Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's pretty well accepted that admissions rate to the most competitive schools are between 5% and 20% depending on the entry year. Maret has in their school profile that theirs is 12% across the school - likely higher in the lower school and lower in the upper school.
It's reasonable to extrapolate that St. Albans, GDS, NCS, Potomac and Sidwell are roughly roughly roughly in the same general ballpark.
Now that you know that, has it changed your strategy on applying?
Unfortunately data such as “roughly roughly in the same ballpark” of what is “widely known” is not helpful and is literally just made up guesses
It's worse than that.
The 5% or 10% or 20% are Averages.
That might be useful if all the applicants were equal. But they are not. Some are advantaged and the rates of admission for these applicants is higher than the average. Which means that the rates of admission for those who are not advantaged is lower than the mean percent.
Examples of advantage include siblings, legacies, faculty kids, athletes, academic stars, graduates of "feeder" schools, full pay, kids of the rich and famous, and URMs. The more of these boxes you DC checks, the higher the probability they will be admitted. Admission of these kids isn't automatic, but as a group their rates of admission are higher than average.
The good news for applicants without even one of these advantages is that the number of applicants is:
1. Reported by the Admissions Office which is incented to make the number as high as possible.
2. The result of an energetic campaign to drive up the number of applications through Open Houses, Admissions presentations at feeder schools, and the efforts of alumni, current parents, coaches, and other boosters of the school.
This effort isn't targeted at highly-qualified applicants. The idea is to get as many applications as possible.
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