Where does a 3.5 Sidwell kid end up going to college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me guess -- your kid is male? It's much easier to get into LACs if you're male.

Interesting. I didn't know this, but as a mother of boys, I'm glad to know this. It's nice to hear that something in education actually favors boys.

Why are LACs easier for a boy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me guess -- your kid is male? It's much easier to get into LACs if you're male.

Interesting. I didn't know this, but as a mother of boys, I'm glad to know this. It's nice to hear that something in education actually favors boys.

Why are LACs easier for a boy?

Because the applicant pool is heavily skewed to girls. There are other threads on this. And plenty of news stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone with a 3.5 is unlikely to be the best a teacher has seen in 10 years. And teacher recs aren't "profoundly influential" anywhere. Nice to have good ones, and certainly a factor, but hardly profound.

The big land grant colleges rely primarily on GPA and test scores, but the elite schools all read each application and teacher recommendations are incredibly important. Among a pool of very talented students, they are often decisive. This is particularly true for high schools that send a lot of students to elite schools and the admissions officers know that the teachers have a strong understanding of the students. And a great many admits are students who are particularly accomplished in one field/endeavor rather than the classic well rounded stereotype. So it is unusual for Harvard to admit a student with a very strong academic record in English/literature from an exceptional high school English program with Bs in calculus BC and AP physics.

This makes sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any top private 3.5s gotten college results yet?

3.5 Big 3 kid: accepted Amherst, Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence, UMCP Scholars, University of Miami( with merit aid); deferred Harvard: Waiting on three other ivies plus final form Harvard.

I am glad you posted – – with 20 pages, clearly people are interested in this issue and like hearing specific anecdotes. Sounds like a great outcome for your child, congrats. Don't worry about all the grumps.

+1 With a DS with similar profile--though a few years out still--I find it quite encouraging to hear results. Thank you.

Now Dartmouth is added to this list? I'm sorry, but this kid is clearly jumping off the page in college admissions offices. So anyone who thinks that an unhooked acceptance from Amherst and Dartmouth is the likely result of their otherwise unexceptional DC getting a 3.5 GPA at Sidwell [bis setting themselves up for crushing disappointment. I guess if grading is so tough that 3.5 really represents the very top tier of students, then maybe I would reconsider, but without any class ranking, who knows.

What this shows is that 3.5 is by no means disqualifying, nothing more.

In some ways I agree that a 3.5 form Sidwell will not disqualify you from any college except maybe HYP. Hard to say this without sounding snobby but there are not any unexceptional 3.5 students at Sidwell. It is probably the case at other schools without grade inflation too. That grade point at Sidwell means that they kid is receiving As and absolutely at the top academically in one group of classes, say math and science ( or history and English), and very good at the rest. Also all kids with this GPA that I knew were deeply and passionately involved in ECs and are amazing to talk to. They have spent a year studying in China and are fluent in Mandarin, or they have interned at NIH and can tell you with great excitement about the new discoveries about the brain, you get the idea. I might add that in oder to attain this GPA you must write well and you will have several teachers who gave you As ( a rarity) and will write incredible recommendations for you. Sorry to go on and on, but this explains why my kid with this GPA is now at an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big 3, 3.5, 33 ACT accepted at Vanderbilt, University of WI-Madison, University of Michigan, Georgetown, Cornell, UMCP Scholars, and U of Miami with merit $$$.

Duke, JHU and Columbia were nos.

We are very happy for her.

Is your DD considering taking the U of Miami offer? My grandson as similar choices and is concerned that he won't find a peer group at the U. Do you know if they are going to have an admitted students night in the DC area? It would be great to discuss this choice with someone in the same boat. Not that this is important in making this decision but my grandson is AA-- also from a Big 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have any top private 3.5s gotten college results yet?

3.5 Big 3 kid: accepted Amherst, Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence, UMCP Scholars, University of Miami( with merit aid); deferred Harvard: Waiting on three other ivies plus final form Harvard.

I am glad you posted – – with 20 pages, clearly people are interested in this issue and like hearing specific anecdotes. Sounds like a great outcome for your child, congrats. Don't worry about all the grumps.

+1 With a DS with similar profile--though a few years out still--I find it quite encouraging to hear results. Thank you.

Now Dartmouth is added to this list? I'm sorry, but this kid is clearly jumping off the page in college admissions offices. So anyone who thinks that an unhooked acceptance from Amherst and Dartmouth is the likely result of their otherwise unexceptional DC getting a 3.5 GPA at Sidwell [bis setting themselves up for crushing disappointment. I guess if grading is so tough that 3.5 really represents the very top tier of students, then maybe I would reconsider, but without any class ranking, who knows.

What this shows is that 3.5 is by no means disqualifying, nothing more.

In some ways I agree that a 3.5 form Sidwell will not disqualify you from any college except maybe HYP. Hard to say this without sounding snobby but there are not any unexceptional 3.5 students at Sidwell. It is probably the case at other schools without grade inflation too. That grade point at Sidwell means that they kid is receiving As and absolutely at the top academically in one group of classes, say math and science ( or history and English), and very good at the rest. Also all kids with this GPA that I knew were deeply and passionately involved in ECs and are amazing to talk to. They have spent a year studying in China and are fluent in Mandarin, or they have interned at NIH and can tell you with great excitement about the new discoveries about the brain, you get the idea. I might add that in oder to attain this GPA you must write well and you will have several teachers who gave you As ( a rarity) and will write incredible recommendations for you. Sorry to go on and on, but this explains why my kid with this GPA is now at an Ivy.

I was the PP reacting to both Dartmouth and Amherst being on the list. These two schools are particularly impossible to get into, and so their presence on the list should not really be encouraging unless your child is truly excelling at Sidwell, which is consistent with there not being "any unexceptional 3.5 students at Sidwell." I used to teach at a school that graded like Sidwell, and there's not just an absence of grade inflation, there is also a lot of grade compression. So almost no written work would earn a 90-92 and none higher, a small handful of excellent papers would get 86-89, and then almost everything else was 80-85. So 3.5 is massively better than 3.0-3.2.

[Anonymous]

Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

[Anonymous]

And it doesn't hurt that there are many 3.5 GPA kids walking around Sidwell with 2250 SATs and 34 ACTs - well above the average incoming class for places like Amherst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

The care taken to develop a consistent narrative by gathering broad inputs is very much "packaging" when you compare it to what you get at a big public school. Our experience has been very different than yours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me guess -- your kid is male? It's much easier to get into LACs if you're male.

Interesting. I didn't know this, but as a mother of boys, I'm glad to know this. It's nice to hear that something in education actually favors boys.

Yes, since the worlds of business, politics and the arts are so stacked against men. Thank god they're getting that leg up in college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

The care taken to develop a consistent narrative by gathering broad inputs is very much "packaging" when you compare it to what you get at a big public school. Our experience has been very different than yours.

How's that Kool-Aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

The care taken to develop a consistent narrative by gathering broad inputs is very much "packaging" when you compare it to what you get at a big public school. Our experience has been very different than yours.

How's that Kool-Aid?

Just fine, thanks. It worked for my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

The care taken to develop a consistent narrative by gathering broad inputs is very much "packaging" when you compare it to what you get at a big public school. Our experience has been very different than yours.

+1 our kids Sidwell counselor knows him extremely well. He met with him many times, talked him about all kinds of things not directly related to college, ate lunch with him, gave him all kinds of good advice, read his essays, etc. The results were very good. I cannot imagine counselors at public schools have this much time per student. Its part of what you pay for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Part of what you get at places like Sidwell is the benefit of an intimate institution that is designed to tease out that which is different and "exceptional" in every student. The small student body and diversity of activities allows each student to find his/her individual niche and develop his/her talents. Positioned with an individualized and intimate knowledge of the student after four years (and in some cases 14 years), the school can then effectively package the candidate to colleges and advocate in a non-generic manner. Does this formula always work? No. But it can often help to have the candidate jump off the page, as others have said.

I've had 3 kids go through Sidwell and the college counselors don't "package" kids. It's true that many admissions staffers know the school well, so a 3.5 kid with top grades in the toughest courses, strong recommendations reflecting this, and 1 or maybe 2 strong ECAs (which can be very pedestrian -- e.g., varsity athlete/team captain; newpaper editor) will have a good shot at some very selective schools. But, the counselors don't know the kids "intimately" -- they meet them in the middle of junior year, read their teacher recommendations and do their best to write positive school recommendations; that's hardly "positioning and packaging."

The care taken to develop a consistent narrative by gathering broad inputs is very much "packaging" when you compare it to what you get at a big public school. Our experience has been very different than yours.

How's that Kool-Aid?

Just fine, thanks. It worked for my family.

Ah -- well, good for you! Our kids got into top schools on their own merit, no packaging needed. But then we valued the school for the education and Quaker values, not the gamesmanship and illusion of exclusivity.