Sidwell Junior - GPA concerns

[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?

It says in the brief she went to Penn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Sidwell doesn’t rank.

Yes, it doesn't

It’s bogus though. These schools that “don’t rank” use code words like “outstanding / excellent / very good” in the letter to let you know which 5th of the class each kid is in.

I did medical residency admissions decisions and every medical school that “doesn’t rank” did this and so did their teacher recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Same here. Big 3 parent. We listened and nodded nicely at college office but we used outside resource to shape a list. It was hard to get kid to not listen to office. List school generated had no stretch at EA/ED for instance. Was wrong on types of settings kid wanted. Another parent who had been through this with a few kids at same school said “just use the office for the things you need. Manage the rest as a parent with your child”. It was good advice. And not very popular here where our school college office gets positive reviews from some vocal patents. Others disagree.

Here’s the thing - college office means well but incentives are slightly different than the kid’s and yours. The office wants every kid to have multiple acceptances. Not multiple acceptances at the top school should that even be possible. Just multiple acceptances. Kid and parent want the very best fit at the very best school.

So I’ve heard from dozen or more parents at my school that they and kid over rode what they thought was a not aspirational college list. Of course you need to be careful that in 2023, nothing is like it was in early 90s when we all went to college. Northeastern is harder to get into than Princeton was in late 80s. Without a hook, it’s a lottery ticket so you need to know that. And decide whether SCEA or ED is right for your kid and what doors that opens or closes. Use it for stretch aspirational or decide you want it for middle of the road comfort.

What we need the office for in realty is some sense of how many kids from our school applying to each college at each cycle. For instance I gather USC is hyper popular at several of the top 3 this year and it will be crazy hard this year. In fact EA there will be 4% admit according to stats USC released. So keep your hopes low there is something a good CC would tell you.

Then we need CC to write a nice letter (so always be nice). And to help with edge case stuff when a regional rep needs to be called for something. That’s it. Nothing else.

We used outside essay reader too because with staff of 4 or 5 our school office seemed overwhelmed, cursory etc reading essays. Best money we spent in the whole process was that and campus visits/tours.

Summary - many of us feel the same way. CC incentive not same as yours.

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.

[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.

I "hear" you on college counselors not being great and agree they shouldn't ED to a school that isn't their first choice. However, please make sure that YOU are listening to your child. Maybe they really love the schools on their list and are not interested in attending the schools you think they should "reach" for. I know several very good students who have chosen a school outside of the T20 as their favorite. These kids will do great at those schools and in life even though they could probably get into a T10 school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Same here. Big 3 parent. We listened and nodded nicely at college office but we used outside resource to shape a list. It was hard to get kid to not listen to office. List school generated had no stretch at EA/ED for instance. Was wrong on types of settings kid wanted. Another parent who had been through this with a few kids at same school said “just use the office for the things you need. Manage the rest as a parent with your child”. It was good advice. And not very popular here where our school college office gets positive reviews from some vocal patents. Others disagree.

Here’s the thing - college office means well but incentives are slightly different than the kid’s and yours. The office wants every kid to have multiple acceptances. Not multiple acceptances at the top school should that even be possible. Just multiple acceptances. Kid and parent want the very best fit at the very best school.

So I’ve heard from dozen or more parents at my school that they and kid over rode what they thought was a not aspirational college list. Of course you need to be careful that in 2023, nothing is like it was in early 90s when we all went to college. Northeastern is harder to get into than Princeton was in late 80s. Without a hook, it’s a lottery ticket so you need to know that. And decide whether SCEA or ED is right for your kid and what doors that opens or closes. Use it for stretch aspirational or decide you want it for middle of the road comfort.

What we need the office for in realty is some sense of how many kids from our school applying to each college at each cycle. For instance I gather USC is hyper popular at several of the top 3 this year and it will be crazy hard this year. In fact EA there will be 4% admit according to stats USC released. So keep your hopes low there is something a good CC would tell you.

Then we need CC to write a nice letter (so always be nice). And to help with edge case stuff when a regional rep needs to be called for something. That’s it. Nothing else.

We used outside essay reader too because with staff of 4 or 5 our school office seemed overwhelmed, cursory etc reading essays. Best money we spent in the whole process was that and campus visits/tours.

Summary - many of us feel the same way. CC incentive not same as yours.

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.

Do you find that parents are realistic about their kids' chances? It seems like everyone I know at out school thinks that their kid is Ivy or similar material. I know kids with 3.0s applying to Cornell and Dartmouth (with no hook). It seems to work out in the end (the top kids get the top school spots) but doesn't this just clutter it all up for everyone? And how does it work out that everyone seems to get a decent (top 75, often top 50) spot when everyone seems to be applying to the same schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Same here. Big 3 parent. We listened and nodded nicely at college office but we used outside resource to shape a list. It was hard to get kid to not listen to office. List school generated had no stretch at EA/ED for instance. Was wrong on types of settings kid wanted. Another parent who had been through this with a few kids at same school said “just use the office for the things you need. Manage the rest as a parent with your child”. It was good advice. And not very popular here where our school college office gets positive reviews from some vocal patents. Others disagree.

Here’s the thing - college office means well but incentives are slightly different than the kid’s and yours. The office wants every kid to have multiple acceptances. Not multiple acceptances at the top school should that even be possible. Just multiple acceptances. Kid and parent want the very best fit at the very best school.

So I’ve heard from dozen or more parents at my school that they and kid over rode what they thought was a not aspirational college list. Of course you need to be careful that in 2023, nothing is like it was in early 90s when we all went to college. Northeastern is harder to get into than Princeton was in late 80s. Without a hook, it’s a lottery ticket so you need to know that. And decide whether SCEA or ED is right for your kid and what doors that opens or closes. Use it for stretch aspirational or decide you want it for middle of the road comfort.

What we need the office for in realty is some sense of how many kids from our school applying to each college at each cycle. For instance I gather USC is hyper popular at several of the top 3 this year and it will be crazy hard this year. In fact EA there will be 4% admit according to stats USC released. So keep your hopes low there is something a good CC would tell you.

Then we need CC to write a nice letter (so always be nice). And to help with edge case stuff when a regional rep needs to be called for something. That’s it. Nothing else.

We used outside essay reader too because with staff of 4 or 5 our school office seemed overwhelmed, cursory etc reading essays. Best money we spent in the whole process was that and campus visits/tours.

Summary - many of us feel the same way. CC incentive not same as yours.

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.

Do you find that parents are realistic about their kids' chances? It seems like everyone I know at out school thinks that their kid is Ivy or similar material. I know kids with 3.0s applying to Cornell and Dartmouth (with no hook). It seems to work out in the end (the top kids get the top school spots) but doesn't this just clutter it all up for everyone? And how does it work out that everyone seems to get a decent (top 75, often top 50) spot when everyone seems to be applying to the same schools?

you are right - GDS I believe limits to 10 schools applied to in order to prevent this to some degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Same here. Big 3 parent. We listened and nodded nicely at college office but we used outside resource to shape a list. It was hard to get kid to not listen to office. List school generated had no stretch at EA/ED for instance. Was wrong on types of settings kid wanted. Another parent who had been through this with a few kids at same school said “just use the office for the things you need. Manage the rest as a parent with your child”. It was good advice. And not very popular here where our school college office gets positive reviews from some vocal patents. Others disagree.

Here’s the thing - college office means well but incentives are slightly different than the kid’s and yours. The office wants every kid to have multiple acceptances. Not multiple acceptances at the top school should that even be possible. Just multiple acceptances. Kid and parent want the very best fit at the very best school.

So I’ve heard from dozen or more parents at my school that they and kid over rode what they thought was a not aspirational college list. Of course you need to be careful that in 2023, nothing is like it was in early 90s when we all went to college. Northeastern is harder to get into than Princeton was in late 80s. Without a hook, it’s a lottery ticket so you need to know that. And decide whether SCEA or ED is right for your kid and what doors that opens or closes. Use it for stretch aspirational or decide you want it for middle of the road comfort.

What we need the office for in realty is some sense of how many kids from our school applying to each college at each cycle. For instance I gather USC is hyper popular at several of the top 3 this year and it will be crazy hard this year. In fact EA there will be 4% admit according to stats USC released. So keep your hopes low there is something a good CC would tell you.

Then we need CC to write a nice letter (so always be nice). And to help with edge case stuff when a regional rep needs to be called for something. That’s it. Nothing else.

We used outside essay reader too because with staff of 4 or 5 our school office seemed overwhelmed, cursory etc reading essays. Best money we spent in the whole process was that and campus visits/tours.

Summary - many of us feel the same way. CC incentive not same as yours.

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.

Do you find that parents are realistic about their kids' chances? It seems like everyone I know at out school thinks that their kid is Ivy or similar material. I know kids with 3.0s applying to Cornell and Dartmouth (with no hook). It seems to work out in the end (the top kids get the top school spots) but doesn't this just clutter it all up for everyone? And how does it work out that everyone seems to get a decent (top 75, often top 50) spot when everyone seems to be applying to the same schools?

Not PP but I don't know kids' GPAs or where they are applying. I did hear where some applied ED (rejected) but don't know their stats.

[Anonymous]

IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

It would help parents be realistic if we had any sense of where our kids’ grades/rigor generally stand compared to classmates but as far as I can tell the private schools don’t share that information with families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

It would help parents be realistic if we had any sense of where our kids’ grades/rigor generally stand compared to classmates but as far as I can tell the private schools don’t share that information with families.

This. 100% this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

It would help parents be realistic if we had any sense of where our kids’ grades/rigor generally stand compared to classmates but as far as I can tell the private schools don’t share that information with families.

This. 100% this.

+3

[Anonymous]

It's a catch-22. The college counselors say parents are not being realistic and parents are not being realistic because counselors do not tell them where their students rank.

It's true in my experience (I have one kid that has gone through the process) that the counselors were not really that helpful in identifying the list of schools to apply to nor in reviewing the college essays (less than minimal edits and suggestions).

I guess counselors are navigating a challenging environment and this is the best that they can do given the highly uncertain outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One kid from Sidwell did in fact get into Brown last year and he was a very top student in that graduating class with both extremely high GPA (and high rigor) and SAT. Unhooked.

Unhooked == Not True.

[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.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

[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.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell