Sidwell throttling down college admissions?

[Anonymous]

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

The vast majority of kids everywhere are not going to ivy league schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely lots of ways to define merit, but I’m not sure colleges are picking the most meritorious candidates. The college admissions system here is deeply flawed.

The US values skills and qualities other than test scores and grades. Always has, which is what makes it possible for anyone to succeed here. You are not doomed to menial labor just because you have a learning disability or an average IQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

[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.

I really do understand why you believe the above, but the regular classes at Sidwell are much more difficult than APs. We sent our DC there to get away from rote memorization and are fully satisfied with performance at a highly rigorous college. The AP courses they do have are ridiculously filled with busy work caused by the AP curriculum. Don't confuse the college game with obtaining an education. I certainly don't have the answer for discrimination in the admissions process and am a big advocate for doing away with it. However bowing to the tyranny of APs is not it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I really do understand why you believe the above, but the regular classes at Sidwell are much more difficult than APs. We sent our DC there to get away from rote memorization and are fully satisfied with performance at a highly rigorous college. The AP courses they do have are ridiculously filled with busy work caused by the AP curriculum. Don't confuse the college game with obtaining an education. I certainly don't have the answer for discrimination in the admissions process and am a big advocate for doing away with it. However bowing to the tyranny of APs is not it.

Ok, sure. My HS went far beyond AP courses, too, and does better than Sidwell in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, sure. My HS went far beyond AP courses, too, and does better than Sidwell in college admissions.

Is this a DC area HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I really do understand why you believe the above, but the regular classes at Sidwell are much more difficult than APs. We sent our DC there to get away from rote memorization and are fully satisfied with performance at a highly rigorous college. The AP courses they do have are ridiculously filled with busy work caused by the AP curriculum. Don't confuse the college game with obtaining an education. I certainly don't have the answer for discrimination in the admissions process and am a big advocate for doing away with it. However bowing to the tyranny of APs is not it.

The courses at Georgetown Day School, National Cathedral School, and St. Albans School are also in-depth, engaging, and divergent from the AP curriculum -- even when they are technically AP courses. It is not as simple as the rote memorization versus enlightening Sidwell alternative you suggest.

GDS, NCS, and STA appear to better understand, or perhaps are more willing to, encourage their students who hope to earn admission to the top universities to submit to the testing. One of my DCs at another Big 3 was encouraged to take both the AP English Literature and AP Spanish literature exam, even though their courses were not labeled AP courses. They earned 5s on both exams. My point is that if Sidwell courses as rigorous as you say, then Sidwell students should be able to easily sit for the corresponding AP exam/SAT subject test and perform well. If so, Sidwell must start encouraging more testing among their students to put them on par with their public and private school peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, sure. My HS went far beyond AP courses, too, and does better than Sidwell in college admissions.

Is this a DC area HS?

No, it's not. And before people attack me for bringing up a non-DC area HS -- this is a conversation about college admissions and Sidwell's place in it. If Sidwell is supposed to be a nationally renowned HS, it needs to reckon with the fact that it does not do as well as a couple of (probably not more, but at least 2) other private high schools. If Sidwell parents get defensive about bringing up anything other than DC-area high schools, that reveals a lot about their inner insecurities about the school's performance.

Unfortunately, Sidwell doesn't publish enough data to do a direct comparison, but I would venture a guess that the college matriculation stats are not at the level of these two schools:

Andover -- https://www.andover.edu/files/PhillipsAcademySchoolProfile2017-2018.pdf
Exeter -- https://www.exeter.edu/sites/default/files/documents/college_matriculation.pdf; https://exeter.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Profile%20for%20Colleges.pdf

You can also clearly see that both of these schools go well beyond AP courses because they offer up comprehensive school profiles. There's no guesswork in what's happening at these schools because they offer up the data themselves. If the DC-area schools want to play in the true big leagues, they need to be as transparent as Andover and Exeter in publishing this sort of data. Otherwise many will simply assume they don't have the stats to back up their lofty claims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

The vast majority of kids everywhere are not going to ivy league schools.

Yes, but Sidwell touts itself as the most prestigious school in the area so it needs to do better than "everywhere else". What the past few years of college admissions results show is that Sidwell is not living up to its "elite" name and paying more than half a million $$ for 13 years of education is just not worth it, if the point is to guarantee a spot for the upper school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I really do understand why you believe the above, but the regular classes at Sidwell are much more difficult than APs. We sent our DC there to get away from rote memorization and are fully satisfied with performance at a highly rigorous college. The AP courses they do have are ridiculously filled with busy work caused by the AP curriculum. Don't confuse the college game with obtaining an education. I certainly don't have the answer for discrimination in the admissions process and am a big advocate for doing away with it. However bowing to the tyranny of APs is not it.

I don't know where you get this info from about AP courses. I have one DC in public and another in private so I do have first hand knowledge about how AP courses are like in our public. None of them are "rote memorization"! I do find some of the "honor" or even regular courses at the private my other DC attended were just as challenging as the APs; but not all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

The vast majority of kids everywhere are not going to ivy league schools.

Yes, but Sidwell touts itself as the most prestigious school in the area so it needs to do better than "everywhere else". What the past few years of college admissions results show is that Sidwell is not living up to its "elite" name and paying more than half a million $$ for 13 years of education is just not worth it, if the point is to guarantee a spot for the upper school.

Exactly. This is why Sidwell people shouldn't act like the rest of us are just jealous when we point out how ridiculous it is that the school expects people to pay $40K for kindergarten, when other great schools charge much less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I really do understand why you believe the above, but the regular classes at Sidwell are much more difficult than APs. We sent our DC there to get away from rote memorization and are fully satisfied with performance at a highly rigorous college. The AP courses they do have are ridiculously filled with busy work caused by the AP curriculum. Don't confuse the college game with obtaining an education. I certainly don't have the answer for discrimination in the admissions process and am a big advocate for doing away with it. However bowing to the tyranny of APs is not it.

The courses at Georgetown Day School, National Cathedral School, and St. Albans School are also in-depth, engaging, and divergent from the AP curriculum -- even when they are technically AP courses. It is not as simple as the rote memorization versus enlightening Sidwell alternative you suggest.

GDS, NCS, and STA appear to better understand, or perhaps are more willing to, encourage their students who hope to earn admission to the top universities to submit to the testing. One of my DCs at another Big 3 was encouraged to take both the AP English Literature and AP Spanish literature exam, even though their courses were not labeled AP courses. They earned 5s on both exams. My point is that if Sidwell courses as rigorous as you say, then Sidwell students should be able to easily sit for the corresponding AP exam/SAT subject test and perform well. If so, Sidwell must start encouraging more testing among their students to put them on par with their public and private school peers.

College admissions from the privates are just as much, if not more, affected by legacy status, sports/arts performance and donor level as grades and test scores. In any given year results among the schools can vary based on all these peripheral factors for each individual class. In terms of your encouraging students to submit to more testing...the fully battery of AP tests are offered every year. It's up to each student to make the decision of how many. And yes, they are not difficult even when the course is not labelled AP. Many do very well with 5s or 4's across the board. I do not think year to year differences in college results have anything to do with AP testing. Given the workload in junior and senior year, IMO it's not healthy to obsess over these tests. I have utmost respects for our fellow privates. Nothing in what was originally posted by me was meant to cnvey that other schools do not have rich curriculums. I only speak about the school I know.

[Anonymous]

BTW - The private boarding schools are in deliberation about withdrawing from APs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BTW - The private boarding schools are in deliberation about withdrawing from APs.

Andover grad here. We've long not followed the AP curriculum. Courses might prepare kids for the AP exam, but it's never the express purpose. I think Exeter doesn't participate in the AP program either. This was the case when I was at Andover from 2001-2005, and I think it's still the case.

[Anonymous]

My DC will be an incoming 9th grader at Sidwell. Can someone provide more detail or context on why college admission results were disappointing. Why was one college counselor weaker than the others? Did Sidwell do a less good job in its own admissions process to 9th 4 years ago? It’s hard to figure out what’s going on as an outsider. Please expand.