Big 3 (or thereabouts) College Results - Class of 2021

[Anonymous]

Students at my private are in full panic mode. College counselors had a meeting the other day with the students to talk them off the ledge. Parents have already leapt...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I’ve heard from is basically not getting in where they thought they would due in part to a lot more applicants than expected.

I think it has more to do with test optional. Let’s all those grade inflators (public schools) benefit and those grade deflators (big 3) get hurt. I predict worst college placement for the Cathedral schools as their insistence on not inflating grades like everyone else will hurt their students in a way that they will reconsider their anemic approach to giving an A.

Honestly, at some point, if what you are saying is true about Big 3 kids being disadvantaged is true, it will ruin the business model of these schools, and they will be forced to change. No one is going to pay 45K+ for the chance to lose out to public school kids of grading differences. The education is often really good but not that good.

The education is great. Full stop. But not playing the grade inflation game, when everyone is playing it, hurts college admissions chances. Full stop.

This whining has got to stop. The colleges and universities are all familiar with Washington’s tops schools and understand the grading disparities. This is simply a non issue that folks hold onto to get over the insecurities of their children not receiving offers from the top schools.

+1 Have worked in admissions. What complaining PP says is simply untrue. What IS true is that the last fifty years have seen a huge decline in the number of private school kids accepted at the most selective colleges. There are many very good reasons for this trend and a well-known DC private not playing the grade inflation game is not one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I’ve heard from is basically not getting in where they thought they would due in part to a lot more applicants than expected.

I think it has more to do with test optional. Let’s all those grade inflators (public schools) benefit and those grade deflators (big 3) get hurt. I predict worst college placement for the Cathedral schools as their insistence on not inflating grades like everyone else will hurt their students in a way that they will reconsider their anemic approach to giving an A.

Honestly, at some point, if what you are saying is true about Big 3 kids being disadvantaged is true, it will ruin the business model of these schools, and they will be forced to change. No one is going to pay 45K+ for the chance to lose out to public school kids of grading differences. The education is often really good but not that good.

The education is great. Full stop. But not playing the grade inflation game, when everyone is playing it, hurts college admissions chances. Full stop.

This whining has got to stop. The colleges and universities are all familiar with Washington’s tops schools and understand the grading disparities. This is simply a non issue that folks hold onto to get over the insecurities of their children not receiving offers from the top schools.

+1 Have worked in admissions. What complaining PP says is simply untrue. What IS true is that the last fifty years have seen a huge decline in the number of private school kids accepted at the most selective colleges. There are many very good reasons for this trend and a well-known DC private not playing the grade inflation game is not one of them.

The good old boy network is basically dead for selective admissions. The HOS can not longer make some calls and get a marginal student into Cornell or Duke. At the same time the cost of elite privates have risen to the point where no one really believes that they enroll the best and the brightest, they enroll the best and brightest from UMC and rich families who are willing to pay tuition with a sprinkling of financial aid kids. As long as schools are need aware people can pretend nothing has changed, but any well endowed school that is really need blind has no real reason to preference an unweighed 3.0 at GDS over a 3.75 at Wilson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I interviewed a kid from the "Big 3" for my HYPS alma mater and I'm sad she got deferred. She seemed great!

Did she tell you she got deferred or does the school tell you that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I’ve heard from is basically not getting in where they thought they would due in part to a lot more applicants than expected.

I think it has more to do with test optional. Let’s all those grade inflators (public schools) benefit and those grade deflators (big 3) get hurt. I predict worst college placement for the Cathedral schools as their insistence on not inflating grades like everyone else will hurt their students in a way that they will reconsider their anemic approach to giving an A.

Honestly, at some point, if what you are saying is true about Big 3 kids being disadvantaged is true, it will ruin the business model of these schools, and they will be forced to change. No one is going to pay 45K+ for the chance to lose out to public school kids of grading differences. The education is often really good but not that good.

The education is great. Full stop. But not playing the grade inflation game, when everyone is playing it, hurts college admissions chances. Full stop.

This whining has got to stop. The colleges and universities are all familiar with Washington’s tops schools and understand the grading disparities. This is simply a non issue that folks hold onto to get over the insecurities of their children not receiving offers from the top schools.

+1 Have worked in admissions. What complaining PP says is simply untrue. What IS true is that the last fifty years have seen a huge decline in the number of private school kids accepted at the most selective colleges. There are many very good reasons for this trend and a well-known DC private not playing the grade inflation game is not one of them.

The good old boy network is basically dead for selective admissions. The HOS can not longer make some calls and get a marginal student into Cornell or Duke. At the same time the cost of elite privates have risen to the point where no one really believes that they enroll the best and the brightest, they enroll the best and brightest from UMC and rich families who are willing to pay tuition with a sprinkling of financial aid kids. As long as schools are need aware people can pretend nothing has changed, but any well endowed school that is really need blind has no real reason to preference an unweighed 3.0 at GDS over a 3.75 at Wilson

I have kids at a Big3 and Wilson and I can say that the early admits for Wilson in my kid's peer group have been FAR better than the admits from the Big3. Sure, colleges respect STA and Sidwell but not to the degree that they are accepting a 3.3 over a Wilson 4.8.
Also and more importantly----in this environment----2020-2021----colleges appear to strongly want kids coming from urban public schools over private schools. They are looking for minorities, first generation students, etc. Along this same line, they like kids who are going to high school in a grittier environment.
It's definitely what in vogue for admissions.

[Anonymous]

Because Wilson is so gritty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because Wilson is so gritty

Nope, but the kids have GPAs that don’t require a footnote to explain away

[Anonymous]

I agree that a Wilson graduate is very attractive to a College AD, and all things considered a Wilson kid with roughly the same stats will edge out a Big 3 kid with roughly the same stats most of the time.

Still, the lack of standardized test scores is really hurting kids at the Big 3. At our school, the average ACT is a 33. Without that benchmark, there won't be anything to put that 3.5 in context. The test optional syndrome magnifies this problem as the 4.0s (and beyond) at the publics makes the 3.5 positively puny.

[Anonymous]

So far at our Big 3 - Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Cornell and Columbia admits, although many of these were athletic recruits.

[Anonymous]

These DC top privates do and will continue to do very well for the top third to top half of the classes. Even if they don't do as well as top 5 universities as consistently, the top half of these kids will always get into top 10-20. It's the bottom half that is greatly, greatly disadvantaged by not having the opportunities to show what they are capable of the way, say, MoCo kids can. I know. I have 3.0 kid from one of these and he just got deferred from every single school he's heard from so far. And it's all from having a B--minus average sophomore year. He was denied access to all APs until his senior year, doesn't get the chance for re-takes like public school kids do, and it is really hurting. I am certain that had he gone to Wilson, he would have a 4.0 and doors would be opening. Instead, because he attended a school that deliberately keeps kids at the bottom in order to really allow the kids at the top to stand out. I have no doubt about this. If I had to do it over, I would never send my son to this school again. Figuring out now how to get my younger one out without ripping our family apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because Wilson is so gritty

You are rolling your eyes but I agree with you. Wilson isn't gritty to the upper NW kids. They are mostly walled off in their AP courses. Our kid's neighborhood friends at Wilson are the children of doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc. They have every advantage of my my other child's friends at the Big3. Same incomes,
same privileges.
But the AD don't know this. They view my Wilson kid as fighting his/her way through a challenging experience at a diverse, high FARMs urban school (both of which Wilson is) and they LOVE it. They eat this SH%^&T up in admissions. The admission rates (especially this year) are off the charts for kids who have good grades at Wilson and a few leadership activities.
I'm actually worried about my Big3 kid (a few years younger).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because Wilson is so gritty

You are rolling your eyes but I agree with you. Wilson isn't gritty to the upper NW kids. They are mostly walled off in their AP courses. Our kid's neighborhood friends at Wilson are the children of doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc. They have every advantage of my my other child's friends at the Big3. Same incomes,
same privileges.
But the AD don't know this. They view my Wilson kid as fighting his/her way through a challenging experience at a diverse, high FARMs urban school (both of which Wilson is) and they LOVE it. They eat this SH%^&T up in admissions. The admission rates (especially this year) are off the charts for kids who have good grades at Wilson and a few leadership activities.
I'm actually worried about my Big3 kid (a few years younger).

Wilson kids are getting in for the same reasons other kids get in: hooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because Wilson is so gritty

You are rolling your eyes but I agree with you. Wilson isn't gritty to the upper NW kids. They are mostly walled off in their AP courses. Our kid's neighborhood friends at Wilson are the children of doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc. They have every advantage of my my other child's friends at the Big3. Same incomes,
same privileges.
But the AD don't know this. They view my Wilson kid as fighting his/her way through a challenging experience at a diverse, high FARMs urban school (both of which Wilson is) and they LOVE it. They eat this SH%^&T up in admissions. The admission rates (especially this year) are off the charts for kids who have good grades at Wilson and a few leadership activities.
I'm actually worried about my Big3 kid (a few years younger).

Wilson kids are getting in for the same reasons other kids get in: hooks.

Not the ones I know.
They are not connected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because Wilson is so gritty

You are rolling your eyes but I agree with you. Wilson isn't gritty to the upper NW kids. They are mostly walled off in their AP courses. Our kid's neighborhood friends at Wilson are the children of doctors, lawyers, journalists, etc. They have every advantage of my my other child's friends at the Big3. Same incomes,
same privileges.
But the AD don't know this. They view my Wilson kid as fighting his/her way through a challenging experience at a diverse, high FARMs urban school (both of which Wilson is) and they LOVE it. They eat this SH%^&T up in admissions. The admission rates (especially this year) are off the charts for kids who have good grades at Wilson and a few leadership activities.
I'm actually worried about my Big3 kid (a few years younger).

Wilson kids are getting in for the same reasons other kids get in: hooks.

What are your examples at Wilson?

Not the ones I know.
They are not connected.

[Anonymous]

What are your examples?