Do the ADs at Sidwell and Beauvoir confer?

[Anonymous]

They do meet to confer and trade final admissions. Originally someone raised a legal question, but I heard back when Clinton was president and a parent at Sidwell Friends, they obtained a special letter from the justice Department to allow this practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They do meet to confer and trade final admissions. Originally someone raised a legal question, but I heard back when Clinton was president and a parent at Sidwell Friends, they obtained a special letter from the justice Department to allow this practice.

Take the hook out, anyone who might be inclined to believe this. This is not true on any count whatsoever. Good one, though -- this fabrication feeds off a lot of people's fears/preconceptions.

[Anonymous]

OP here. My comment is about K. DC got accepted to K at Beauvoir and rejected by Sidwell. We were clear that Beauvoir was our first choice. Glad it worked out, but I was curious since we were given different signals from Sidwell earlier.

[Anonymous]

Interesting,OP. Here's what I think, imho: reputation, including perceived exclusivity, helps with yield on 1st round admit roster. Since the Clinton's chose Sidwell over Cathedral in the 90's Sidwell has made a fortune off of that perceived exclusivity both in terms of what families are willing to donate , and just the haul from thousands of applicatios.

Sidwell has spent this money in a lot of ways : 100 million on new MS and US gym, for example.

What Sidwell cannot afford is too lose that "exclusive" rep by having it said, over and over all around town, "oh, yeah, DC got into Sidwell, but we turned them down for X school." Sidwell hates to loose a family and when it has happened they have stepped up their intel efforts.

They are protecting their rep, imho.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting,OP. Here's what I think, imho: reputation, including perceived exclusivity, helps with yield on 1st round admit roster. Since the Clinton's chose Sidwell over Cathedral in the 90's Sidwell has made a fortune off of that perceived exclusivity both in terms of what families are willing to donate , and just the haul from thousands of applicatios.

Sidwell has spent this money in a lot of ways : 100 million on new MS and US gym, for example.

What Sidwell cannot afford is too lose that "exclusive" rep by having it said, over and over all around town, "oh, yeah, DC got into Sidwell, but we turned them down for X school." Sidwell hates to loose a family and when it has happened they have stepped up their intel efforts.

They are protecting their rep, imho.

Very goofy. I had written a long explanatory post refuting this one, but it gives it too much credit. I'm just gonna stick with "very goofy."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The only situation I know of when institutions may talk is when there is an application from a student loooking to move from one peer school to another in the later grades. (Sometimes after a disciplinary situation.) This contact may be at the head of school level. Nobody wants to be known for "raiding" other schools, but every school knows sometimes kids need a fresh start. They may check to see if it is "good kid made a bad decision" or "problematic kid probably did a lot more than we knew about and family not supportive of discipline efforts."

Except for Bullis now. Remember, Bullis is now unapologetically raiding peer schools for jocks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The only situation I know of when institutions may talk is when there is an application from a student loooking to move from one peer school to another in the later grades. (Sometimes after a disciplinary situation.) This contact may be at the head of school level. Nobody wants to be known for "raiding" other schools, but every school knows sometimes kids need a fresh start. They may check to see if it is "good kid made a bad decision" or "problematic kid probably did a lot more than we knew about and family not supportive of discipline efforts."

Except for Bullis now. Remember, Bullis is now unapologetically raiding peer schools for jocks.

And I would surmise there have been one or two phone calls as a result. But in the end, the schools recognize that families can and will move from one school to another and that the ability to move can be very beneficial to a student -- sometimes for academic reasons, sometimes for social reasons, sometimes for athletics. It would have to happen a lot more than it's currently happening for the local independents to adopt some sort of athletic transfer rule like Catholic schools have often done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:... Since the Clinton's chose Sidwell over Cathedral in the 90's Sidwell has made a fortune off of that perceived exclusivity both in terms of what families are willing to donate , and just the haul from thousands of applicatios ....

You seem to be mistakenly thinking that Sidwell was suddenly plucked from obscurity in 1992 when the Clintons sent their daughter there. A quick search of Google News pre-1992 shows it received lots of attention long before then as an exclusive school.

On a side note, here is an interesting article from 1978, which discusses the mad scramble among parents for admission to private schools in DC. The story it tells sounds surprisingly familiar 35 years later. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=cm8aAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lCkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6954%2C5156880 Choice quotes:

"... for the nameless numbers of the Capital's middle class citizens, deciding where to send a child to school becomes a nightmare of dollar-signs and intelligence tests ... And politics. Many parents will pull all the social and professional strings they can to improve their children's chances of being accepted ..."

"... otherwise sane parents become frantic when their children hit school age ..."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My comment is about K. DC got accepted to K at Beauvoir and rejected by Sidwell. We were clear that Beauvoir was our first choice. Glad it worked out, but I was curious since we were given different signals from Sidwell earlier.

PP from earlier that said our DC was admitted to both for K a couple of years ago. We made clear to director of our preschool that Sidwell was not our first choice, and DC still got in. We didn't go there, so I don't think Sidewell only accepts those students who will enroll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. My comment is about K. DC got accepted to K at Beauvoir and rejected by Sidwell. We were clear that Beauvoir was our first choice. Glad it worked out, but I was curious since we were given different signals from Sidwell earlier.

What kind of signals?