Big 3 College Placement 2018-19 Cycle
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Anonymous
NP - Definitely not... Mostly As and 1400 SAT scores are not going to get you into these top schools as a legacy unless you have other really interesting things on your application. Lots of other kids with perfect scores get passed over too, not just Asians (including legacy kids). |
Anonymous
I am sorry your feelings are hurt. Must have been a legacy yourself. All of you who claim legacy gives no bump. The admission to Ivy is purely by the merit of your DC, I challenge you to not mention legacy status for your younger DC. If you don't have the b*lls to do that then you just stop. |
Anonymous
My general impression is that Sidwell parents tend to be a pretty supportive group, who don’t talk much “out of school.” But I have heard complaints about the college staff as not being strong, so it must be getting serious. |
Anonymous
Actually if you read what I write I made pretty clear that 30% of Harvard’s class WAS legacy. I never said it wasn’t. Maybe your poor reading comprehension is what resulted in your attending a school your children clearly do not want to attend. Legacy gives a huge bump but to claim that it is the only way to get in is simply factually incorrect. The numbers do not support that claim. Maybe your math skills are as bad as your reading skills. |
Anonymous
You are an embarrassment to not only your alma mater but to the human race. |
Anonymous
Probably. But it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. |
Anonymous
True. You need a 1500 minimum. |
Anonymous
| Are you considered a legacy if your grandparents went to a school but your parents did not? |
Anonymous
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I've been interviewing for an HYP in this area for many years.
1) Every year, some of our strongest applicants are legacies. Bright, type A parents tend to raise bright, type A kids, and they also know how to play the long game in positioning their kids (for example, by encouraging depth, not breadth, in extracurriculars, a processwhich starts in middle school). Every year, though, the college for which I interview takes legacy kids that are not among the best in the applicant pool. There are ,indeed, often non legacy kids at the same high school who are stronger applicants by all objective measures. I find that discouraging. 2) I am not privy to all of the contact between admissions officers and private school college counselors. Most privates in this area have track records formed over the course of several decades, and those may be hard to budge. However, the college counselor shenanigans that I have seen all have involved getting kids in off the waitlist over the summer. These have been delicate negotiations involving offers to start a semester or a year late, or some sports team needing a replacement. I think they take place over the summer to be free of the prying eyes of other parents or counselors at less connected schools. When fall rolls around, the secondary school quietly adds one or two more to their list of Ivy matriculations, but they don't have to field awkward questions about why Baseball Bob or Richie Rich was shoehorned into HYP over th eir classmate Intel Imogene, who is already happily ensconced at Carnegie Mellon. I assumed this ability was why parents fork over 40k for private schools with indifferent STEM teaching, and that this is why schools want a good college counselor. |
Anonymous
There have been at least two new directors in that office in the last 5 years. People, do your kids and yourselves a favor. Don't buy into the nonsense that admission to SFS -- or any other "Big 3" -- is a golden ticket guaranteeing selective college admission. We've gone through this process twice -- once with a kid applying from SFS and once with our younger one applying from a non-"Big 3". The biggest difference: parents' expectations were saner at the non-Big 3. Breaking news, I know, but what's interesting is that the realistic view allows counselors to provide more honest and individualized guidance to students. The result: kids and parents seem more satisfied by the process. |
Anonymous
| Sidwell Friends can’t guarantee success in getting into the college of one’s choice. But it should be able to offer a college counseling program that is at least of the same caliber and with similar resources as other Washington imdoendent schools, |
Anonymous
There are literally thousands of kids with the same record as the best students from the top 3 schools. Counsellors can help shape the application to stand out (or to avoid standing out in the wrong way) and also make contact with the schools directly to highlight a particular attribute that might have been overlooked. It's not a lock even for teh best kids at these schools. |
Anonymous
| Specifically what are the issues with Sidwell’s college counseling office? What needs to change? Is the caliber of the staff simply not high enough? |
Anonymous
| Chicago accepted a bunch of STA kids yesterday......6 or 7, I believe. |
Anonymous
Being a legacy is an enormous advantage. It gets kids admitted to schools that otherwise would not seriously consider them. You don't have to take my word for it. There's a big court case dealing with Harvard's admissions policies. You can read all about it, and get it straight from the horse's mouth. |