Sidwell College Admissions This Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

College admissions offices are so under-staffed, can’t even finish reading submitted applications these days.

It's usually the regional reps that you reach out to, not the AD. It's their job, so no, they aren't too busy to take those calls. Even students can call them. When you go on a tour, you are given the business card of your regional rep.

I am not sure anyone hands out business cards to kids on big tours anymore. I think a pre read is a thing of the past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

They don't do pre-reads anymore unless it is for athletes. It isn't 1975 anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

Because the numbers are so low that the individual dots can be identifable for applicants from previous years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

Because the numbers are so low that the individual dots can be identifable for applicants from previous years.

No, this is false and I do not believe that Sidwell has ever stated this as the reason. If they have, I would love to hear the details of that and how it was communicated to parents.

Anyway, Sidwell uses 4 years of data for their Naviance charts. There is no way to identify previous applicants, if you even knew who all the students were--which is somewhere between impossible and highly unlikely given the 4 years of data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

College admissions offices are so under-staffed, can’t even finish reading submitted applications these days.

It's usually the regional reps that you reach out to, not the AD. It's their job, so no, they aren't too busy to take those calls. Even students can call them. When you go on a tour, you are given the business card of your regional rep.

I am not sure anyone hands out business cards to kids on big tours anymore. I think a pre read is a thing of the past.

?? We got cards on every tour this Fall. My DC's counselor did pre-reads for 5 schools to help DC focus the ED choice, getting feed back that did help form the plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

College admissions offices are so under-staffed, can’t even finish reading submitted applications these days.

It's usually the regional reps that you reach out to, not the AD. It's their job, so no, they aren't too busy to take those calls. Even students can call them. When you go on a tour, you are given the business card of your regional rep.

I am not sure anyone hands out business cards to kids on big tours anymore. I think a pre read is a thing of the past.

They do. Why are you spreading disinformation? Plus the regional reps' contact information is on most colleges web sites. And they give you their cards when they visit your school too. I assume Sidwell had reps come to the school, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

College admissions offices are so under-staffed, can’t even finish reading submitted applications these days.

It's usually the regional reps that you reach out to, not the AD. It's their job, so no, they aren't too busy to take those calls. Even students can call them. When you go on a tour, you are given the business card of your regional rep.

I am not sure anyone hands out business cards to kids on big tours anymore. I think a pre read is a thing of the past.

?? We got cards on every tour this Fall. My DC's counselor did pre-reads for 5 schools to help DC focus the ED choice, getting feed back that did help form the plan.

Interesting. We didn't get at card for a single regional rep or an AO on any of our 8 college tours. We did get cards for some of the student tour guides, though I don't imagine they have much influence in the admissions process.

Can you elaborate on the pre-read? I'm not sure what this is.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

No one handed out cards on any tours. Yes, schools come to visit but during the pandemic era, all of the visits were virtual zoom events. Turnouts were good, but these kids are as tired of zoom as we all are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

People need to calm down. Sidwell senior parent here. We do not have remote access to Naviance but my DC made appointments with CCO to see graphs and I did as well. I wlll say there were some that were such a crap shoot it did not help with the list but I was allowed to see as many scattergrams as I wanted and DC was to. If you want to see the scattergrams - reach out to the CCO and look at them! Geez

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

People need to calm down. Sidwell senior parent here. We do not have remote access to Naviance but my DC made appointments with CCO to see graphs and I did as well. I wlll say there were some that were such a crap shoot it did not help with the list but I was allowed to see as many scattergrams as I wanted and DC was to. If you want to see the scattergrams - reach out to the CCO and look at them! Geez

Another Sidwell senior parent here. That was not the way it worked for us and our DC, at all.

How long was your meeting at which you were allowed to see as many scattergrams as you wanted? How many did you look at?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one handed out cards on any tours. Yes, schools come to visit but during the pandemic era, all of the visits were virtual zoom events. Turnouts were good, but these kids are as tired of zoom as we all are.

That's a shame. Many of ours were in person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

People need to calm down. Sidwell senior parent here. We do not have remote access to Naviance but my DC made appointments with CCO to see graphs and I did as well. I wlll say there were some that were such a crap shoot it did not help with the list but I was allowed to see as many scattergrams as I wanted and DC was to. If you want to see the scattergrams - reach out to the CCO and look at them! Geez

Another Sidwell senior parent here. That was not the way it worked for us and our DC, at all.

How long was your meeting at which you were allowed to see as many scattergrams as you wanted? How many did you look at?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can say "you have over 10 classmates considering this school for ED, you may want to go with a different option"

But that doesn't mean that kid won't still apply ED to that school, because everyone thinks they may have a shot.

At elite schools like sidwell, how do they not have relationships with elite admissions officers to get pre-reads?

College admissions offices are so under-staffed, can’t even finish reading submitted applications these days.

It's usually the regional reps that you reach out to, not the AD. It's their job, so no, they aren't too busy to take those calls. Even students can call them. When you go on a tour, you are given the business card of your regional rep.

I am not sure anyone hands out business cards to kids on big tours anymore. I think a pre read is a thing of the past.

They do. Why are you spreading disinformation? Plus the regional reps' contact information is on most colleges web sites. And they give you their cards when they visit your school too. I assume Sidwell had reps come to the school, right?

You are correct, I shouldn’t assume others had the same experience: I will restate. We did not receive a single business card from a regional rep on any tour that my kid took. He did look at the websites with regional reps, some of whom gave him an interview but never offered to read his application, nor did we ask bc that would have felt inappropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

People need to calm down. Sidwell senior parent here. We do not have remote access to Naviance but my DC made appointments with CCO to see graphs and I did as well. I wlll say there were some that were such a crap shoot it did not help with the list but I was allowed to see as many scattergrams as I wanted and DC was to. If you want to see the scattergrams - reach out to the CCO and look at them! Geez

Another Sidwell senior parent here. That was not the way it worked for us and our DC, at all.

How long was your meeting at which you were allowed to see as many scattergrams as you wanted? How many did you look at?

A 3rd Sidwell senior parent here. Our family booked multiple meetings throughout last fall for the express purpose to look at scattergrams together with counselor. I attended 2 with student via Zoom. Student went to at least one in person in counselor's office.

In the 2 zoom meetings I attended with student, my recollection was that we saw maybe 6? at a time. Each meeting was no less than 15 minutes and no more than 30 minutes. It was 5 months ago so I don't recall the exact number of minutes.

Our family scheduled these meetings in intervals separated by several weeks, on purpose, rather than back to back to back. We put a lot of thought into which schools to pull up on Naviance after we discussed and refined our plan. I, personally, don't understand people who find this approach punishing. Idiosyncratic, maybe, but not nearly as limiting and crippling as you make it out to be.

Why would you find it useful to look at 50 schools at one sitting (aka, "full access"), and why don't you have a better idea of what you actually want? It would be fun, sure, to look at all 50 state flagships or something with unfettered access but if you're being honest, that doesn't actually help your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who graduated from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a large, public, test-in school. Parents and kids were given full access to Naviance and we found it really helpful in generating a college list. It was packed with data for the school and really good information. I'm really surprised that Sidwell doesn't give parents full access to Naviance.

People need to calm down. Sidwell senior parent here. We do not have remote access to Naviance but my DC made appointments with CCO to see graphs and I did as well. I wlll say there were some that were such a crap shoot it did not help with the list but I was allowed to see as many scattergrams as I wanted and DC was to. If you want to see the scattergrams - reach out to the CCO and look at them! Geez

Another Sidwell senior parent here. That was not the way it worked for us and our DC, at all.

How long was your meeting at which you were allowed to see as many scattergrams as you wanted? How many did you look at?

A 3rd Sidwell senior parent here. Our family booked multiple meetings throughout last fall for the express purpose to look at scattergrams together with counselor. I attended 2 with student via Zoom. Student went to at least one in person in counselor's office.

In the 2 zoom meetings I attended with student, my recollection was that we saw maybe 6? at a time. Each meeting was no less than 15 minutes and no more than 30 minutes. It was 5 months ago so I don't recall the exact number of minutes.

Our family scheduled these meetings in intervals separated by several weeks, on purpose, rather than back to back to back. We put a lot of thought into which schools to pull up on Naviance after we discussed and refined our plan. I, personally, don't understand people who find this approach punishing. Idiosyncratic, maybe, but not nearly as limiting and crippling as you make it out to be.

Why would you find it useful to look at 50 schools at one sitting (aka, "full access"), and why don't you have a better idea of what you actually want? It would be fun, sure, to look at all 50 state flagships or something with unfettered access but if you're being honest, that doesn't actually help your kid.

PP here. Our DC’s counselor would not let us or DC do that. We were told we could look at 3 max in a 30 minute meeting. And we could only look at them once DC’s list was pretty much final. When DC was trying to narrow down an initial list from around 20 schools and wanted to look at scattergrams then, the answer was no.