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Should the admissions process be colorblind?
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Anonymous
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A symphony is a pure meritocracy - you don't care what the players look like, you just want the best sound possible.
A school, on the other hand, is a community. While you still don't care what the kids look like, you do care about factors beyond IQ scores and whether they have met developmental milestones. You care about what each kid, and each family, brings to the mix - personality style, talents, strengths, diverse backgrounds, experiences, etc. So no, admissions should not be colorblind, genderblind, or anything else blind. Even if it were doable. |
Anonymous
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I don't think that's true about symphonies. The best players often have solo careers and an orchestra full of soloists wouldn't be make the best sound.
Sometimes the whole is less than the sum of the parts; sometimes it's more. |
Anonymous
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I don't think that any of us will ever be able to figure out the private school admissions process, because it's subjective. It's not just based on test scores--as we all know, there are many factors involved. So it's possible that the school could pick a child with a 90% test score with an outstanding playdate, great teacher recs and a wonderful parent interview. And it's possible they could reject a child with a 99% test score, a so-so playdate, average teacher recs and a mediocre parent interview. It's entirely up to the school.
DC has an abundance of riches, when it comes to good applicants for private schools. Unfortunately, that means that not everyone can get in. Sidwell, for example, has an admissions acceptance rate of just 15% because of the large number of applicants. That means that no matter how many wonderful applicants with stellar test scores and great personalities apply, 85% of them will STILL be rejected. So just be cognizant of this and take the whole admissions process with a grain of salt. |
Anonymous
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The other thing to remember is that Sidwell represents an exception rather than the rule and that its class size quintuples between preK and 12th grade. It's not as if hundreds of highly qualified kids are getting shut out of private schools -- it's just that many don't get into their first choice school at PreK or K. Not exactly a crisis or major injustice in my book.
Locally, judging from the fact that some well-regarded school seem to have spaces after the end of the admissions process, I'd suspect that, overall, the supply of private school spaces exceeds demand. And, of course, demand for private school, in part, reflects public options. The fact that only a few local privates have Sidwell-like admissions rates probably reflects the fact that lots of people in this area who can afford private have good public options and therefore their preferences are limited to the few private schools they consider significantly better than their local public. |
Anonymous
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To put it another way, there's an abundance of riches with respect to schools here -- if you're wealthy and willing either to shell out serious money for pre-collegiate education or to base your housing choice on public school boundaries.
The people who are really screwed aren't the affluent, high-performing kids who don't get to be lifers at Sidwell. It's the bright kids who live in DC or less affluent suburbs and whose parents don't have the resources to find them a school where their talents will be recognized and nurtured. |
Anonymous
Same here. |
Anonymous
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Whether or not I think colorblind admissions are a good idea (I don't, but whatever) I'm trying to figure out how they would work. We could dress the children up in little white hooded robes so noone could recognize them on the playdate, but that might decrease the diversity AND the eventual WPPSI scores of the applicant pool because people of color, and people of brains (the categories are far from mutually exclusive) might object and choose to apply elsewhere.
Or are we working on the assumption that the people running the playdates are going to be colorblind somehow, that they won't notice and subconsciously give preference to children who remind them of their beloved niece? |
Anonymous
| I think people on this board are underestimating how much attention admissions pay to the parents. Some posters here come across as unbelievably whiny, entitled, and neurotic. If I were an AD with lots of good candidates, I'd run like hell from these people. On every tour I went, there was at least one parent who made a spectacle of themselves (and was clueless about it). I'm pretty sure the admissions office noted it. |
Anonymous
| You are right pp. Anytime my husband took my daughter to a school -- she was accepted. When I took her -- not so much. I think the schools really dig when a hip dad takes the kid in for the interview instead of the mom. Sounds kind of like the 1950s...but it worked for us. My husband is much more attractive and outgoing than I am. |
Anonymous
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How can admission to school be color blind when hiring of the teachers to teach is not color blind and those that do the hiring and admitting did not emanate from a color blind process? Why isolate only one variable -- race? Perhaps order to continue to stack the cards in favour of one race, in particular, one that has passed on wealth, land (including stolen land from Indians and slaves) and trust funds through the generations. How many children go to prestigious D.C. area elite private schools on the backs of school fees paid by trust funds, grandparents and other family and friends? I would surmise a far disproportionate of these children are white. They are spared the "embarassment' of applying for financial aid today from leveraged and compounded wealth accumulated over 2 to 3 generations in the absence of equitable rule of law in this country for all citizens (and citizens to be).
A much better system for DCUMMIES would be to de-identify the students by assigning them an admission ID number. The admission's committee would then be blind to name, gender, address, state, zip code, religion, school, family wealth/income, interest in financial aid and race. Letters of references would either be abolished or de-identified if possible such that ID linkage could not be established. Ironically, DCUMMIES would still revolt as their children would continue to "suffer" the same fate in this new system...as they slowly watch the erosion of centuries of entitlements. |
Anonymous
I agree 100%. And if their kids get rejected, they'll probably swear up and down it was somebody else's fault.
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Anonymous
Yes. |
Anonymous
Why - because people of some ethnic groups will not be smart enough to get in and need the shove in some way? |
Anonymous
| You're probably right since most elite, well-endowed, private schools are driven by high socio-economic status. And for historical reasons alluded to in previous posts, this is largely the historical domain of whites in America. True, there are the few newly minted and nouveau riche from other cultures that, too, are welcome targets for D.C. private schools in the interest of diversity and market share. |
Anonymous
I agree, this whole process is pretty much a mystery and sometimes it brings out the worst in us. Some of us are control freaks, so it's uncomfortable to know that the final decision regarding whether our DCs are admitted is ultimately beyond our control. Some of us are successful in our professions--and are used to getting EXACTLY what we want, so we feel personal failure/chagrin if our DCs don't get admitted to the top schools. Some of us are shocked that the AD wasn't impressed with our high-powered jobs or family connections. And some of us can't seem to accept that no matter how smart, wonderful and talented our DCs are, there are several similar kids in this well-accomplished D.C. area. No matter how you feel about this process (which we all CHOSE to take part in), let's hope that we don't let any nervous or negative feelings spill over onto our DCs. It's bad enough that some of us are taking this process too personally, we don't need our kids to be burdened with that too.
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