School advising kids to "try again next year" regarding college applications

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Many of these kids came from public shcool, were they were at the top. Read the threads about A students switching to private and suddenly getting Cs.

Better yet, make every ninth grade seat available in open competition for admissions. No automatic promotion from eighth grade. Every kid has to earn their spot in the US. No lifer preference.

Now that would be interesting.

So the grade inflated public school kids can fight over them? How would you even distinguish one from another?

Listen, my kid came from Deal where he got high As for breathing. He started at a top DC private and it was a crazy, rude awakening. H barely managed Bs first quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Many of these kids came from public shcool, were they were at the top. Read the threads about A students switching to private and suddenly getting Cs.

Better yet, make every ninth grade seat available in open competition for admissions. No automatic promotion from eighth grade. Every kid has to earn their spot in the US. No lifer preference.

Now that would be interesting.

So the grade inflated public school kids can fight over them? How would you even distinguish one from another?

Listen, my kid came from Deal where he got high As for breathing. He started at a top DC private and it was a crazy, rude awakening. H barely managed Bs first quarter.

Yes, we know. Do you think the school made a bad choice admitting your son since, by your standard, he clearly wasn’t qualified?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Not even close. They have standards and must meet certain grades. The average SAT at a school like GDS, NCS, Sidwell or STA is hundreds of points above private school kids and even if you did the median score it would still be so much higher. You are comparing apples and oranges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

Utter nonsense I know of NOONE that has been told this. Not a single person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Usually means they think their kid couldn’t handle a school with grade sizes bigger than 100-140 per grade.

We ran into this sentiment in several cities we lived in and here. Parents start gasping at 500-800 kids per grade and worried how their kid would rank or make a team or play and flee to overly small private schools.

Or more importantly worry about the quality of the education when the school is overcrowded.

DD's school has about 3k kids. The actual classes aren't any larger than any other public, but that many kids means the class variety is enormous and that she can can take post AP math and science classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Not even close. They have standards and must meet certain grades. The average SAT at a school like GDS, NCS, Sidwell or STA is hundreds of points above private school kids and even if you did the median score it would still be so much higher. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Most public schools have kids who won't go to college, they also have kids who just aren't very bright. The kids from GDS, NCS, Sidwell, STA... are competing against the top quarter or 10% of a given public high school not the whole class and those kids are going to look as good as if not better on paper than a kid in the bottom quarter of a private

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Not even close. They have standards and must meet certain grades. The average SAT at a school like GDS, NCS, Sidwell or STA is hundreds of points above private school kids and even if you did the median score it would still be so much higher. You are comparing apples and oranges.

DP but this is BS. Lifers and siblings are very hit or miss. It’s about being able to write a check. Most of these schools get their best kids in 9th grade. SAT scores are about pre and how much money you have not how smart you are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

I heard that you are making sh*t up. What schools have released RD decisions?

Someone keeps making this point, but a lot of kids apply almost entirely EA. There are many schools where is you look at the scattergrams at NCS, plenty of students apply EA and no one applies RD, and they tend to be lower ranked schools that have become more unpredictable. So while I think results will shake out in March to be better than they are now, many kids have heard from a slew of EA schools and may not be waiting on many if any RD schools.

This isn't true. My DC applied to many schools that only had ED and RD as options and the top school on DC's list only has RD.

It isn’t true for you. It is true for others.

Of course. PP said No one applies RD. That is what is not true.

I was the PP. I meant there were many schools, maybe I should have said certain schools, where no one seems to apply RD, and that’s because NCS (and a lot of schools) puts such an emphasis of getting your apps in in the EA round if you can. And you are right, its probably not literally no one, but if you look at certain big state schools or some less competitive private schools with EA like Fordham, for instance, most students who choose to apply there, apply EA. The overall point again is that there are people who might already be in the position where they have heard from most if not all of their schools already. I was just reacting to people saying the initial post was BS or a troll post simply because RD has not come out yet. It may not be. And if you got some surprising deferrals, you may be pretty stressed right now event though at the end of the day some of the deferrals are likely to turn into acceptances.

but this is where it all falls apart. Being deferred to RD is not the same as being rejected. From what I have seen in the DMV among private school kids AND among those from schools in high income areas and known for great academics - the kids who got in ED mostly had hooks. A few swung really low ang got into a true safety. Sure, it's true that many (even swinging low) are getting deferred....and those trying early for target/reach were often rejected. But there is still RD to come - and that includes the DEFERS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

Utter nonsense I know of NOONE that has been told this. Not a single person.

I don't know anybody either. I actually think if you have a dream school, but no hook, this is not bad advice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all "Big 3" does not guarantee admission anywhere.

Publics always do better in this area.

Parents need to do their jobs and have their kids target safeties as well.

OP here.
These are kids who applied only to schools 50-125 and are not getting in. They thought they had safeties.

The RD round of decisions hasn't even happened yet, so this is complete BS.

yes.
But the kids that the college advising office is talking about have been rejected from all (or all but one) of their EA options and applied to 20+ schools.
This is what is being talked about: kids who applied to places like Auburn, Wisconsin, Indiana, Clemson, Wake Forest, Penn State etc---all ED and EA and all outright rejections (not deferrals).

Why would those schools want someone in the bottom half of their class?

My DC is at one of these schools and is in the bottom half of the class. I can confirm my DC was rejected EA from Auburn and Boulder. Around a 3.2 GPA. ACT composite is 33 with several subsections 35. I know people want to dismiss test scores, but I put them out there to show you that the kids at the bottom of the class are still highly capable students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

I heard that you are making sh*t up. What schools have released RD decisions?

Someone keeps making this point, but a lot of kids apply almost entirely EA. There are many schools where is you look at the scattergrams at NCS, plenty of students apply EA and no one applies RD, and they tend to be lower ranked schools that have become more unpredictable. So while I think results will shake out in March to be better than they are now, many kids have heard from a slew of EA schools and may not be waiting on many if any RD schools.

This isn't true. My DC applied to many schools that only had ED and RD as options and the top school on DC's list only has RD.

It isn’t true for you. It is true for others.

Of course. PP said No one applies RD. That is what is not true.

I was the PP. I meant there were many schools, maybe I should have said certain schools, where no one seems to apply RD, and that’s because NCS (and a lot of schools) puts such an emphasis of getting your apps in in the EA round if you can. And you are right, its probably not literally no one, but if you look at certain big state schools or some less competitive private schools with EA like Fordham, for instance, most students who choose to apply there, apply EA. The overall point again is that there are people who might already be in the position where they have heard from most if not all of their schools already. I was just reacting to people saying the initial post was BS or a troll post simply because RD has not come out yet. It may not be. And if you got some surprising deferrals, you may be pretty stressed right now event though at the end of the day some of the deferrals are likely to turn into acceptances.

but this is where it all falls apart. Being deferred to RD is not the same as being rejected. From what I have seen in the DMV among private school kids AND among those from schools in high income areas and known for great academics - the kids who got in ED mostly had hooks. A few swung really low ang got into a true safety. Sure, it's true that many (even swinging low) are getting deferred....and those trying early for target/reach were often rejected. But there is still RD to come - and that includes the DEFERS.

Read the whole sentence that you bolded. I say the very same thing. Nothing falls apart. Someone might be very stressed right now even though RD has not come out yet. Someone earlier kept claiming the whole original post was a lie. More than one thing can be true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Many of these kids came from public shcool, were they were at the top. Read the threads about A students switching to private and suddenly getting Cs.

Better yet, make every ninth grade seat available in open competition for admissions. No automatic promotion from eighth grade. Every kid has to earn their spot in the US. No lifer preference.

Now that would be interesting.

So the grade inflated public school kids can fight over them? How would you even distinguish one from another?

Listen, my kid came from Deal where he got high As for breathing. He started at a top DC private and it was a crazy, rude awakening. H barely managed Bs first quarter.

Yes, we know. Do you think the school made a bad choice admitting your son since, by your standard, he clearly wasn’t qualified?

DP: Since when does a B make a student unqualified for school? Our head of school will tell you straight up that they grade to a B average for the class, no matter what your IQ is. There are very bright kids being awarded Cs and then getting over 1500 on the SAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Many of these kids came from public shcool, were they were at the top. Read the threads about A students switching to private and suddenly getting Cs.

Better yet, make every ninth grade seat available in open competition for admissions. No automatic promotion from eighth grade. Every kid has to earn their spot in the US. No lifer preference.

Now that would be interesting.

So the grade inflated public school kids can fight over them? How would you even distinguish one from another?

Listen, my kid came from Deal where he got high As for breathing. He started at a top DC private and it was a crazy, rude awakening. H barely managed Bs first quarter.

Yes, we know. Do you think the school made a bad choice admitting your son since, by your standard, he clearly wasn’t qualified?

DP: Since when does a B make a student unqualified for school? Our head of school will tell you straight up that they grade to a B average for the class, no matter what your IQ is. There are very bright kids being awarded Cs and then getting over 1500 on the SAT.

Nothing like paying a quarter of a million dollars to ensure that your bright student will get shut out of any school appropriate for a bright student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that advising kids to matriculate to one of the schools that accepted them is hardly alarming advice, and that, if they are opposed to that then advising them that their other options are to take a gap year or go to a school that accepted them and try to transfer in a year is just speaking truth.

What else would you want them to say to a kid who chose their matches and safeties badly and is now upset at their options? Is there some other option missing?

I'd want to know how much input the counselor had in making the list and advising on which schools were safeties

Sometimes parents are not able to accept the proposed safeties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yelling back from the very cheap seats:

The level of privilege that leads to someone is shocked that their kid who isn't in the top 50% of their class, can't get into schools like Fordham and SMU (the bottom of the T75) which are well within the top 20% of National Universities (the most prestigious of the categories on USNWR), is what we are talking about.

For those whining about how public schools are better, you do realize that the kids in the bottom 50% at public are going to Montgomery College, or UDC or maybe if they're lucky someplace like Frostburg or Christopher Newport.

But keep whining. It's amusing to us in the cheap seats.

This. Bottom 50% at Big 3 only means that the kid's parents have enough money to pay for Big 3. Your child would still be bottom half at public. Stop with the delusions that your child is only bottom half because they are at a private school.

Many of these kids came from public shcool, were they were at the top. Read the threads about A students switching to private and suddenly getting Cs.

Better yet, make every ninth grade seat available in open competition for admissions. No automatic promotion from eighth grade. Every kid has to earn their spot in the US. No lifer preference.

Now that would be interesting.

So the grade inflated public school kids can fight over them? How would you even distinguish one from another?

Listen, my kid came from Deal where he got high As for breathing. He started at a top DC private and it was a crazy, rude awakening. H barely managed Bs first quarter.

Yes, we know. Do you think the school made a bad choice admitting your son since, by your standard, he clearly wasn’t qualified?

DP: Since when does a B make a student unqualified for school? Our head of school will tell you straight up that they grade to a B average for the class, no matter what your IQ is. There are very bright kids being awarded Cs and then getting over 1500 on the SAT.

Nothing like paying a quarter of a million dollars to ensure that your bright student will get shut out of any school appropriate for a bright student

I'm not paying a quarter of a million dollars to ensure my DC is accepted at a top college. I'm paying that money for my DC to be in smaller classes and have more time with their teachers.