Sidwell College Admissions This Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

1) Suggestion: Only look at the last two, pandemic-influenced years. I would think Naviance for public high schools would be more helpful because there are more data points.
2) No parent who sends their kid to Sidwell or a similar private school is okay with their DC going to a college outside the top 50 -- especially parents who start their kid in upper school.

I'm always perplexed by trolls or interested bystanders who enter these chats. You act so surprised by Sidwell and private school parents. I am always surprised that you are surprised.

Counterpoint: No parent should send their kid to any high school with an expectation of any sort of "college results" - absolutely no one says that going to a "big 3" entitles a kid to a certain college.

Let's stop with the nonsense.

Let me repeat: No family spends upwards of $200K over four years of high school so their DC can go to a college ranked 90th or whatever. Sure, families can overestimate their chances. But when you see how unhelpful CCO is and you see Virginia kids getting waitlisted at VT you tend to get a bit frustrated.

No one should be choosing to spend $200,000 for their kid to go to an independent school with the expectation of "better" college results. That is not now, nor ever, how it works. At least not since the 1960's or perhaps 70's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC graduated from Sidwell a few years back. I remember one parent complaining about the CCO at a sporting event and when I probed, she said she and her husband were “insulted” that the CCO suggested their DC look at schools they considered “beneath” their child. On multiple occasions, the CCO expressed concerns with the list of schools their DC was focusing on. The parents explicitly said they felt the CCO should “do more” to help their child get into a “better” school. They rejected the CCO’s advice at every turn, pushed their DC to only apply to top tier schools (which their DC did.) Unbeknownst to the parents, their DC threw in an app last minute to one of the schools the CCO recommended and guess what? That was this child’s ONLY acceptance. My experience is that the CCO is doing their job and doing it well. One advisor left the CCO office to go to another DC private due to a small handful of crazy parents. It’s some of the parents you can’t solve for.

Sure - there are crazy people like this all over the DMV, including at public schools where they are hiring a counselor. But were the majority of parents you knew at Sidwell acting this way? And should the entire parent body of SFS be treated as is we act this way? Because as a family that was new to SFS starting n HS - I feel like this is how most parents are treated. We all get painted with the same brush, the wall set up for the handful of crazies keeps everyone out, and policies and interactions are setup assuming a crazy parent is on the other side of the table/phone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Sidwell senior parent.

Looking at 12 pages so far, and stepping back, I think I see the global problem between some parents and the CCO: you rely on others to do the work for you. You probably always have, from the 'I need a night nurse' stage to present day. So it comes as no surprise that so many posts on this thread decry the "failings" of the CCO to do basic things that **you can and should've figured out on your own.**

You're smart. You're a double Yale grad. You were tapped for a political role in the ____ White House and now you're a Covington partner / lecturer at Penn / trade advisor. So is your spouse, fwiw.

Your background strongly suggests that you have the intelligence to synthesize the CDS data, those limited limited Naviance screenshots, your kid's scores, a couple recent books from Politics/Prose on higher ed, & several NYT or WSJ articles on the current trends.

Why is this process so confounding for you?

What I suspect is happening when you blame CCO for everything is that you subconsciously feel entitled to Princeton or Yale. So there's no need for you to personally contemplate an alternative strategy. And if you wouldn't even consider, say, JHU as an ED, then you're not going to spend your own time researching JHU-like options using readily available resources, both objective and subjective.

I get it; VIPs don't like to aim lower. Your ways have clearly paid off to get you to the top of the DC food chain. But stop claiming that this process is impossible and opaque and can't be demystified by mere mortals like yourself.

Fellow senior parent.

+100

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Publish the high school profile to parents. Provide the past years' matriculation lists (even if it's anonymous if privacy is really the concern). Make Naviance accessible to families outside the CCO. These are pieces of information that a school could provide in order to help families develop reasonable expectations. Sidwell does not do any of them.

I agree

But frankly, this information is totally irrelevant to the majority of the high school students. For example, so far this year XX Big3 school is sending 4 kids to Harvard. Three of these 4 are URM, one is not but is a double legacy.
The fact that XX school is sending any number of kids to Harvard IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO MY KID who has none of those hooks.

I hate when people give examples like this - so skewed and pejorative. If this is the school I think it is, all the students admitted to Harvard are either double legacy or multiple-generation legacy but you assume what you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is so much public griping about Sidwell's HOS. US Principal and CCO and yet its amazing to me that the Board of Trustees does not step in to make some well deserved changes. How can Trustees stay oblivious to the declining reputation of the school and not step in? Maybe the rot starts at the top.

Where is the HOS this year? Usually you see him around campus, but I haven’t seen him once all year. It feels a little strange. It was nice when you’d see him at a sports event or arts event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Sidwell senior parent.

Looking at 12 pages so far, and stepping back, I think I see the global problem between some parents and the CCO: you rely on others to do the work for you. You probably always have, from the 'I need a night nurse' stage to present day. So it comes as no surprise that so many posts on this thread decry the "failings" of the CCO to do basic things that **you can and should've figured out on your own.**

You're smart. You're a double Yale grad. You were tapped for a political role in the ____ White House and now you're a Covington partner / lecturer at Penn / trade advisor. So is your spouse, fwiw.

Your background strongly suggests that you have the intelligence to synthesize the CDS data, those limited limited Naviance screenshots, your kid's scores, a couple recent books from Politics/Prose on higher ed, & several NYT or WSJ articles on the current trends.

Why is this process so confounding for you?

What I suspect is happening when you blame CCO for everything is that you subconsciously feel entitled to Princeton or Yale. So there's no need for you to personally contemplate an alternative strategy. And if you wouldn't even consider, say, JHU as an ED, then you're not going to spend your own time researching JHU-like options using readily available resources, both objective and subjective.

I get it; VIPs don't like to aim lower. Your ways have clearly paid off to get you to the top of the DC food chain. But stop claiming that this process is impossible and opaque and can't be demystified by mere mortals like yourself.

Fellow senior parent.

+100

Thank you.

And those parents could be teaching the kids English, History, etc. . . but for some reason expects the school to do its job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the elephant in the room is that a good chunk of the very top students are “stranded”. They are doing less well than the bottom 85% of the class. Yield protected at likelies/matches and not into any SCEA or ED. Sidwell needs an explicit strategy for these kids. It’s not to late to advocate for this group imo. No entitlement here at all. I don’t think CCO gets the macro picture here. These kids had safeties but safeties are not acting like safeties for this high performing group.

So, here's the thing...EVERY kid should have applied to a real safety school with rolling admission or EA (think UVM, Pitt, Penn State...maybe Wisconsin or Indiana)...it is hard for me to believe that very top students from SFS applied to these types of schools and did not get in. More likely, they decided that University of Michigan or Northeastern was their "safety" ...but anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years knows that these schools have become VERY competitive (and unpredictable) over the past few years. If these students were depending on such schools to be their backups and are "stranded" right now, that does not seem to be the fault of the CCOs (unless the CCOs were giving very bad advice--which is hard for me to believe, as a parent of a "top student" at another Big 3)...

I know of at least 1 Sidwell NMSF deferred at Wisconsin so I take umbrage with your premise.

But being a NMSF says nothing about that student’s GPA or other attributes. It just means they had a good day on the PSAT. And it seems that Wisconsin was overwhelmed this year and that many of those deferrals may turn into acceptances.

Well, they had a good day on the PSAT AND a good day on the SAT. Plus high GPA, plus recs from school... Not at Sidwell, but have DC with high stats and NMF. So please, a bit of respect here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this (as a public school parent). I have so many thoughts but will limit them to a few that will be (hopefully) viewed as constructive:

1) I have full access to Naviance and it is not very helpful--if anything, it is quite misleading as the scattergrams combine 10 years of data (we all know how the admissions world has changed over 10 years) and it does not indicate hooks. As a result, it is incredibly easy for students (and parents) to think the odds are much greater to get into specific colleges than it actually is.

2) The basic patterns play out in schools all over this area as they do in "the Big 3" (side note, barf) with regards to college admissions--it is an incredibly unpredictable and stressful process for these kids. However, there is a HUGE difference between kids at schools like Sidwell and those at large public schools: expectations. For all of the short-comings of our large public--and there are a lot--I think my (high stats, NMSF) DC really benefits from being at a public school because they see other high stats students who can't apply ED because they need merit money or because public universities are the only viable option. This REALLY helps contextualize the whole process and give the much-needed perspective that there are outstanding students so many colleges, not just the "top 50".

1) Suggestion: Only look at the last two, pandemic-influenced years. I would think Naviance for public high schools would be more helpful because there are more data points.
2) No parent who sends their kid to Sidwell or a similar private school is okay with their DC going to a college outside the top 50 -- especially parents who start their kid in upper school.

I'm always perplexed by trolls or interested bystanders who enter these chats. You act so surprised by Sidwell and private school parents. I am always surprised that you are surprised.

As a parent who joined at 9th (from public) I would argue that the opposite is true. We switched our kid because he/she was learning very little in DCPS and (for example) could barely write an essay. I know about 5 other kids who joined other Big3 schools in 9th and they moved for the same reason. College admissions are fantastic from Wilson--there is a massive "diverse urban school" bump. If I wanted the best college placement I would have have sent him there. We are very aware that my kid's peers who stayed at Wilson will probably attend better colleges than he/she will coming from a Big3.

No, they are not "amazing." They are all over the place. There are some amazing students getting into some top schools; there are also some very good students who are also recruited athletes getting into some top schools. There are also a lot of very good/high stats kids rejected/deferred in ED/EA rounds from reach and target schools. There seems to be a lot of "randomness" that kids are baffled by (lower ranked/lower scoring kids getting in but higher ranked/higher scoring kids getting deferred). I have seen this myth that the public school kids have it so much easier because of all of the grade inflation. It is nonsense. The college admissions process is insane and broken and unpredictable everywhere and just because you know one or two Wilson kids that got into a school that your little Larla got rejected from doesn't mean it's because of a "massive diverse urban school bump."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a Sidwell senior parent.

Looking at 12 pages so far, and stepping back, I think I see the global problem between some parents and the CCO: you rely on others to do the work for you. You probably always have, from the 'I need a night nurse' stage to present day. So it comes as no surprise that so many posts on this thread decry the "failings" of the CCO to do basic things that **you can and should've figured out on your own.**

You're smart. You're a double Yale grad. You were tapped for a political role in the ____ White House and now you're a Covington partner / lecturer at Penn / trade advisor. So is your spouse, fwiw.

Your background strongly suggests that you have the intelligence to synthesize the CDS data, those limited limited Naviance screenshots, your kid's scores, a couple recent books from Politics/Prose on higher ed, & several NYT or WSJ articles on the current trends.

Why is this process so confounding for you?

What I suspect is happening when you blame CCO for everything is that you subconsciously feel entitled to Princeton or Yale. So there's no need for you to personally contemplate an alternative strategy. And if you wouldn't even consider, say, JHU as an ED, then you're not going to spend your own time researching JHU-like options using readily available resources, both objective and subjective.

I get it; VIPs don't like to aim lower. Your ways have clearly paid off to get you to the top of the DC food chain. But stop claiming that this process is impossible and opaque and can't be demystified by mere mortals like yourself.

Another perspective to throw into your theory. SFS encourages independence and for students to self advocate. They also tell students that their parents are overbearing (especially with regards to colleges). So, imagine a case where a high achieving student has parents who step back, kid is independent and does very well academically. The student thinks that just relying on CCO will be perfectly fine (as they are also told this) and doesn't want parent involved.....but the student doesn't really understand the landscape of college applications and CCO doesn't really consider it their job to counsel such a student in ways that would be really useful. The assumption that the overbearing parents will do it and that the kid will listen to the parents....after all the messaging from the school to parents not to be overbearing and to the kids to tune our their parents (on everything, but on colleges in particular).

What a dummy. This is the most jumbled thinking I've ever seen in DCUM. But it was fun to read!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is so much public griping about Sidwell's HOS. US Principal and CCO and yet its amazing to me that the Board of Trustees does not step in to make some well deserved changes. How can Trustees stay oblivious to the declining reputation of the school and not step in? Maybe the rot starts at the top.

Where is the HOS this year? Usually you see him around campus, but I haven’t seen him once all year. It feels a little strange. It was nice when you’d see him at a sports event or arts event.

I have seen him at sporting events. I have not been on campus otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Who cares? He's worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the elephant in the room is that a good chunk of the very top students are “stranded”. They are doing less well than the bottom 85% of the class. Yield protected at likelies/matches and not into any SCEA or ED. Sidwell needs an explicit strategy for these kids. It’s not to late to advocate for this group imo. No entitlement here at all. I don’t think CCO gets the macro picture here. These kids had safeties but safeties are not acting like safeties for this high performing group.

So, here's the thing...EVERY kid should have applied to a real safety school with rolling admission or EA (think UVM, Pitt, Penn State...maybe Wisconsin or Indiana)...it is hard for me to believe that very top students from SFS applied to these types of schools and did not get in. More likely, they decided that University of Michigan or Northeastern was their "safety" ...but anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years knows that these schools have become VERY competitive (and unpredictable) over the past few years. If these students were depending on such schools to be their backups and are "stranded" right now, that does not seem to be the fault of the CCOs (unless the CCOs were giving very bad advice--which is hard for me to believe, as a parent of a "top student" at another Big 3)...

I know of at least 1 Sidwell NMSF deferred at Wisconsin so I take umbrage with your premise.

But being a NMSF says nothing about that student’s GPA or other attributes. It just means they had a good day on the PSAT. And it seems that Wisconsin was overwhelmed this year and that many of those deferrals may turn into acceptances.

Well, they had a good day on the PSAT AND a good day on the SAT. Plus high GPA, plus recs from school... Not at Sidwell, but have DC with high stats and NMF. So please, a bit of respect here

The original post did not say NMF. It said NMSF, which is only triggered by the PSAT score. The reality is that many kids with NMSF qualifying scores don’t necessarily have the grades and other pieces that guarantee admission. I was not responding to any statment about a NMF, or denigrating any student’s other qualifications. The example given seemed to assume that merely being a NMSF should guarantee admission to Wisconsin. I don’t think that is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the elephant in the room is that a good chunk of the very top students are “stranded”. They are doing less well than the bottom 85% of the class. Yield protected at likelies/matches and not into any SCEA or ED. Sidwell needs an explicit strategy for these kids. It’s not to late to advocate for this group imo. No entitlement here at all. I don’t think CCO gets the macro picture here. These kids had safeties but safeties are not acting like safeties for this high performing group.

So, here's the thing...EVERY kid should have applied to a real safety school with rolling admission or EA (think UVM, Pitt, Penn State...maybe Wisconsin or Indiana)...it is hard for me to believe that very top students from SFS applied to these types of schools and did not get in. More likely, they decided that University of Michigan or Northeastern was their "safety" ...but anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years knows that these schools have become VERY competitive (and unpredictable) over the past few years. If these students were depending on such schools to be their backups and are "stranded" right now, that does not seem to be the fault of the CCOs (unless the CCOs were giving very bad advice--which is hard for me to believe, as a parent of a "top student" at another Big 3)...

I know of at least 1 Sidwell NMSF deferred at Wisconsin so I take umbrage with your premise.

But being a NMSF says nothing about that student’s GPA or other attributes. It just means they had a good day on the PSAT. And it seems that Wisconsin was overwhelmed this year and that many of those deferrals may turn into acceptances.

Well, they had a good day on the PSAT AND a good day on the SAT. Plus high GPA, plus recs from school... Not at Sidwell, but have DC with high stats and NMF. So please, a bit of respect here

The original post did not say NMF. It said NMSF, which is only triggered by the PSAT score. The reality is that many kids with NMSF qualifying scores don’t necessarily have the grades and other pieces that guarantee admission. I was not responding to any statment about a NMF, or denigrating any student’s other qualifications. The example given seemed to assume that merely being a NMSF should guarantee admission to Wisconsin. I don’t think that is true.

The grades really depends on the courses you chose. A quite few kids who have very good grades barely can get SAT above 1500. My DS said if you took Sidwell Math I-IV serial, SAT/PSAT is just a piece of cake. He almost get full score SAT (1590) with just one try though his grade may not be as good as those who took easy courses. It is not easy to get SAT Math 800 for the kids who took regular or the lowest track math although their grades may look good. Everyone takes the same level humanity courses in Sidwell. He also took Sub Bio SAT 760 (9th grade), Sub Chem SAT 800 and Sub Math II 800 (after 10th grade and the beginning of 11th grade) before Subject SAT was cancelled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the elephant in the room is that a good chunk of the very top students are “stranded”. They are doing less well than the bottom 85% of the class. Yield protected at likelies/matches and not into any SCEA or ED. Sidwell needs an explicit strategy for these kids. It’s not to late to advocate for this group imo. No entitlement here at all. I don’t think CCO gets the macro picture here. These kids had safeties but safeties are not acting like safeties for this high performing group.

So, here's the thing...EVERY kid should have applied to a real safety school with rolling admission or EA (think UVM, Pitt, Penn State...maybe Wisconsin or Indiana)...it is hard for me to believe that very top students from SFS applied to these types of schools and did not get in. More likely, they decided that University of Michigan or Northeastern was their "safety" ...but anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years knows that these schools have become VERY competitive (and unpredictable) over the past few years. If these students were depending on such schools to be their backups and are "stranded" right now, that does not seem to be the fault of the CCOs (unless the CCOs were giving very bad advice--which is hard for me to believe, as a parent of a "top student" at another Big 3)...

I know of at least 1 Sidwell NMSF deferred at Wisconsin so I take umbrage with your premise.

But being a NMSF says nothing about that student’s GPA or other attributes. It just means they had a good day on the PSAT. And it seems that Wisconsin was overwhelmed this year and that many of those deferrals may turn into acceptances.

Well, they had a good day on the PSAT AND a good day on the SAT. Plus high GPA, plus recs from school... Not at Sidwell, but have DC with high stats and NMF. So please, a bit of respect here

The original post did not say NMF. It said NMSF, which is only triggered by the PSAT score. The reality is that many kids with NMSF qualifying scores don’t necessarily have the grades and other pieces that guarantee admission. I was not responding to any statment about a NMF, or denigrating any student’s other qualifications. The example given seemed to assume that merely being a NMSF should guarantee admission to Wisconsin. I don’t think that is true.

The grades really depends on the courses you chose. A quite few kids who have very good grades barely can get SAT above 1500. My DS said if you took Sidwell Math I-IV serial, SAT/PSAT is just a piece of cake. He almost get full score SAT (1590) with just one try though his grade may not be as good as those who took easy courses. It is not easy to get SAT Math 800 for the kids who took regular or the lowest track math although their grades may look good. Everyone takes the same level humanity courses in Sidwell. He also took Sub Bio SAT 760 (9th grade), Sub Chem SAT 800 and Sub Math II 800 (after 10th grade and the beginning of 11th grade) before Subject SAT was cancelled.

This is kid dependent. My kid, who was is in the Math I-IV sequence found it surprisingly harder to get into the high 700's on Math because they had no practice in solving finite applied problems in quick succession. They had skills to adapt but it wasn't an immediate piece of cake. On the flip side, it was a piece of cake to be close to 800 on Verbal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the elephant in the room is that a good chunk of the very top students are “stranded”. They are doing less well than the bottom 85% of the class. Yield protected at likelies/matches and not into any SCEA or ED. Sidwell needs an explicit strategy for these kids. It’s not to late to advocate for this group imo. No entitlement here at all. I don’t think CCO gets the macro picture here. These kids had safeties but safeties are not acting like safeties for this high performing group.

So, here's the thing...EVERY kid should have applied to a real safety school with rolling admission or EA (think UVM, Pitt, Penn State...maybe Wisconsin or Indiana)...it is hard for me to believe that very top students from SFS applied to these types of schools and did not get in. More likely, they decided that University of Michigan or Northeastern was their "safety" ...but anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years knows that these schools have become VERY competitive (and unpredictable) over the past few years. If these students were depending on such schools to be their backups and are "stranded" right now, that does not seem to be the fault of the CCOs (unless the CCOs were giving very bad advice--which is hard for me to believe, as a parent of a "top student" at another Big 3)...

I know of at least 1 Sidwell NMSF deferred at Wisconsin so I take umbrage with your premise.

But being a NMSF says nothing about that student’s GPA or other attributes. It just means they had a good day on the PSAT. And it seems that Wisconsin was overwhelmed this year and that many of those deferrals may turn into acceptances.

Well, they had a good day on the PSAT AND a good day on the SAT. Plus high GPA, plus recs from school... Not at Sidwell, but have DC with high stats and NMF. So please, a bit of respect here

The original post did not say NMF. It said NMSF, which is only triggered by the PSAT score. The reality is that many kids with NMSF qualifying scores don’t necessarily have the grades and other pieces that guarantee admission. I was not responding to any statment about a NMF, or denigrating any student’s other qualifications. The example given seemed to assume that merely being a NMSF should guarantee admission to Wisconsin. I don’t think that is true.

The grades really depends on the courses you chose. A quite few kids who have very good grades barely can get SAT above 1500. My DS said if you took Sidwell Math I-IV serial, SAT/PSAT is just a piece of cake. He almost get full score SAT (1590) with just one try though his grade may not be as good as those who took easy courses. It is not easy to get SAT Math 800 for the kids who took regular or the lowest track math although their grades may look good. Everyone takes the same level humanity courses in Sidwell. He also took Sub Bio SAT 760 (9th grade), Sub Chem SAT 800 and Sub Math II 800 (after 10th grade and the beginning of 11th grade) before Subject SAT was cancelled.

This is kid dependent. My kid, who was is in the Math I-IV sequence found it surprisingly harder to get into the high 700's on Math because they had no practice in solving finite applied problems in quick succession. They had skills to adapt but it wasn't an immediate piece of cake. On the flip side, it was a piece of cake to be close to 800 on Verbal.

Mid 700's is still pretty high score.