Sibling admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard of one area school that explicitly tries to balance the fairness by offering roughly half the PK & K slots to non-siblings, and half to younger siblings. In essence, it's creating two separate applicant pools. Doesn't solve all the problems, but seems fair to me.

Sidwell keeps at least half the PK/K slots for new families. Other 50% of slots for alumni children/siblings/faculty children. It in effect lessons the sibling preference at the early grades of course. However, an excellent sibling student can certainly get an entry at the later grades with more of their own track record. Don't have kids there but this makes sense -- the school is desire able enough that the lesser sib preference doesn't hurt their admissions it appears.

I'm 12:43. Yes, Sidwell is the school I was referring to. Just did not want to risk taking us off-track by mentioning it by name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We applied our DC2 for K but were offered a JK spot as DC has a late summer birthday. WPssi score 95%, so not as high as DC1 which was 99% but not terrible. Playdate we were told DC2 wanted to play more than draw triangles, squares and write name, so attention span seemed short. I do believe we were offered the JK spot because DC2 is a sibling. Otherwise I feel we would have just been rejected. I am fine with redshirting, it was already in the back of my mind anyway.

Which school?

sidwell

[Anonymous]

Very interested in Maret for this question. We have heard there is a very strong sibling policy but random posts have countered that. Anyone know or have a child that was not accepted who was a sibling and didn't have any needs the school couldn't serve? I primarily mean LS.

[Anonymous]

My youngest was not accepted but she had poor IQ test scores. In retrospect, I should had held off applying as I think the bad score was a fluke. Now sure what to do next...

[Anonymous]

I agree that sibling preference is good for a school community, but if, let's say, you have 5 open spots and only offer those spots to siblings, then you run the risk of looking unfair.

[Anonymous]

PP: Not to mention that's a very myopic way to do thing. That would discourage new families from applying and eventually, any family will run out of children to apply! What then?

So I'd like to think a school would give preferential consideration to sibling ONLY in the situation where two students are equally qualified with similar attributes the school is seeking, and admit the sibling instead of a new student.

[Anonymous]

Maret traditionally fills their classes with siblings and only has one or two spots a year for the unaffiliated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maret traditionally fills their classes with siblings and only has one or two spots a year for the unaffiliated.

This is not always true. Some years there are a lot of siblings, some years there are fewer.

[Anonymous]

I'm talking HS here but the sibling admits I know at Maret were all qualified students but had the hook of being sibs. gDS seems to take any sibling into its HS and I know some who are really struggling to keep up and probably don't belong there academically.

[Anonymous]

When my DC was in K almost half of DC's kindergarten class was made up of new siblings, many of whom applied for PK and were denied. So, at least on the PK level I think many, many siblings are rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD at Big 3 school. 2 siblings. One dmitted and one declined.

Are they twins? Do you know why? Grades? Tests?

[Anonymous]

DS at one of big 3 schools. One younger siblings denied. Great kid but not the academic powerhouse the older sibling is....we are bummed, but trust things happen for a reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My youngest was not accepted but she had poor IQ test scores. In retrospect, I should had held off applying as I think the bad score was a fluke. Now sure what to do next...

What is a "poor" score for the school that denied admission to your youngest?