do college admissions get ugly at the Big3 when all the parents are Ivy grads?

[Anonymous]

And one did have a multimillion dollar hook

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

Not Quakerly? How do parents put up with this crap?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

Not Quakerly? How do parents put up with this crap?

The school is small enough that you can track who went to what school and see their Naviance information by cross listing yourself. As such, to protect privacy, the school doesn't share the comprehensive lists by grade. However, each class posts informal lists, and this happens at most schools. That is where the previous information came from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

What does this mean? Wouldn't the "schools students apply to" already know their own admissions info. Why would the CCO need to send that to any college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are more legacies applying from public schools.

There are legacies everywhere, public and private. Way too many to worry about that as a factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

What does this mean? Wouldn't the "schools students apply to" already know their own admissions info. Why would the CCO need to send that to any college?

+1. First PP doesn’t make sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard has a legacy admit rate of over 30% so I say the Harvard legacies are in good shape.

you're missing the point--they're not. Our Big3 had ONE harvard admit last year and at least 20 kids were alums (that's just the ones I know-between both parents). <5% admit rate at this top school. That's the thing--30% legacy admit rate does work if there is a super high rate of alums at one high school. harvard is not going to dole out 8 admits to legacy kids from a single DC private.

You don’t know who applied. Harvard in particular seems to generate less warm and fuzzy vibes and loyalty among alumni, at least those I know. Many of us have kids who preferred other Ivies, Stanford, Swarthmore, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

Not Quakerly? How do parents put up with this crap?

The school is small enough that you can track who went to what school and see their Naviance information by cross listing yourself. As such, to protect privacy, the school doesn't share the comprehensive lists by grade. However, each class posts informal lists, and this happens at most schools. That is where the previous information came from.

Sidwell parents don’t have access to the Naviance scattergrams. Even if you had access to the scatter gram, your kid would have graduated before you see where the other applicants fell within Naviance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Legacy doesn't go that far anymore, and so what you see at the Big 3 schools is a lot of "grooming" of kids (tutoring, test prep, travel sports) to have the right profile. For Ivies that's superstar academics (top 3-4 kids in the class), or excellent stats plus recruitable athlete, or excellent stats plus URM, or excellent stats plus parents have mega-millions. I can't think of a single Ivy admit at my kid's school last year who didn't fall into one of those categories.

Do you really think there are only a small handful of kids from "big3" schools that go to Ivy's? Because that really wouldn't be close to accurate. More like 25-35% of the class, and that is before you get to NESCAC/Stanford/Chicago and other top schools.

Lol. What year are you posting from? It's not 35% of the class. And HYPS are often one each, per school.

Perhaps not 35% of the class but definitely more than 1 HYP per school. I see about 4 to 5 to Harvard, I’ve seen 8 to Penn, etc.

what school is this?
Not NCS or STA over the past 2 years as I've seen both these lists each year. It's 0-2 to each of HYPS and Penn per year.
I don't think it's GDS. They get a few Harvards each year but last year was only 2.
Is it Sidwell? Again, I don't think so.

I think your estimates are 5-10 years old.

I just looked at an incomplete Sidwell list from 2020:

23 to Ivys
38 to top national universities like Stanford/CMU/Emory/USC
29 to tops SLACs (NESCAC/Pomona type schools)
17 to top publics (Michigan/UCLA/UT/W&M/Cal/UVA)

Huh? STA had 5 to HYP last year (which might be on the low side).

And more to Columbia, Dartmouth and Cornell .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The stats don't really matter...when you get to the point of being considered for admissions, you have crossed whatever threshold these schools have - 1500 or 1550, 3.75 UW with the most rigorous classes taken, strong and unique ECs.

The difference in a .10 or .20 for the GPA or 20 points on the SAT aren't going to make or break. What is your story, what do you have to offer to the college's community. It isn't like everyone getting in is a 5.0, 1600 SAT applicant. So asking about their stats is really missing the point.

There are thousands more qualified applicants than there are slots available at these schools, so you have to stand out in some way, and there is no secret sauce to standing out. Just live you life and see where the chips fall.

I'd actually be fine with that kind of meritocracy, but speaking as a parent of a now college student, your post ignores a factor that these schools all use that significantly affects HS students ability to just " apply / go for it.... and let the chips fall where they may"

That is: ED also known as the time when Universities try to get a firm handle/ achieve their target numbers for both URM ( last year of Black@was def the year of the URM ) and their number of full pay who will commit by signing on ED

Those two groups take A LOT of the slots and did so in last year's admit cycle , especially when colleges were all taking a huge hit financially from the down enrollment in 2020 due to covid.

So, a very bright kid ( 1600 SAT, great EC's and also an outstanding athlete ) can't just apply regular decision to say Stanford, a couple IVy's and MIT and see what they get because if they don't go ED at the school that is offering them a guarantee then the schools fill up their slots with the kids who did or they are shut out.

To me, the escalating spending at these schools that made their budgets so high that they have to lock in full pay ED ( and consequently take a lot of unqualified legacies ) is ultimately undermining the quality of their student body and long term the quality of education that those they do admit receive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The stats don't really matter...when you get to the point of being considered for admissions, you have crossed whatever threshold these schools have - 1500 or 1550, 3.75 UW with the most rigorous classes taken, strong and unique ECs.

The difference in a .10 or .20 for the GPA or 20 points on the SAT aren't going to make or break. What is your story, what do you have to offer to the college's community. It isn't like everyone getting in is a 5.0, 1600 SAT applicant. So asking about their stats is really missing the point.

There are thousands more qualified applicants than there are slots available at these schools, so you have to stand out in some way, and there is no secret sauce to standing out. Just live you life and see where the chips fall.

I'd actually be fine with that kind of meritocracy, but speaking as a parent of a now college student, your post ignores a factor that these schools all use that significantly affects HS students ability to just " apply / go for it.... and let the chips fall where they may"

That is: ED also known as the time when Universities try to get a firm handle/ achieve their target numbers for both URM ( last year of Black@was def the year of the URM ) and their number of full pay who will commit by signing on ED

Those two groups take A LOT of the slots and did so in last year's admit cycle , especially when colleges were all taking a huge hit financially from the down enrollment in 2020 due to covid.

So, a very bright kid ( 1600 SAT, great EC's and also an outstanding athlete ) can't just apply regular decision to say Stanford, a couple IVy's and MIT and see what they get because if they don't go ED at the school that is offering them a guarantee then the schools fill up their slots with the kids who did or they are shut out.

To me, the escalating spending at these schools that made their budgets so high that they have to lock in full pay ED ( and consequently take a lot of unqualified legacies ) is ultimately undermining the quality of their student body and long term the quality of education that those they do admit receive.

But, doesn't need-blind admissions make this N/A? On the one hand, a family may choose not to ED if they are worried that the financial aid package won't be strong enough (if the kid gets in ED). But, on the other hand, i 9th stop schools are need blind and meet 100% of demonstrated need, isn't that a fairly low risk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

nope. sidwell parent here and no idea where to find this information. it would be interesting to see a list. so if you can tell us where to find it, that would be great.

Sidwell CCO tracks this and sends 5-year info to schools students apply to. But they don't share it with parents.

Not Quakerly? How do parents put up with this crap?

The school is small enough that you can track who went to what school and see their Naviance information by cross listing yourself. As such, to protect privacy, the school doesn't share the comprehensive lists by grade. However, each class posts informal lists, and this happens at most schools. That is where the previous information came from.

Sidwell parents don’t have access to the Naviance scattergrams. Even if you had access to the scatter gram, your kid would have graduated before you see where the other applicants fell within Naviance.

1) yes, parents can see the scattergrams
2) I was referring to being able to identify previous years of applicants

[Anonymous]

What is a scatter gram?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The stats don't really matter...when you get to the point of being considered for admissions, you have crossed whatever threshold these schools have - 1500 or 1550, 3.75 UW with the most rigorous classes taken, strong and unique ECs.

The difference in a .10 or .20 for the GPA or 20 points on the SAT aren't going to make or break. What is your story, what do you have to offer to the college's community. It isn't like everyone getting in is a 5.0, 1600 SAT applicant. So asking about their stats is really missing the point.

There are thousands more qualified applicants than there are slots available at these schools, so you have to stand out in some way, and there is no secret sauce to standing out. Just live you life and see where the chips fall.

I'd actually be fine with that kind of meritocracy, but speaking as a parent of a now college student, your post ignores a factor that these schools all use that significantly affects HS students ability to just " apply / go for it.... and let the chips fall where they may"

That is: ED also known as the time when Universities try to get a firm handle/ achieve their target numbers for both URM ( last year of Black@was def the year of the URM ) and their number of full pay who will commit by signing on ED

Those two groups take A LOT of the slots and did so in last year's admit cycle , especially when colleges were all taking a huge hit financially from the down enrollment in 2020 due to covid.

So, a very bright kid ( 1600 SAT, great EC's and also an outstanding athlete ) can't just apply regular decision to say Stanford, a couple IVy's and MIT and see what they get because if they don't go ED at the school that is offering them a guarantee then the schools fill up their slots with the kids who did or they are shut out.

To me, the escalating spending at these schools that made their budgets so high that they have to lock in full pay ED ( and consequently take a lot of unqualified legacies ) is ultimately undermining the quality of their student body and long term the quality of education that those they do admit receive.

But, doesn't need-blind admissions make this N/A? On the one hand, a family may choose not to ED if they are worried that the financial aid package won't be strong enough (if the kid gets in ED). But, on the other hand, i 9th stop schools are need blind and meet 100% of demonstrated need, isn't that a fairly low risk?

In their printed materials " need blind" may be what they say, but the same is true of Private Schools in the DMV and, well, what is your experience on that PP ? How does it play out in real life ?

To your point about the FA offer being a way to wiggle out of the ED commit, here is how Ivy's make sure that doesn't happen and that its air tight:

If you are a recruited student athlete for an Ivy, the Ivys ask you to do a pre-admit read of supposedly your transcript and test scores ( SAT/ACT was still required for Athletic recruits at Ivy's and you have to be within 1-3 STD of their AQ score of 240 , but they also look at your financials - you submit your Tax returns while your kid is being recruited and, if your kid is also being recruited by Stanford or Duke or another Ivy they offer to match the FA if your kid passes the FA "pre-admit read"

This happens in summer before SR year, so what does that tell you about how these schools are already delegating their funds / lists of who they are admitting BEFORE anyone else even applies in the fall/ spring admission cycles ?