Which K-8 has the best high school placement?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The objective of a K-12 school isn't to create the smartest cohort of 9th graders possible. They're building a community.
They can hit their "academic"/SAT/college admissions goals by having 80% or 90% (or whatever) of academically focused, driven kids. The final 10-20% can be filled with less academically qualified kids who are admitted for other reasons. The schools expect this and function just fine with it. Maybe these kids are siblings. It isn't Thomas Jefferson where every last kid is driven. So Sidwell has an average SAT of 1450 and Thomas Jefferson's is 1530. Big deal. But for this tradeoff Sidwell is able to pay their teachers ($$) and make the experience more enjoyable for their students (good athletes for competitive teams). Their academic identify and mission continues unscathed.

No. The 9th grade admission class at Sidwell is definitely not 20% George Bush / Hunter Biden gentleman’s C type kids.

Those VIP kids exist, but they don’t arrive in 9th. They’re already there by 9th and will be graduating together with the new admits. Which is why the 9th grade admit cohort skews hard toward intrinsic merit (which increasingly includes athletes…)

Unless the VIP kids arrive in DC at ninth.

But, yes, a lot of the VIP and big donor lifers are the ones who are admitted early, before merit is a factor.

[Anonymous]

Are Burke and Field competitive to get into for 9th grade? I know they are nowhere near as competitive as Sidwell, NCS, GDS etc…. Just curious if they were in the same tier as Holton, Potomac and Madeira, or a step below.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The objective of a K-12 school isn't to create the smartest cohort of 9th graders possible. They're building a community.
They can hit their "academic"/SAT/college admissions goals by having 80% or 90% (or whatever) of academically focused, driven kids. The final 10-20% can be filled with less academically qualified kids who are admitted for other reasons. The schools expect this and function just fine with it. Maybe these kids are siblings. It isn't Thomas Jefferson where every last kid is driven. So Sidwell has an average SAT of 1450 and Thomas Jefferson's is 1530. Big deal. But for this tradeoff Sidwell is able to pay their teachers ($$) and make the experience more enjoyable for their students (good athletes for competitive teams). Their academic identify and mission continues unscathed.

No. The 9th grade admission class at Sidwell is definitely not 20% George Bush / Hunter Biden gentleman’s C type kids.

Those VIP kids exist, but they don’t arrive in 9th. They’re already there by 9th and will be graduating together with the new admits. Which is why the 9th grade admit cohort skews hard toward intrinsic merit (which increasingly includes athletes…)

Unless the VIP kids arrive in DC at ninth.

But, yes, a lot of the VIP and big donor lifers are the ones who are admitted early, before merit is a factor.

They can’t get admitted earlier if they haven’t applied earlier than 9th. This conversation was about 9th grade admissions from K8 and those factors still influence 9th grade admissions. On the flip side there are vip families who find that the school isn’t a good fit for darla come 3rd grade when they got in at k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Burke and Field competitive to get into for 9th grade? I know they are nowhere near as competitive as Sidwell, NCS, GDS etc…. Just curious if they were in the same tier as Holton, Potomac and Madeira, or a step below.

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Burke and Field competitive to get into for 9th grade? I know they are nowhere near as competitive as Sidwell, NCS, GDS etc…. Just curious if they were in the same tier as Holton, Potomac and Madeira, or a step below.

No. And colleges know it

[Anonymous]

Kids get into good colleges from many different schools. Shockingly, public ones too! They actually don’t want to take everyone from Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids get into good colleges from many different schools. Shockingly, public ones too! They actually don’t want to take everyone from Sidwell.

Of course they take from public too. The vast majority of kids getting into selective colleges are from public. The point was comparing private to private. I think the comment above about Field and Burke being easier to get into is correct. They still have limited spaces but far less competitive applicants as a whole. That is perhaps why their college placement isn’t as good as others listed above, not the school fault but who the kids are. There are outliers sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Burke and especially field are super easy to get into. field takes anyone who can pay. That's not to say that there aren't smart kids at both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WES is just as good as the others. Possibly stronger than one or two PP referred to.

Finding the best fit for our graduates.

WES graduates are accepted, attend, and seamlessly transition to a wide variety of secondary schools including private, public, single-sex, religiously affiliated, and boarding schools. There are 138 graduates at 34 secondary schools in the US:

20 Independent Day Schools
8 Public Schools
6 Boarding Schools
Three or more alumni currently attend the following independent area secondary schools (in alphabetical order):

Bullis School
Connelly School of the Holy Child
Field School
Georgetown Day School
Georgetown Preparatory School
Gonzaga College High School
Holton-Arms School
Landon
The Madeira School
The Potomac School
Sidwell Friends
St. Albans School
St. Andrew’s Episcopal School
St. Johns College High School
Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart
Finding the best fit school for our graduates is the number one priority for the secondary school admission process. Of the WES graduates currently in secondary schools in the United States, only two students have changed high schools for reasons other than moving.

False. WES is not regarded as highly by the high schools as other schools and IMHE it DOES favor legacies, siblings, big contributors and board members
kids. We left because of the latter. Btw, when you chatter on about “fit” what you are clearly saying to anyone in the education field (both in high school and higher education) is that your kid can’t cut it in a top school-which is appropriate and perfectly fine-but be aware when you go in about “fit”everyone knows what you are really saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Burke and especially field are super easy to get into. field takes anyone who can pay. That's not to say that there aren't smart kids at both.

Your comment is generalized, unsubstantiated, and simply wrong. Field does turn away students that are not a good fit. We know people that were turned away. And yes, we do have a smart kid at Field with smart friends. They will go to excellent universities. We chose Field over some other really good schools because we felt our child would thrive at a smaller, nurturing, progressive school where they focus on critical thinking and collaborative learning. It was that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burke and especially field are super easy to get into. field takes anyone who can pay. That's not to say that there aren't smart kids at both.

Your comment is generalized, unsubstantiated, and simply wrong. Field does turn away students that are not a good fit. We know people that were turned away. And yes, we do have a smart kid at Field with smart friends. They will go to excellent universities. We chose Field over some other really good schools because we felt our child would thrive at a smaller, nurturing, progressive school where they focus on critical thinking and collaborative learning. It was that simple.

My DC was WL at Field 5 years ago. I was surprised because I had heard that everyone got in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burke and especially field are super easy to get into. field takes anyone who can pay. That's not to say that there aren't smart kids at both.

Your comment is generalized, unsubstantiated, and simply wrong. Field does turn away students that are not a good fit. We know people that were turned away. And yes, we do have a smart kid at Field with smart friends. They will go to excellent universities. We chose Field over some other really good schools because we felt our child would thrive at a smaller, nurturing, progressive school where they focus on critical thinking and collaborative learning. It was that simple.

My DC was WL at Field 5 years ago. I was surprised because I had heard that everyone got in.

Well obviously not everyone can get in because they only have a certain number of spots available. That’s silly to think the way you do. But if your child is a good fit they will

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Burke and especially field are super easy to get into. field takes anyone who can pay. That's not to say that there aren't smart kids at both.

Your comment is generalized, unsubstantiated, and simply wrong. Field does turn away students that are not a good fit. We know people that were turned away. And yes, we do have a smart kid at Field with smart friends. They will go to excellent universities. We chose Field over some other really good schools because we felt our child would thrive at a smaller, nurturing, progressive school where they focus on critical thinking and collaborative learning. It was that simple.

My DC was WL at Field 5 years ago. I was surprised because I had heard that everyone got in.

Well obviously not everyone can get in because they only have a certain number of spots available. That’s silly to think the way you do. But if your child is a good fit they will

ohhh, right. Silly to take your comment as anything but derisive, ill-informed, and useless to anyone reading it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those are all good schools. Placement will depend a lot more on you are your specific kid than which of these schools you choose. Schools differ in outplacement some, but that more reflects the specific families that attend specific schools. I’ve not seen evidence that once K8 has significantly more pull than another overall. Sometimes there are differences between specific schools. Like, many people, think St. Pats does well at St. Albans and Sheridan at Sidwell. But honestly that says more about the mix of families that something that will be an advantage for you just because you come from school x or y. So I’d go wherever you like for K8. Non of those schools or other schools in the same mix are going to matter much.

Agree with this. They're all about the same. I have a kid in 9th at STA. There is one kid who came from St. Pats, one from Sheridan, one from WES. The Big3 schools are all like this--they like a mix of feeder schools: public, private, parochial.

WES had more accepted into the St. Alban’s class, but not every boy accepted chose to attend STA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spoiler alert: if you are dead set on your child going to a Big 3 for high school before your child is in kindergarten, then a K-8 is probably not the right fit for your family. Not because it’s arguably hard to get into a Big 3 for 9th, but because that’s not what a K-8 is about.

Spoiler alert #2: if you are dead set on your child going to a Big 3 for high school because you think it gives them a leg up for college admissions, think again.

Wise words.