he would be transferring to a public school, they were truly concerned that #2's life prospects would be quickly heading south. I can tell you that just isn't the case. #1's cohort at Sidwell was the jockish, partying, social, middle-of-the-class (or worse) crowd, all nice kids, all doing well enough in life now, but by no means setting the academic world on fire. They didn't go to Ivies - they went to places like Michigan, Kenyon, NYU, etc - fine enough schools, of course, but not the Harvard/Yale/Princeton sugarplums that dance in the heads of many DCUM types. And colleges of that ilk are the norm, not the exception, for most graduates of Sidwell, STA, Maret, etc. While maybe 20 kids out of Sidwell's 110 or so graduates will go to Ivies, most will be Cornell/Penn/Brown rather than HYP. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just sayin.
By comparison, #2's cohort at the public high school was the top-10% crowd - the ones who took 12 APs, debated, edited the newspaper, interned at NIH, etc. Those kids ALL ended up at Ivy-level schools, without the $120K in Sidwell tuition, and with a rich, full high school experience. The difference, I will concede, is that the middle-of-class kids at the public hs are not a match for Sidwell's middle. But at the top, it's all the same.

[Anonymous]

Your insights are spot on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me chime in about the Sidwell thing. I had one kid at Sidwell for 10 years, another for 9. The older one graduated in the middle of his class from Sidwell (with average Sidwell SAT scores, which are about 2100, not 2350!), went to a very good but not ivy-level liberal arts college, and is now doing well in his chosen career (finance). The second kid was a stellar student at Sidwell in grades K-8, and then transferred to a top Montgomery County public school, where he continued to be a stellar student, and is now attending an Ivy-level college and doing quite well there. Sidwell did not "produce" wither #1 or #2 kid; they both received fine educations there, but I can't honestly say that the public high school was, all things considered, an inferior experience, or that Sidwell was superior. It all depends of the kid. In fact, there were some things #2 got to do - and excell at - at the public high school that
were not available at Sidwell.It was amusing to me that when we told some of #2 classmates' parents, at the end of 8th grade, that he would be transferring to a public school, they were truly concerned that #2's life prospects would be quickly heading south. I can tell you that just isn't the case. #1's cohort at Sidwell was the jockish, partying, social, middle-of-the-class (or worse) crowd, all nice kids, all doing well enough in life now, but by no means setting the academic world on fire. They didn't go to Ivies - they went to places like Michigan, Kenyon, NYU, etc - fine enough schools, of course, but not the Harvard/Yale/Princeton sugarplums that dance in the heads of many DCUM types. And colleges of that ilk are the norm, not the exception, for most graduates of Sidwell, STA, Maret, etc. While maybe 20 kids out of Sidwell's 110 or so graduates will go to Ivies, most will be Cornell/Penn/Brown rather than HYP. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just sayin.
By comparison, #2's cohort at the public high school was the top-10% crowd - the ones who took 12 APs, debated, edited the newspaper, interned at NIH, etc. Those kids ALL ended up at Ivy-level schools, without the $120K in Sidwell tuition, and with a rich, full high school experience. The difference, I will concede, is that the middle-of-class kids at the public hs are not a match for Sidwell's middle. But at the top, it's all the same.

As a Sidwell grad, I COMPLETELY agree with all of this. When I was there, albeit 15 years ago now, the top 10-15% went to the top colleges. Not everyone. Same as at the very well-regarded MD public schools. I'm likely not sending my kids to Sidwell precisely because of this fact. At my Ivy, I met more kids from top public schools across the country (including from MoCo) than I did from Sidwell-esque private schools.

[Anonymous]

Your observations are also spot on. I, too, attended an elite private and an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

But this is one of the debated points in the forum. People who are sending kids to schools like Sidwell with the idea that it is some secret gold card to the college of their choice is a fallacy.

My kids are at a "big 3", not because I think it is the key to HYP, but because of their personalities and the types of foundations I think they will get, in a way that suits them. I have no doubts that many, of not most public schools are fine for most students. Private schools are not a panacea and I say this as someone who went to one, and who sends my kids to one.

[Anonymous]

I also am a public school graduate and an Ivy college and grad school graduate, and I think the prior posters make a good point--you do not send your kids to private school because you want them to go to a specific type of college--you send them because there is some compelling reason to place them in a different kind of environment. No reason to fear the good public schools! Cream rises to the top anywhere. And I say this as the parent of one kid in public and one kid in private school--work with the information and child you have in front of you, not some future Ivy goal. And don't be afraid to make changes along the way as necessary.