NCS, Sidwell, Holton, GDS, Maret, Visi -- does this ranking order make sense for HS girl applicant?

[Anonymous]

My daughter had taught SAT prep classes for the last 3 years. I asked her and she agrees with pp that the smartest guys come from STA and the smartest girls are tied between NCS & Holton. She said the kids from TJ are really smart too. Other than that -- she said you may or may not find really smart kids from GDS, Sidwell and Maret in a given year. And, she said some of the Wilson kids are getting much better.

[Anonymous]

Experience in SAT prep classes will give you a sense of which kids are best prepared to do well on standardized tests. It's not a context in which you're going to learn much about how or how well a student thinks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Experience in SAT prep classes will give you a sense of which kids are best prepared to do well on standardized tests. It's not a context in which you're going to learn much about how or how well a student thinks.

it also leaves out kids who prep on their own, or not at all.

[Anonymous]

or with some organization/program.

[Anonymous]

You can tell who the smart ones are when you teach the SAT prep classes for several years -- don't kid yourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can tell who the smart ones are when you teach the SAT prep classes for several years -- don't kid yourselves.

I have no doubt the SAT tutors can figure out after a few sessions which kids are smart, and which are not. However, I seriously doubt one SAT tutor gets a representative sampling of students from all relevant schools to allow for an accurate comparison.

If you really want to make a comparison, look at each school's average SAT, or perhaps at the percentage of each school that is awarded National Merit Semifinalist status. But in the end, trying to rank these schools is a pointless exercise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can tell who the smart ones are when you teach the SAT prep classes for several years -- don't kid yourselves.

Absolutely true. You can accurately rank the schools on the variable of "intelligence of students who choose to do SAT Prep with your daughter's organization"! But is that a good stand-in for "intelligence of students overall"?