Sidwell college guidance office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has been eye-opening for me. We're considering private school applications next year, and I'm definitely going to look into this aspect more carefully. It never occurred to me that college counselors at top private schools would be falling short, since a main end game for them is a good college placement record for their students. Thanks, PPs.

The counselors' Rolodexes, if they still use those, are legendary. The real value comes at the crunch time when they call a school to get your kid off the waitlist, although some claim this is overstated.

And compared to public, where one counselor is responsible for 100+ kids, it would be hard to perform badly.

I guess the issues being raised here are the extent to which counselors are willing/ able to guide your kid in the selection process. I think this is something we, the parents, need to be involved with instead of relying solely on the counselor. The problem, of course, is the parent who thinks the 9 schools should be the 8 ivies plus Stanford.[/b] Then it's the counselor's job to suggest Michigan, Tufts and their ilk, plus a few safeties including the state school.[b] If the counselor fails to do this, out of gutlessness or ignorance, they have failed.

For Washington DC - resident students the "state school" of course is Yoodeecee. Not exactly a compelling safety choice.

[Anonymous]

*rolodexes*

What century are you from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public and private school parent here (not sidwell ). Our private didn't provide access to naviance. It's a numbers thing. There aren't enough data points for many schools so it would be too easy to identify people. Our public school gives access because there are 500 kids applying each year so plenty of data points. Plus in public school we get much less guidance so naviance is critical.

It is not a numbers thing, it is a control thing. Both STA and NCS give families access to Naviance. GDS and Sidwell families pay for Naviance but are not allowed to use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public and private school parent here (not sidwell ). Our private didn't provide access to naviance. It's a numbers thing. There aren't enough data points for many schools so it would be too easy to identify people. Our public school gives access because there are 500 kids applying each year so plenty of data points. Plus in public school we get much less guidance so naviance is critical.

It is not a numbers thing, it is a control thing. Both STA and NCS give families access to Naviance. GDS and Sidwell families pay for Naviance but are not allowed to use it.

Yes, "power to the people" is a real Shibboleth at STA.

[Anonymous]

When do they give STA parents access to naviance?

[Anonymous]

NCS parents get access in 10th grade. I know a family with a child at Field who got access in 11th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public and private school parent here (not sidwell ). Our private didn't provide access to naviance. It's a numbers thing. There aren't enough data points for many schools so it would be too easy to identify people. Our public school gives access because there are 500 kids applying each year so plenty of data points. Plus in public school we get much less guidance so naviance is critical.

It is not a numbers thing, it is a control thing. Both STA and NCS give families access to Naviance. GDS and Sidwell families pay for Naviance but are not allowed to use it.

Agree -- it's a control thing. Interestingly, at a meeting with US parents and students this year, the Sidwell counselors actually presented case studies of recent grads which, while anonymous, contained enough information -- much more than Naviance provides -- to make it uncomfortably easy to identify the profiled alumni.

[Anonymous]

Former high school counselor here. Naviance was a given, for all. Have any parents asked Sidwell to disclose Naviance info? Not disclosing would be unacceptable to me as a parent.

[Anonymous]

I can see a point about the small numbers issue and being able to identify certain kids. Even if you don't know the kids who graduated 2-3 years ago (as I recall, Naviance averages several graduating classes worth of data), there is room for misinterpretation. Some parents might see a dot on the Harvard graph at SAT=1900 and GPA=3.5 and think their kid with comparable stats can get into Harvard too, not realizing the dot represents a double-legacy kid whose family funded a laboratory.

Either this sort of issue is more common at some schools than others, or some schools are simply more prudent about sharing info that is at risk of misinterpretation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can see a point about the small numbers issue and being able to identify certain kids. Even if you don't know the kids who graduated 2-3 years ago (as I recall, Naviance averages several graduating classes worth of data), there is room for misinterpretation. Some parents might see a dot on the Harvard graph at SAT=1900 and GPA=3.5 and think their kid with comparable stats can get into Harvard too, not realizing the dot represents a double-legacy kid whose family funded a laboratory.

Either this sort of issue is more common at some schools than others, or some schools are simply more prudent about sharing info that is at risk of misinterpretation.

Yes, there are limits to the value of Naviance information for precisely the reason you raise -- there's a lot more to college admissions than scores and grades, particularly at more selective schools. That is a problem at all schools, however, not just Sidwell. Other schools seem to have faith that parents and students will be able to interpret the information in a reasonable way. Why not Sidwell?

[Anonymous]

If your kid is a top student at an elite prep school, you don't really need Naviance. It's not going to provide any useful information if your kid is trying to get into a top tier school. As others have pointed out, legacy and other hooks will play a major part in individual admission decisions at the Ivies.

First question is whether DC took the most rigorous courses available at the school. If not, lower your expectations a notch. It's also going to be pretty obvious whether your kid's scores and GPA are in the range of the Ivies or not. But remember that they are not determinative (a reason why Naviance is pretty useless for top schools) and plenty of students with perfect SATs and GPAs are rejected every year and most admits do not have perfect numbers. Then ask what the teacher recommendations are going to be. Will they say your child is one of the best students in the class? If not, lower your expectations. And, in the interview, does your kid have a compelling reason to want to go to that particular school? They are all concerned about yield and a good candidate may likely get rejected because the interviewer didn't think the kid would really go to the school. Finally, if your answers are all yes, flip a coin because there is still a lot of randomness among the pool of serious candidates.

[Anonymous]

In my experience with the ones I've met, Sidwell parents (and students) are neither uninformed, nor are they shrinking violets. If they are not receiving the information they need to make educated college choices, I suspect they will not be shy about obtaining more info.

While it's nice that so many posters here are worried about Sidwell families' ability to get useful college info, I can't help but wonder if these are crocodile tears you're shedding.

[Anonymous]

+1
Thanks for all your concerns about us Sidwell families, but we will be ok.

[Anonymous]

Actually, from reading DCUM, I get the impression that a lot of families at the school would benefit from knowing that the Sidwell name is not a guaranteed ticket to Harvard, from seeing the Naviance graph showing that Sidwell kids with near-perfect scores and SATs get rejected.

Then maybe we would see fewer threads like this one and the "disappointed with college results" thread. Both of which blame school counselors for what may be partly the families' unrealistic expectations.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps high schools with similar types of students could band together and produce a Naviance product together, so the info wouldn't be identifiable.