Big 3 College Placement, Class of 2022

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…

Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools.

All those woke idiots celebrating the elimination of SATs and ACTs as requirements? Guess what? Holistic admissions is what was used to exclude Jewish students from the Ivies for decades. Higher achieving Jewish kids were denied admission in favor of more likable WASPs.

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

Without it, you can expect more privileged kids to be admitted.

Forget Asian American kids. The quota restraining their admissions regardless of accomplishments will remain constant.

Thanks for this. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that test optional is not for increasing diversity. It’s for allowing the schools to admit low performing donor kids without hurting their stats.

[Anonymous]

Whatever one thinks about standardized testing, the fact of the matter is that by removing SATs from the equation admissions depts can be even more unaccountable and non-transparent than they already are, especially with legacy admissions remaining intact almost everywhere. That the current model we have, in which a group of people decide to admit students based on their gut reaction to, say, a 250 word essay or an anonymous letter of recommendation, who one's parents are or some formula devised to create "balance" for incoming classes, is considered anything less than barbaric or quasi-feudal is a mystery to me. And have no doubt that the current push to do away with standardized testing in both higher education and elite test-in public schools (like Stuyvescent in NYC, or Lowell in SF) is explicitly targeting Asian-American students.
To my knowledge no advanced industrial "democracy" in the world has such an openly non-transparent system for allocating slots in the most competitive schools in the nation.

[Anonymous]

Quasi feudal is a great way to describe the college admissions process, it's honestly depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whatever one thinks about standardized testing, the fact of the matter is that by removing SATs from the equation admissions depts can be even more unaccountable and non-transparent than they already are, especially with legacy admissions remaining intact almost everywhere. That the current model we have, in which a group of people decide to admit students based on their gut reaction to, say, a 250 word essay or an anonymous letter of recommendation, who one's parents are or some formula devised to create "balance" for incoming classes, is considered anything less than barbaric or quasi-feudal is a mystery to me. And have no doubt that the current push to do away with standardized testing in both higher education and elite test-in public schools (like Stuyvescent in NYC, or Lowell in SF) is explicitly targeting Asian-American students.
To my knowledge no advanced industrial "democracy" in the world has such an openly non-transparent system for allocating slots in the most competitive schools in the nation.

Wait until you find out how hiring decisions are made for jobs.

[Anonymous]

Wait, that’s the end of any pretense to being a meritocracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…

Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools.

All those woke idiots celebrating the elimination of SATs and ACTs as requirements? Guess what? Holistic admissions is what was used to exclude Jewish students from the Ivies for decades. Higher achieving Jewish kids were denied admission in favor of more likable WASPs.

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

Without it, you can expect more privileged kids to be admitted.

That's pretty simplistic logic. The Admissions landscape was actually much more impacted by the fact that not NEARLY as many people applied to OR were even interested in attending college in 1930's, 1940's, 1950's beyond upper class and upper middle class white males .

Far more of that than some mass conspiracy to deny all the Jewish kids in America college admit in favor of " ALL the WASPS "

Young women, for example, were also not represented in as high of numbers at Harvard in 1960 as today, but that is also reflective of the fact that not NEARLY as many applied OR to any college for that matter

The SAT became common place when it became necessary to use some method to evaluate the HUGE jump in college admissions once the baby boomers started applying to college in massive numbers never seen before in 1960's and 1970's, including women.

Forget Asian American kids. The quota restraining their admissions regardless of accomplishments will remain constant.

Thanks for this. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that test optional is not for increasing diversity. It’s for allowing the schools to admit low performing donor kids without hurting their stats.

[Anonymous]

That's pretty simplistic logic. The Admissions landscape was actually much more impacted by the fact that not NEARLY as many people applied to OR were even interested in attending college in 1930's, 1940's, 1950's beyond upper class and upper middle class white males .

Far more of that than some mass conspiracy to deny all the Jewish kids in America college admit in favor of " ALL the WASPS "

Young women, for example, were also not represented in as high of numbers at Harvard in 1960 as today, but that is also reflective of the fact that not NEARLY as many applied OR to any college for that matter

The SAT became common place when it became necessary to use some method to evaluate the HUGE jump in college admissions once the baby boomers started applying to college in massive numbers never seen before in 1960's and 1970's, including women.

[Anonymous]

In response to this post, " Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…


Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools."


PP, you seem to assume that ALL Private school kids are 1) rich kids and 2 ) rich kids who lack any academic merit

That is pretty simplistic

The reality is that nearly 1/3 of the graduates of our " Big 3" Private came from households who HHI in DC was under 80K a year and attended the school on significant FA and were admitted to the Private in the first place because they showed academic promise. So, your assertion that the Ivy Admits from Private schools are academically unqualified rich brats falls flat. I wonder why it is that you seem to want to believe that kids coming from Private school education are somehow universally without merit. Blanket judgements almost never stand up under balanced evaluation and are often just reflective of prejudice. In this case, your own.

In truth, at our DC's Big 3 Private nearly ALL the cum laude honorees of the Senior class were kids from middle class to upper middle class backgrounds admitted to our Big 3 Private in 9th grade from Public schools BECAUSE of their outstanding academic ability. And, no, their parents were not Ivy Graduates. More like the parents were immigrants or 1st gen Americans who went to state schools, did well, got a job in Fed Gov and raised their kids in DC area as a result and sent them to Private because they wanted a better education than DCPS or over crowded MOCO/ FFX PS could provide.

A few Athletic recruits thrown in there in the Ivy admits from our Big 3 Private, but again, those same Ivy Athletic recruits were also cum laude and National Merit nominees and only 1 was a URM.

What your refer to as the " bottom" of the class in terms of grades btw, are very good students who pretty much never got below a " B" and many earned "A's" in what is a very challenging academic school. What sets the Cum Laude group apart is that that this top 15 % of class have basically achieved nothing less than an " A" in the most demanding college level work ( AP multi-variable calculous, AP CS, AP Physics, AP European History, English Lit/ writing, Latin IV or Ancient Greek for their last 2-3 years of HS ) all while, of course, competing in a sport each season and doing 100 hours of theatre or other Arts and 60 hours of community service just to qualify to graduate from the school.

It is simply untrue and greatly unfair to state that these HS Grads are not qualified for Ivy Admission and didn't work hard, aren't smart at all and just get by on parent's wealth.Why PP's seem to want to believe that is the real question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…

Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools.

All those woke idiots celebrating the elimination of SATs and ACTs as requirements? Guess what? Holistic admissions is what was used to exclude Jewish students from the Ivies for decades. Higher achieving Jewish kids were denied admission in favor of more likable WASPs.

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

Without it, you can expect more privileged kids to be admitted.

Forget Asian American kids. The quota restraining their admissions regardless of accomplishments will remain constant.

Thanks for this. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that test optional is not for increasing diversity. It’s for allowing the schools to admit low performing donor kids without hurting their stats.

[b]


No, it has nothing to do with legacies. It has to do with discrimination against top performing Asian American students. Read The Chronicle of Higher Education. Since the Harvard suit, schools have been looking for a way to ignore test scores when they are inconvenient. This who movement is about that suit. If you don’t look at scores (like the UC system) the. You don’t have to report them so admissions offices can engineer incoming classes with whatever they want: low income, URM, first generation, Pell grant kids, more “I have a sob story” students, athletes and so on. And fewer top scoring Asian Americans. If this were about legacy money the law schools would also be dropping the LSAT, which they are not. This is all about social engineering

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…

Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools.

All those woke idiots celebrating the elimination of SATs and ACTs as requirements? Guess what? Holistic admissions is what was used to exclude Jewish students from the Ivies for decades. Higher achieving Jewish kids were denied admission in favor of more likable WASPs.

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

Without it, you can expect more privileged kids to be admitted.

Forget Asian American kids. The quota restraining their admissions regardless of accomplishments will remain constant.

Thanks for this. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that test optional is not for increasing diversity. It’s for allowing the schools to admit low performing donor kids without hurting their stats.

Lol…donor kids. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s patently obvious that their intent is to obscure racial preferences for URMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. It is a silly chant that is done at sporting events and has been for years. Release the pearls.

It's still tacky (and I tossed my pearls years ago).

What is the chant? You will work for me?

Did no one here attend high School sporting events in the nineties? Were none of you cheerleaders or football players or basketball players or band members or anything???

Our high school played tons of other schools regular season and playoffs for various sports. "that's alright, that's ok, you're gonna work for us someday;" "that's alright, that's ok, your gonna serve us fries one day;" [pretends to ignore announcer introducing opposing team's players on the basketball court; as soon as name is announced, looks up and says] "sucks." [Ignores again, sometimes brings newspapers to pretend to read]. "over - rated!" "Safety school!" And on and on.

Are all these chants nice? No. Did every school do them, making them pretty devoid of meaning? Yes. You could have a sports powerhouse public losing to a private school team, and the public kids were all chanting that the private kids would be working for them one day.

They're probably not as popular now, but in the nineties? Everyone said those chants. It isn't different from "Yankees suck!" Or "Astros cheated!"

[Anonymous]

In the 30s, New York State required every high school student to take the Regents exam to graduate. A high score on this standardized test got you noticed by big schools even if you were poor or came from an obscure little village on the Canadian border. That is the power of standardized tests. Without some common standard, there is no way to compare students and the poor, bright kids will suffer by comparison to the well-heeled, well-funded legacy travel-sport students. Doing away with standardized tests favors the rich and the schools that want cover for admitting full-pay students and legacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

The person that invented the SAT, Carl Brigham, was on the council of the American Eugenics Society. If you believe that he devised a test that would be objective I have a bridge that I can sell you. When you think about it, why in 1926 would someone have invented a test that would objectively measure admissions despite differences in schooling, economic background, etc. when that wasn’t the thinking of the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Private schools have a bit of a stigma now, in this anti-elite, inclusive shift. I would save the money as there isn’t a big difference in career outcomes from the bottom performer at private vs. high performer at public…

Um, that’s what the media and there PR engines of the schools would like to have you believe.

In reality, nearly every 40% of each Ivy League class comes from a private. This, despite the fact that there only 10% of all high school students attend private schools.

All those woke idiots celebrating the elimination of SATs and ACTs as requirements? Guess what? Holistic admissions is what was used to exclude Jewish students from the Ivies for decades. Higher achieving Jewish kids were denied admission in favor of more likable WASPs.

Standardized testing was introduced to set a more objective standard for admissions.

Without it, you can expect more privileged kids to be admitted.

Forget Asian American kids. The quota restraining their admissions regardless of accomplishments will remain constant.

Thanks for this. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that test optional is not for increasing diversity. It’s for allowing the schools to admit low performing donor kids without hurting their stats.

Lol…donor kids. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s patently obvious that their intent is to obscure racial preferences for URMs.

The only that's patently obvious is your mindset. You have no idea what the intent is, but you leap to whatever is most on your mind. So now we know how you think.

Did you know that MIT, that paragon of 'merit' admissions on DCUM, is test optional going forward?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you look at the admissions for a Big3, some of the lower placing kids attend places like Tulane, Wisconsin, Richmond, etc.
If you look at the admission for Wilson, this is where many the highest placing kids attend (outside of a recruited crew athlete or two). I have kids at both schools and have watched admissions really closely for years.
I would ague that paying for private is actually more advantageous for a kid who isn't going to be a top 10 student in public. I have one of these: he does well but he wasn't going to
take 15 APs, etc, become editor of the school newspaper (there are many) and do a ton of other extracurriculars which are all things that are necessary to attend a decent college out of Wilson. Attending private
gives him similar (if not better) college outcomes without a whole lot of stress of having to get a ton of leadership positions on his resume. The competition for extracurricular leaderships positions at Wilson is fierce
and can be really stressful (per friends whose kids are there).

Look I chose to send my kid to private for a lot of reasons but this is just not true re: the placement of Wilson kids...their ED list thus far includes MIT, Yale, Northwestern, Penn, Cornell, Brown, among others (I think only 1 is a recruited athlete)....There's a whole other set who are into Barnard, NYU, Emory, etc. FAR fewer kids apply ED from Wilson than from privates for financial reasons (need to compare aid/merit packages) but to say that the highest placing kids aren't getting into elite schools is empirically not true.