Sidwell Junior - GPA concerns

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell

Can a 3.55 from Sidwell get a kid into Bowdoin or Williams? Asking for a friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell

Can a 3.55 from Sidwell get a kid into Bowdoin or Williams? Asking for a friend.

Some do some don’t. GPA alone is not determinative. My DC at Sidwell didn’t get into either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are right to be concerned.

This year's senior class is a cautionary tale. The school's rampant grade deflation is a huge problem. You may think a 3.7 is "sidwell good," but no college cares. Top colleges need to see a 3.9. When colleges get 50k applications, do you really think they care that sidwell grades tough? Nope.

The kids with sky high GPAs did great this year. the 3.7's not so much.

How can you say this when only the early rounds of decisions are out? You have incomplete information.

[Anonymous]

I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

[Anonymous]

you'll get access to kickstart and can check those schools against your child's GPA and score.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell

Can a 3.55 from Sidwell get a kid into Bowdoin or Williams? Asking for a friend.

Some do some don’t. GPA alone is not determinative. My DC at Sidwell didn’t get into either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

That is higher than I would have expected

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

It would help parents be realistic if we had any sense of where our kids’ grades/rigor generally stand compared to classmates but as far as I can tell the private schools don’t share that information with families.

It is almost impossible to do. Different kids have different strengths and interests, and how that may, or may not match up to what any given admissions officer is looking for, interests, gepgra[hy, demographics and other skills/talents an applicant may bring to the table factor differently. The CGO doesn't know exactly what the AOs are seeking, so all they can do is help each kid put theor best foot forward and advocate for them if or when the AO's ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell

Can a 3.55 from Sidwell get a kid into Bowdoin or Williams? Asking for a friend.

Can? Sure. Will? Who knows, these are all lottery schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

That is higher than I would have expected

This class had the virtual Covid years for 9th and 10th and I wonder if this led to higher GPAs. School was definitely easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

That is higher than I would have expected

COVID probably inflated things for this cohort. It likely goes back down after next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

That is higher than I would have expected

COVID probably inflated things for this cohort. It likely goes back down after next year.

Inflated grades? Will that be noted for this class in the school profile for colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

GDS parent here. I agree w/ all of this 100%. I have a 3.8 kid who guesstimates that there are 12-15 kids (out of a class of 150 ish) higher than them in GPA/GPA combined w/ rigor.

Few things to note on how colleges view this since we are going through it now: what is above is absolutely right. The very large state schools that arent used to Sidwell, NCS, GDS kids and dont have a long history of accepting them will not have context and will be VERY tough. UC schools in particular have become all but impossible for local private school kids.

Also Cali and other students take multiple AP / AP level courses and often take college classes too while in HS so they goose their weighted GPAs to 4.6+. at UCs, GPA is a major screen (look up the public report UC schools published last year on how they screen and these days they use AI to screen as well) ...and so that make Berkeley and UCLA very tough last 2-3 years for kids from Sidwell/GDS.

Many threads on this here and you can look up UC school admit rates by high school on UC portal. Evidence is all there. Plus taking more than 2 or max 3 UL or AP level or honors level classes at GDS/Sidwell in a semester is really a beat down. All but impossible. The public school and California kids finish HS with 7 to 14 AP courses and the boost that gives the kid on weighted GPA....plus UC schools dont count "Extended" classes at GDS as honors and dont weight those.

So anyway, long answer to 3.7 is very good. In an ideal world if you are gunning SLACs or Top 30, then I would say, SAT needs to be 1500+ or ACT 34-36 to take any question off the table. Or else a hook. Otherwise, it's just the usual lottery game and try to have some real target schools. Everything we early 90s college parents thought was a safety or target is now a reach for almost any kid.

Also at our school anything < 25% admit rate is considered reach.

What types of schools is your kid applying to?
If you're not comfortable naming them maybe add in some that are similar. Thank you!

Not the O/P but kid who has almost identical stats from another of the top 3 or whatever we call them local private schools

SAT mid 1400s
GPA 3.8 unweighted
Not athlete, not URM

The total list considered was (didn’t apply to all, picked a high reach below SCEA and was not accepted at it; has gotten accepted to a couple of the rolling schools below.)

UK / English speaking Europe schools like St Andrews, LSE, Trinity Dublin
US safeties / foundations - Pitt, Fordham, New School
Targets - Wake, BU, U Vermont, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Occidental, U Toronto, Wm and Mary, Brandeis, Case Western
Reach - BC, NYU, U of M, Tufts, Northeastern, USC, UC Santa Barbara
High reach - Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA

It would seem that a 3.8 would get you into at least one of the reaches or high reaches as a 3.8 puts you in the top 10% of the class and almost no-one in the class will go to a school below any of your choices.
(i.e. the weakest kids in the class in recent years have matriculated to places like Fordham, Pitt, Vermont).
It's interesting how much luck is involved and how much overlap there is in where the top kids (3.8) apply and weakest kids (under 3.0) matriculate.

There are probably 25 students with GPS above 3.8 each year. 10 students with GPA above 3.9. Median GPA is around 3.55.

PP -- At Sidwell

Can a 3.55 from Sidwell get a kid into Bowdoin or Williams? Asking for a friend.

Williams generally tougher than Bowdoin..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a senior at Sidwell. Over the summer, I asked our assigned counselor there for the average GPA of the class of 2023 -- the average at that time was "around a 3.6."

That is higher than I would have expected

Generally the median is closer to 3.5/3.55, so median may have shifted a bit for this cohort, but likely not by a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are right to be concerned.

This year's senior class is a cautionary tale. The school's rampant grade deflation is a huge problem. You may think a 3.7 is "sidwell good," but no college cares. Top colleges need to see a 3.9. When colleges get 50k applications, do you really think they care that sidwell grades tough? Nope.

The kids with sky high GPAs did great this year. the 3.7's not so much.

How can you say this when only the early rounds of decisions are out? You have incomplete information.

The comment you are responding to is from last year. So, the full set of results were out by then for the class of 22.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, many parents are not realistic, and just assume, 'my kid is doing well at XXX private schools, so Princeton is a no-brainer"

Bottom line, the high school counselors have a hard time managing expectations of Type A parents who feel their kids are entitled to the T10 or TXX schools.

It just doesn't work like that anymore.

It would help parents be realistic if we had any sense of where our kids’ grades/rigor generally stand compared to classmates but as far as I can tell the private schools don’t share that information with families.

It is almost impossible to do. Different kids have different strengths and interests, and how that may, or may not match up to what any given admissions officer is looking for, interests, gepgra[hy, demographics and other skills/talents an applicant may bring to the table factor differently. The CGO doesn't know exactly what the AOs are seeking, so all they can do is help each kid put theor best foot forward and advocate for them if or when the AO's ask.

Of course. But it is a black hole. I recall my kid being really upset with an A- in an honors language course (favorite subject). Come to find out, there were no As given and only a few A-. So they actually were at the top of the class and spent the entire year feeling like they couldn't break through to an A. It would have been really nice to have some small idea of the performance - both in grade distribution and honors course distribution.