GDS and Sidwell comparison?
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
Because as the cream of the school, they are reaching for the stars and applying ED a single school with insanely low admit rates if you aren't legacy, URM, athlete. My guess is they will do fine in RD when they apply to several of such schools....one will bite. |
Anonymous
They’re not “the cream of the school.” They’re kids who are very strong in science and math and who enjoy those subjects. There are other kids who are very strong students in other areas. |
Anonymous
Well, the kids I know who are in these classes are also excelling in English/Language/History ...so I am talking about the ones who are academically they are the top of the class. |
Anonymous
Do you think this is primarily a consequence of the school not providing colleges with information on how hard comparatively those classes are (thus, explaining the unweighted grades), or colleges not caring? Asking for a friend. |
Anonymous
“The kids I know...” 
These kids are in high school. If you really know as much as you claim to know about them, you’re a frightening busybody. And even then, there’s still no way you know enough about the entire class to proclaim a small group as “the cream of the school.” |
Anonymous
It's probably because the ones getting in are the legacy applicants and they are not necessarily the ones in the most advanced classes. So the top student (in top math track, etc) who applies to Penn ED from Sidwell is not getting in when 12 other kids have applied and 6 of them are legacy. Penn is going to take the very good but not superstar legacy kid every.single.time. That's how the world works at these schools. |
Anonymous
I think it’s a combination of the two. We don’t know if the high school profile document that Sidwell provides to colleges shows grade distributions for particular classes, because the school doesn’t let parents see it. And then you have a very new college counseling staff who don’t necessarily have the institutional knowledge or tenure or relationships to really be able to convey this to colleges in a persuasive manner in the rec or otherwise. On the flip side, I think the colleges do care less, and I have been told that reps at some colleges won’t even talk on the phone with independent school college counselors about particular students any more. So then that brings you back to how well Sidwell packages these students on paper with the school rec and with the profile. |
Anonymous
That’s what counselors are for, they should be able to recognize when a student fits what a university is looking for and help the kid get into the best spot. |
Anonymous
| As somebody who went to a good but very large public school and who now has a kid in a Big 3, I have mixed feelings reading this thread. I don't think it is right/fair/what-have-you for private school college counselors to be contacting colleges to advocate for applicants; public school kids don't have that, and I'm perfectly fine with colleges not taking those calls. (And, really, someone at a HYP admissions office doesn't have time for thousands of calls.) But the big changes in public from when I attended are all these weighted grades and the arms race to have the most challenging courses and the highest GPA. I certainly do expect our school to do a bang-up job explaining to colleges what grades at the school really mean, and if that has to be in writing along with the transcript, it ought to be done there. |
Anonymous
yeah, but parents don't want to hear the reality---the reality being that their kid may be the TOP academic kid but won't be getting into the Ivys because of who else is applying. What you're suggesting is Sidwell telling a kid: "Hey, I know James has a 4.0 and has taken Math 1-4 but there are 15 legacies applying ED to Princeton and 4 are URM. The chance of him getting into Princeton are slim-to-none. Duke is also full this year (with legacies and URM). We suggest he ED to Georgia Tech instead. Do you really think parents want to hear this or it's the school's responsibility to tell them this? |
Anonymous
There are so many false premises in this hypothetical that it’s just ridiculous to even try to respond. Do you have a Sidwell senior with a 4.0 who went through Math 1-4? If not, you should just stop. At Sidwell, kids like that are unicorns. Your converse premises about legacies and URM taking all the slots are also false. |
Anonymous
In the recent past, Sidwell ranked every kid applying to every college and sent that ranking to the schools along with their transcripts. So the colleges would know if Sidwell thought that student was what Sidwell considered their “best” applicant to that school. Sidwell also counseled students on where to apply based in part on these internal rankings, however they did not explicitly tell the kids where they ranked. We know this because it came out of the litigation. https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/views/2019/07/08/suit-sidwell-friends-parents-shows-what-parents-will-never-accept Whether they still do that now, I don’t know but you should ask! |
Anonymous
Good Lord, you're getting hung up on the particulars of the hypothetical example that I pulled out of the air and missing the point. Legacies do get in over more qualified kids at Sidwell (and at NCS and STA and GDS and all across the MontCo high schools). So say rockstar kid has a 3.7 and took advanced Math class XYZ (or whatever GPA or classes would mark a top academic student at Sidwel). Do parents really want to hear that that kid is going to be passed over in ED for legacy or URM kids and advised to apply elsewhere? |
Anonymous
Sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder to me.... |