Sidwell Junior - GPA concerns

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of a better school profile with GPA distribution info:

https://saintanselms.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1555/download/download_2832649.pdf

That would be nice for all schools to share. But it’ll never happen. We'll just keep on having people guessing that 3.55 was average GPA at Sidwell when that has never been true in the past.

3.55/3.6 was announced as the median GPA to the parents (juniors) by the school earlier this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of a better school profile with GPA distribution info:

https://saintanselms.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1555/download/download_2832649.pdf

That would be nice for all schools to share. But it’ll never happen. We'll just keep on having people guessing that 3.55 was average GPA at Sidwell when that has never been true in the past.

3.55/3.6 was announced as the median GPA to the parents (juniors) by the school earlier this year.

What is that number wise? 90?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of a better school profile with GPA distribution info:

https://saintanselms.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1555/download/download_2832649.pdf

That would be nice for all schools to share. But it’ll never happen. We'll just keep on having people guessing that 3.55 was average GPA at Sidwell when that has never been true in the past.

3.55/3.6 was announced as the median GPA to the parents (juniors) by the school earlier this year.

What is that number wise? 90?

I don't understand your question? Are you asking how many people are in a class at Sidwell? It's about 120 - so if the median is 3.55/3.6 then it should be approximately 60 below/above that.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why parents cannot be informed of this GPA information. Why will it “never happen”? It makes no sense to not fully understand where your child stands in the class and get a better idea of how competitive they can be in the college admissions landscape.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of a better school profile with GPA distribution info:

https://saintanselms.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1555/download/download_2832649.pdf

That would be nice for all schools to share. But it’ll never happen. We'll just keep on having people guessing that 3.55 was average GPA at Sidwell when that has never been true in the past.

3.55/3.6 was announced as the median GPA to the parents (juniors) by the school earlier this year.

Is 3.55/3.6 median GPA for class 2023 or class 2024?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An example of a better school profile with GPA distribution info:

https://saintanselms.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1555/download/download_2832649.pdf

That would be nice for all schools to share. But it’ll never happen. We'll just keep on having people guessing that 3.55 was average GPA at Sidwell when that has never been true in the past.

3.55/3.6 was announced as the median GPA to the parents (juniors) by the school earlier this year.

Is 3.55/3.6 median GPA for class 2023 or class 2024?

About the same for both 2023 and 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why parents cannot be informed of this GPA information. Why will it “never happen”? It makes no sense to not fully understand where your child stands in the class and get a better idea of how competitive they can be in the college admissions landscape.

Because it will just rile parents up.
Because at schools like this, the top college admits often don't go to the top academic kids. Not a fault of the high school--just a reality of admissions but parents will blame the high school and it will be more discontent that they have to deal with...

At our school there is a Cum laude society (top 20%) and almost all the Ivy admits (like 90%) are outside of this group. The URMs and athletes pretty much always are outside of the top 20%. The legacies are mixed.

[Anonymous]

^^^So what is the point of any of it-GPA, testing, EC’s, rec letters etc? You are basically saying college admissions is all about nothing substantive at the end of the day. A very very broken system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why parents cannot be informed of this GPA information. Why will it “never happen”? It makes no sense to not fully understand where your child stands in the class and get a better idea of how competitive they can be in the college admissions landscape.

Because it will just rile parents up.
Because at schools like this, the top college admits often don't go to the top academic kids. Not a fault of the high school--just a reality of admissions but parents will blame the high school and it will be more discontent that they have to deal with...

At our school there is a Cum laude society (top 20%) and almost all the Ivy admits (like 90%) are outside of this group. The URMs and athletes pretty much always are outside of the top 20%. The legacies are mixed.

You forgot VIPs. There are URMs and athletes at public schools. But much much more VIPs, big donors kids at Sidwell, Maret, GDS, etc. They took top college admits with lower academic stats.

[Anonymous]

Ivy admits at our Big3 school last year:

1. URM outside the top 20%
2. URM outside the top 20%
3. URM outside the top 20%
4. athlete outside the top 20%
5. athlete outside the top 20%
6. athlete outside the top 20%
7. legacy in the top 20%
8. legacy in the top 20%
9. legacy in the top 20%
10. legacy in the top 20%
11. legacy in the top 20%
12. legacy in the top 20%
13. top 20%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ivy admits at our Big3 school last year:

1. URM outside the top 20%
2. URM outside the top 20%
3. URM outside the top 20%
4. athlete outside the top 20%
5. athlete outside the top 20%
6. athlete outside the top 20%
7. legacy in the top 20%
8. legacy in the top 20%
9. legacy in the top 20%
10. legacy in the top 20%
11. legacy in the top 20%
12. legacy in the top 20%
13. top 20%

Very valuable tabulation. Thanks. Important reminder to DC area parents about how messed-up college admissions processes really are today. AFAIK all admissions to Harvard last year from top DC privates were URM/VIP/Both. It is what it is folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell senior parent here of kid with slightly higher GPA. 3.7 is excellent for the school. Your DD is correct that there will be a handful of kids > 3.9, but it’s a tiny group in each grade for the reasons PP said.

Our experience this year is that these “low” compared to public schools GPAs only hold you back if you apply to giant public universities **that are unknown to Sidwell specifically** Places with a well worn pathway— Michigan, UVA, Wisconsin, W&M — are no issue. Problems arise with competitive flagships where kids from Sidwell never apply. They seem to take a dim view of a 3.7-3.9 compared to the thousands of applicants with 4.7s. Let’s use Florida, Texas and Georgia as examples. California schools are their own beast and just made huge admissions changes this year …. UNC admits no one, so.

The > 3.5 doesn’t hold your kid back from very competitive LACs or T20 if the rest of their package is very good. “Very good” need not mean URM or recruited athlete btw. There are a lot of kids this year not in those groups and not 3.9+ according to my son who will attend some very very top schools next year. Keeping it vague for their privacy

I have a 2022 graduate and a 2024. I agree with this poster. Sidwell has historically never sent a ton of kids to state flagships anyway. I don't know why people are handwringing over this. Stick to privates and find a good ED match (be realistic regarding SAT/ACT and ECs). Recognize that this isn't the 90s when the Sidwell name could get the top unhooked kids into Ivies. Admittances to the T30 were strong for the class of 2022.

Texas is not a great example because of their in-state admissions policies. They are like UNC, nobody OOS is getting in unless a recruited athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^^So what is the point of any of it-GPA, testing, EC’s, rec letters etc? You are basically saying college admissions is all about nothing substantive at the end of the day. A very very broken system.

The point is if you have a very smart, hardworking, motivated kid and you are not a VIP, big donor, URM, recruited athlete, and college admission is important to you, send your child to top public schools, such as Blair, “W” schools, TJ, Langley, Walls, etc. Your kid will have better college admissions results and you save $200K+

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^So what is the point of any of it-GPA, testing, EC’s, rec letters etc? You are basically saying college admissions is all about nothing substantive at the end of the day. A very very broken system.

The point is if you have a very smart, hardworking, motivated kid and you are not a VIP, big donor, URM, recruited athlete, and college admission is important to you, send your child to top public schools, such as Blair, “W” schools, TJ, Langley, Walls, etc. Your kid will have better college admissions results and you save $200K+

I'm not actually sure the Ivy results for the unhooked but very smart kids are any better coming from the W schools or Langley. Maybe a very, very small percentage better. But almost all of their Ivy admits are also URM, athletes or legacies.
Unhooked DCPS kids seem to get a slightly better bump to the Ivies from Walls and sometimes from from JR but again, most of the Ivy kids are hooked. Gone are the days where a super smart kid from JR can get a guaranteed bump into the Ivies from attending "an urban DCPS".
TJ are their own animals. They send a good number of unhooked to the Ivies but to get the spots you have to do 4 years of superstar academics while hoping you get the best grades in the grade because your entire class is applying to the Ivies. Not exactly a given that you'll get the spots.

[Anonymous]

Previous poster again.
Meant to type "TJ and Blair are their own animals".