Outplacement directors that speak in code or total silence; can anyone translate ?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
The point of this thread is that the school isn't always acting in your kid's best interest. The school is acting in its own best interest. For the school, your kid is just a blip in a long history the school has had, and the long future it hopes to have, of sending kids on to DC-area elite schools. The school wants to send kids to Sidwell that will make Sidwell happy, so that Sidwell takes more of the school's kids next year, and the school's brochure about acceptances at Sidwell continues to look impressive. None of this has anything to do about whether OP's kid could succeed at Sidwell (just an example, don't know where she's applied) or the cathedral schools. It looks in fact like OP's kid could succeed there, if grades and test scores are all that's at stake. If OP's school had said here kid wasn't a good "fit" at some other school, then yes, you would have been right: OP should ask why, and listen to the answer. But that's not what happened - OP's current school said her kid would be "competitive" at the other school. So what's going on? OP's school wants to make itself happy by making Sidwell or whatever school happy. High-achievers like OP's kid are a dime a dozen around the area, and probably even in OP's own school, so her school is going to pre-select from among the high-achievers to make sure the kids it wants to go to Sidwell get the nod. I think maybe you've drunk the koolaid? Or you're a school administrator yourself. |
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
| I think there's an inaccurate and unwarranted level of paranoia here. |
Anonymous
I think you're wrong, and quite possibly a school administrator. Look, in many ways school administrators are great, generous people, particularly when they're resolving bullying situations or dealing with difficult parents or kids. But it would be dumb and naive to ignore the fact that schools don't just blindly put your interests first. They follow their own interests first, especially when they know your family will be gone next year, but over the long run their reputation in the parent community depends largely on their exmissions. |
Anonymous
| Has anyone heard of or had experience with the phenomenon of counselling out at area D.C. private schools? Is this in the interest of the student or the school? |
Anonymous
Its not paranoia to imagine that there may be more at play than each parent cohort being advised on what is best for their child. Any school, but doubly so , a non k-12 school needs to have good channels established for exmissions. They can't develop that if the families they push to the schools end up pulling their application. That frays a relationship. So, if you act like a wild card, OD may feel less likely to go all out for your DC, I imagine. Egg in her face if she does and your family pulls their application. |
Anonymous
Ooohhh, you've switched from saying a PP "drank the koolaid" to calling us all paranoid. But name-calling does not an argument make. I've seen a lot of common sense in this thread, and some eye-witness testimonies -- but you've provided nothing to rebut it. If you were the PP who accused OP of being closed-minded to well-intentioned advice, then all you did was insult her. You haven't done anything to prove your contention that the school's ignoring her emails somehow constitutes well intentioned and helpful advice. Forget "well-intentioned" -- you didn't even demonstrate that ignoring her emails constitutes "advice" in any way, shape or form. |
Anonymous
|
21:54 is right, K-6 administrators like to tell parents about their relationships at other DC area schools. At least at our school they like to talk about this. In fact they spend years cultivating these relationships, visiting the schools, calling them up, meeting at conferences, and the rest. It's what makes them valuable to you, as a parent.
But if your school sends on a kid with parents that turn out to be real PITAs, or who don't give a dime to the next school, or maybe the kid is smart but has aggression problems -- then your school administrator has egg on her face. It hurts her reputation with the other schools. She can't afford for this to happen. |
Anonymous
|
No, I don't work for a school -- I'm a parent too. In fact, I'm the PP who gave the corporate lawyer daddy's well-behaved Beauvoir daughter example. So, yes, I believe (as I have stated) that schools have their own interests and constraints and these can enter into the mix.
That said, I think that the poster I was responding to (Ms. Maybe Some People Drink the Koolaid but *I* Know Better) sounded like an unselfcritical jerk and was giving really bad advice. It's worth listening to and seriously considering what your kid's school is telling you about your kid and about other schools. They know things you don't (obviously, about other schools -- less obviously, about your own kid who may behave differently at school than at home or who may "read" differently to people who have a lot of experience with kids of a certain age than she does to her own parents). And if you don't think you should listen to and take seriously what your kid's school has to say when you're at the exmissions stage, well then you've been a fool to leave your kid in that school for so many years. And maybe you shouldn't be so confident of your judgment re what school's best in this next round -- clearly you picked a dud last time. So if you don't trust your school's exmissions people, talk to a teacher you do trust, hire a consultant, or whatever. In short, seek help because you clearly don't know it all. Again, none of this means that, in the end, you can't or shouldn't make a different choice than the one the school's exmissions officer would make for your kid. What it means is that your decisionmaking process (and perhaps even the options available to you) will be better if you don't start out so paranoid and dismissive. I don't assume that the PP I responded to was the OP and I see why the OP is annoyed/concerned about unanswered emails. I don't know what the emails were about so I have no guess why they've gone unanswered. If I were dealing with that scenario, I'd call or speak to the person directly and just ask what's up -- e.g. am I asking the wrong questions, the wrong person, the wrong way. If you're accusatory (why don't you answer my emails?) you're less likely to improve the situation than if you ask what you can do to make it easier for this person to help you. |
Anonymous
|
Yes, schools have their own interests. But their primary interest is in making good matches -- because good matches make the schools they send other kids to happy and they make the families of those kids happy.
A school's ability to place kids is put at risk if they try to pass off dumb and/or poorly behaved rich kids as great candidates. So if your kid is a great fit, their interest is in pushing your kid. It's really only when you have a couple of kids who are both great fits when the other factors come into play and, even then, it's in the schools interest not to gild the lily but to say flat out "X's parent ran the auction or has been a major donor." At which point your beef would really be with the admissions officer if you don't think that should be a voting issue. The other thing to remember is that "good matches" aren't always synonymous with parents' first choices. As should be pretty clear to anyone who reads this board, lots of people get sucked into these little cults of particular schools which end up signifying something desirable to them or bestowing status in some way that often seems to have little to do with their kids' personalities, interests, or needs. That's what I meant about different flavors of koolaid being served elsewhere (here, the country club, the workplace, the neighborhood). From what I can see, many peoples' dream schools for their kids aren't really based on reason or research, much less an understanding of how their kids learn or what kind of environment brings out the best in them. Often, the people who are most attuned to that stuff are people whose kids are obviously exceptional in some way. |
Anonymous
| It isn't a reflection of your child but of who else might be applying to the same school. Legagcy, athlete, sibling, teachers kid, rich, influential. How many students traditionally go from your current to your target school? Also did you just start to target this school vs others who started several years ago to make their kid seem like a better fit. |
Anonymous
|
If the DC is old enough to be Outplaced, where is her voice in this? Where does she want to go?
As a middle or high school student, I hope she's taking some initiative and is given some ownership in where she'll be for the next few years. This is a great learning experience for your daughter which is really what this should be all about. |
Anonymous
| Someone upthread suggested that the OP might be referring to Beauvoir. I must say that, knowing the Outplacement director there, I highly doubt he would behave the way the OP described. We found him to be very helpful and responsive and willing to help in any way possible. He made the outplacement process very smooth for us although we eventually chose to stay on the close. |
Anonymous
This happens a lot and the kids I know who were counseled out ended up much happier at another school. Usually they were kids who were struggling with the work at the first school. I suppose it is in the interest of both the student and the school but at our k-8 school the student was the first priority. In fact the school was not always able to fill the spot in the older grades so it was not in their interest to see a family go. |