2012 Admissions Results

[SAM2]

Below are links to a tool for counting 2012 admissions results. The counting survey is live now. Please enter real results only.

Here is a link to a simply survey tool, so people can log their admission results for 2012.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dE5NYXREbjVicnV5UXQzd3BNOUw1NlE6MQ

Here is a direct link to a summary of the current results.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dE5NYXREbjVicnV5UXQzd3BNOUw1NlE6MQ

You will see that I listed only a limited number of schools, and dropped some from last time. This is due to a lack of many results for those schools. If there are schools you want me to add back next year, there is a spot at the end of the form to list them.

Also, as is DCUM tradition, people of course should feel free to bypass the survey, and just post results to this thread free form.

Good luck to everyone. May all your envelopes be fat.

[Anonymous]

It would be interesting to cross reference some of the characteristics you have at the bottom (priority applicant of some kind, first choice letter, etc) with admission v wait list v denied status.

Would also be interesting to cross reference grade applied for with admission status.

And a question - do people have to enter all of their results at once, or can they enter them as they come and then come back another time without skewing the results?

You rock, SAM2. Thanks again for doing all of this. It's going to make it that much easier to feed my obsession while we wait for letters.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for doing this again, SAM2. It's fascinating and helpful. I agree with PP, if you could cross reference grade with admission status that would be awesome.

[SAM2]

Thank you for the feedback. Here are some answers and further questions:

1. Cross referencing grade against admissions results. PPs, why is that cross reference helpful for you? What will it help you learn? I'm asking because it might guide how to set up something like that.

2. When to enter results. For last year's form, it really was best if people were patient and entered all their results at once. But I know it's hard to be patient in early March, so I'm trying to think of some modifications so it won't matter as much.

3. Should I add a question about which admission slots people will turn down? I was thinking last year that it might help people to have a sense of which admission slots will be turned down, so they can gauge whether the waitlist might open up. Would that be helpful? Or am I creating some monster no one wants?

4. Cross referencing admissions results against applicant characteristics. I am thinking about doing something like this, but I am really wary, because reducing admissions to these limited factors really brings out the worst in all of us. What do others think?

[Anonymous]

SAM2 wrote:Thank you for the feedback. Here are some answers and further questions:

1. Cross referencing grade against admissions results. PPs, why is that cross reference helpful for you? What will it help you learn? I'm asking because it might guide how to set up something like that.

2. When to enter results. For last year's form, it really was best if people were patient and entered all their results at once. But I know it's hard to be patient in early March, so I'm trying to think of some modifications so it won't matter as much.

3. Should I add a question about which admission slots people will turn down? I was thinking last year that it might help people to have a sense of which admission slots will be turned down, so they can gauge whether the waitlist might open up. Would that be helpful? Or am I creating some monster no one wants?

4. Cross referencing admissions results against applicant characteristics. I am thinking about doing something like this, but I am really wary, because reducing admissions to these limited factors really brings out the worst in all of us. What do others think?

I would love to see which slots people turn down. And I think referencing admissions results vs. applicant characteristics is really tough to do accurately, plus not necessarily representative of what qualities the schools bases their decisions on, especially since parents don't really know what was in the teacher's rec and how the playdate went.

[Anonymous]

Declines would be really interesting. I agree with PP on characteristics though. If my DD gets into her school of choice, I honestly won't know if her WISC score did it or her personality during visit or teacher recs or whatever since I'm not sure how schools decide. Unless you were thinking of a checklist of sorts, but I think people are often less than objective about their own kids (I'm sure I am) so I don't know how accurate it would be from an AD's perspective...

[Anonymous]

SAM2 wrote:Thank you for the feedback. Here are some answers and further questions:

1. Cross referencing grade against admissions results. PPs, why is that cross reference helpful for you? What will it help you learn? I'm asking because it might guide how to set up something like that. Would be helpful for me in case we don't get in for K and want to see what G1 statistics look like, for example. Also to see how many K applicants did/did not get in.

2. When to enter results. For last year's form, it really was best if people were patient and entered all their results at once. But I know it's hard to be patient in early March, so I'm trying to think of some modifications so it won't matter as much.

3. Should I add a question about which admission slots people will turn down? I was thinking last year that it might help people to have a sense of which admission slots will be turned down, so they can gauge whether the waitlist might open up. Would that be helpful? Or am I creating some monster no one wants? If not too difficult, I think it would be helpful not just for this purpose but to help other families see what the numbers look like. For example, I'm looking at Langley and Potomac now, and it would have been nice to see what families in previous years elected to do with acceptances at both -- sometimes there's not as much anecdotal info about some (esp non DC) schools.

4. Cross referencing admissions results against applicant characteristics. I am thinking about doing something like this, but I am really wary, because reducing admissions to these limited factors really brings out the worst in all of us. What do others think?

Agree -- while interesting, it might do more harm than good.

[Anonymous]

Agree on the PPs re: "characteristics." I fear it will bring out the worst in people.

[Anonymous]

SAM2 - I think the grade/admission status cross-reference would be interesting just because it seems to come up frequently in threads that "X is easier/harder to get into in LS/MS/9th grade/Pre-K" and it would be nice to have actual data of some sort. It might also help people that are on the fence about applying at MS vs. 9th grade or something.

[SAM2]

Anonymous wrote:SAM2 - I think the grade/admission status cross-reference would be interesting just because it seems to come up frequently in threads that "X is easier/harder to get into in LS/MS/9th grade/Pre-K" and it would be nice to have actual data of some sort. It might also help people that are on the fence about applying at MS vs. 9th grade or something.

OK, I can see what you mean now. But recognize that most responses are from PK & K applicants, so the numbers of people applying to those higher grades are pretty small for many schools. Would it be OK to just split the responses into two categories: PK/K vs. grades 1-9? So as an example, what you might see for a particular school is that 5 of 10 applicants to PK/K were admitted, but 2 of 4 applicants for grades 1-9 were admitted. Grouping 1-9 might not be as detailed as you'd want, but (1) it would be a lot less work for me, (2) responders are less likely to be scared off with aggregated numbers. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Do priority applicants (siblings, alumni, rich and famous, etc.) find out their admission status before regular (non-priority) applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do priority applicants (siblings, alumni, rich and famous, etc.) find out their admission status before regular (non-priority) applicants?

Yes, because the doves fly faster to their mansions.

[Anonymous]

I disagree with PP about including characteristics. It would be helpful to parents of future applicants in terms of giving a sense of the range of kids who get into the various schools. While there will likely be some uncivil behavior, that's true all over DCUM. Do we really want to avoid sharing helpful information because there are crazies and trolls out there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do priority applicants (siblings, alumni, rich and famous, etc.) find out their admission status before regular (non-priority) applicants?

Not "rich and famous," but at our school sibs go through a different set of admissions deadlines, including notification. Sib contracts, if offered, are due before other admissions decisions are made.

[Anonymous]

I'll admit it, I'd like to see admits crossed with ages b/c we're in the admissions pool this year and it will tell me more about our chances and where we fall in the pack. Also like the idea of declines for similar reasons.

But I do also see a long term utility to the data to better gauge numbers going forward.

New question/idea. Was your denominator for each school last year based on the earlier survey? I just noticed the high numbers of non-responses, and assume that the numbers are skewed toward reporting good news instead of bad. Might you reset the denominator to only be the number of people reporting decisions?