More competitive year than usual?

[Anonymous]

I think probably very tight because in previous years we have seen so many “X v Y - which should I pick?” posts. And now barely any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think probably very tight because in previous years we have seen so many “X v Y - which should I pick?” posts. And now barely any.

Maybe those post will come in a few days. It is the weekend and maybe people are doing things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think probably very tight because in previous years we have seen so many “X v Y - which should I pick?” posts. And now barely any.

Maybe those post will come in a few days. It is the weekend and maybe people are doing things.

Agree. There will be two solid weeks of this, never fear, PP.

[Anonymous]

I think every year people think “oh this year it’s especially tough for XYZ reasons”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think probably very tight because in previous years we have seen so many “X v Y - which should I pick?” posts. And now barely any.

Maybe because this stuff is getting old, people have learned more about these schools over the years and there is no need to ask for views.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in admissions - not in a Big 5 - but in a school in the DMV. I have mentioned this before, but a trend we have noticed is families with more children (3-4) in the younger grades that result in over half of our kindergarten slots being taking by siblings. These families are also more likely to have high levels of continued enrollment. If they have several children enrolled and happy, they are less likely to leave on a whim. This results in fewer openings in non expansion years (natural churn rates are at an all time low for us).

Another trend we have noticed with schools in similar size and philosophy is that they are shrinking grades by a seat or two to bring teacher ratios down. I’ll note these were already low but parent surveys have indicated it was a priority. We had to up tuition to cover 2 less seats per grade. These seats were removed due to attrition; we didn’t kick people out just for lower ratios.

Our applications were also at record high numbers. Not all were good fits, but as others have mentioned, we could have filled new classes with excellent candidates we just didn’t have room for.

This is unfortunate. It just makes the schools more and more insular.

Strongly disagree. As a parent with 4 kids, I would argue it is good business. I would be furious if my 3rd or 4th didn’t get into kindergarten at a school to which we have committed so much time and money. Of course, this is assuming the siblings are all qualified.

I would argue that it’s virtually impossible for a single private school to meet the needs of 4 siblings. How they could all be deemed a good fit — beyond their parents’ money — is unclear to me. My kids are so wildly different from each other that I could never imagine them being at the same private school. It wouldn’t work.

[Anonymous]

We bought in a “good” pyramid of FCPS and planned to go public, until colleagues & neighbors told us that FCPS today has a “watered down” curriculum compared to 25-30 years ago. A FCPS teacher quietly told us to go private, because when FCPS went to “no printed math textbooks” in her school, the change caused a sharp drop in elementary math achievement. We now hope to go private, despite no hooks.

I think the number of private school places are roughly fixed, while the demand has gone up. I doubt admissions will get easier anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in admissions - not in a Big 5 - but in a school in the DMV. I have mentioned this before, but a trend we have noticed is families with more children (3-4) in the younger grades that result in over half of our kindergarten slots being taking by siblings. These families are also more likely to have high levels of continued enrollment. If they have several children enrolled and happy, they are less likely to leave on a whim. This results in fewer openings in non expansion years (natural churn rates are at an all time low for us).

Another trend we have noticed with schools in similar size and philosophy is that they are shrinking grades by a seat or two to bring teacher ratios down. I’ll note these were already low but parent surveys have indicated it was a priority. We had to up tuition to cover 2 less seats per grade. These seats were removed due to attrition; we didn’t kick people out just for lower ratios.

Our applications were also at record high numbers. Not all were good fits, but as others have mentioned, we could have filled new classes with excellent candidates we just didn’t have room for.

This is unfortunate. It just makes the schools more and more insular.

Strongly disagree. As a parent with 4 kids, I would argue it is good business. I would be furious if my 3rd or 4th didn’t get into kindergarten at a school to which we have committed so much time and money. Of course, this is assuming the siblings are all qualified.

I would argue that it’s virtually impossible for a single private school to meet the needs of 4 siblings. How they could all be deemed a good fit — beyond their parents’ money — is unclear to me. My kids are so wildly different from each other that I could never imagine them being at the same private school. It wouldn’t work.

I have three kids and they have significant differences but not to the degree that they need entirely different schools! It's crazy talk to imply that you need to choose an entirely different school for each child (unless you have children with special needs). Otherwise you are way overthinking this and putting a weirdly over-the-top significance on your child's schooling. You realize that 90% of American children just go to their local public school and MOST do incredibly well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in admissions - not in a Big 5 - but in a school in the DMV. I have mentioned this before, but a trend we have noticed is families with more children (3-4) in the younger grades that result in over half of our kindergarten slots being taking by siblings. These families are also more likely to have high levels of continued enrollment. If they have several children enrolled and happy, they are less likely to leave on a whim. This results in fewer openings in non expansion years (natural churn rates are at an all time low for us).

Another trend we have noticed with schools in similar size and philosophy is that they are shrinking grades by a seat or two to bring teacher ratios down. I’ll note these were already low but parent surveys have indicated it was a priority. We had to up tuition to cover 2 less seats per grade. These seats were removed due to attrition; we didn’t kick people out just for lower ratios.

Our applications were also at record high numbers. Not all were good fits, but as others have mentioned, we could have filled new classes with excellent candidates we just didn’t have room for.

This is unfortunate. It just makes the schools more and more insular.

Strongly disagree. As a parent with 4 kids, I would argue it is good business. I would be furious if my 3rd or 4th didn’t get into kindergarten at a school to which we have committed so much time and money. Of course, this is assuming the siblings are all qualified.

I would argue that it’s virtually impossible for a single private school to meet the needs of 4 siblings. How they could all be deemed a good fit — beyond their parents’ money — is unclear to me. My kids are so wildly different from each other that I could never imagine them being at the same private school. It wouldn’t work.

I have three kids and they have significant differences but not to the degree that they need entirely different schools! It's crazy talk to imply that you need to choose an entirely different school for each child (unless you have children with special needs). Otherwise you are way overthinking this and putting a weirdly over-the-top significance on your child's schooling. You realize that 90% of American children just go to their local public school and MOST do incredibly well.

I think it is a vast overstatement to say that “MOST do incredibly well.” But in any event, fit is more important in a small private school than in a big public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in admissions - not in a Big 5 - but in a school in the DMV. I have mentioned this before, but a trend we have noticed is families with more children (3-4) in the younger grades that result in over half of our kindergarten slots being taking by siblings. These families are also more likely to have high levels of continued enrollment. If they have several children enrolled and happy, they are less likely to leave on a whim. This results in fewer openings in non expansion years (natural churn rates are at an all time low for us).

Another trend we have noticed with schools in similar size and philosophy is that they are shrinking grades by a seat or two to bring teacher ratios down. I’ll note these were already low but parent surveys have indicated it was a priority. We had to up tuition to cover 2 less seats per grade. These seats were removed due to attrition; we didn’t kick people out just for lower ratios.

Our applications were also at record high numbers. Not all were good fits, but as others have mentioned, we could have filled new classes with excellent candidates we just didn’t have room for.

This is unfortunate. It just makes the schools more and more insular.

Strongly disagree. As a parent with 4 kids, I would argue it is good business. I would be furious if my 3rd or 4th didn’t get into kindergarten at a school to which we have committed so much time and money. Of course, this is assuming the siblings are all qualified.

I would argue that it’s virtually impossible for a single private school to meet the needs of 4 siblings. How they could all be deemed a good fit — beyond their parents’ money — is unclear to me. My kids are so wildly different from each other that I could never imagine them being at the same private school. It wouldn’t work.

“Virtually impossible?” Isn’t it the norm to send your kids to the same school unless some major issue (like learning issue)? Public school siblings all attend the same school where the family is zoned. Also, most private schools have robust programs in a multitude of interests (drama, music, arts, debate, sports). My girls are very different and will hopefully go to the same school but do very different activities. I know of a lot of multiple children families who send their kids to same private and kids have great experiences.

My experience has been kids go to different schools of different genders and parents choose single sex or one kid has diagnosed learning needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in admissions - not in a Big 5 - but in a school in the DMV. I have mentioned this before, but a trend we have noticed is families with more children (3-4) in the younger grades that result in over half of our kindergarten slots being taking by siblings. These families are also more likely to have high levels of continued enrollment. If they have several children enrolled and happy, they are less likely to leave on a whim. This results in fewer openings in non expansion years (natural churn rates are at an all time low for us).

Another trend we have noticed with schools in similar size and philosophy is that they are shrinking grades by a seat or two to bring teacher ratios down. I’ll note these were already low but parent surveys have indicated it was a priority. We had to up tuition to cover 2 less seats per grade. These seats were removed due to attrition; we didn’t kick people out just for lower ratios.

Our applications were also at record high numbers. Not all were good fits, but as others have mentioned, we could have filled new classes with excellent candidates we just didn’t have room for.

This is unfortunate. It just makes the schools more and more insular.

Strongly disagree. As a parent with 4 kids, I would argue it is good business. I would be furious if my 3rd or 4th didn’t get into kindergarten at a school to which we have committed so much time and money. Of course, this is assuming the siblings are all qualified.

I would argue that it’s virtually impossible for a single private school to meet the needs of 4 siblings. How they could all be deemed a good fit — beyond their parents’ money — is unclear to me. My kids are so wildly different from each other that I could never imagine them being at the same private school. It wouldn’t work.

I have 4 kids that attend/attended the same private school. In the younger years it really doesn’t matter so much about “good fit.” They can always split off to different high schools if they want to, but it is nice to have them all together up until that point. Just one of my kids did decided to go to a different high school when the time came.

[Anonymous]

Yes, it was more competitive by far this year than the other recent years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought in a “good” pyramid of FCPS and planned to go public, until colleagues & neighbors told us that FCPS today has a “watered down” curriculum compared to 25-30 years ago. A FCPS teacher quietly told us to go private, because when FCPS went to “no printed math textbooks” in her school, the change caused a sharp drop in elementary math achievement. We now hope to go private, despite no hooks.

I think the number of private school places are roughly fixed, while the demand has gone up. I doubt admissions will get easier anytime soon.

+1. We’re not very happy with our FCPS elementary education, and many kids from our “good” pyramid have left for private school. I imagine there is increased demand from families who previously would have stayed in public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve see numbers from a bunch of schools that indicate they have been getting more and more applicants each year post-Covid. I think it’s a reflection of how bad the publics are getting, even in wealthy areas with “good” schools. A huge number of people we know didn’t plan on private, but are there now because they just couldn’t take MCPS anymore.

Same with DCPS. Families who were very committed to public education just 5 years ago are all of a sudden getting a wake-up. It must be really bad.

Ditto with Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think probably very tight because in previous years we have seen so many “X v Y - which should I pick?” posts. And now barely any.

It’s been 36 hours. Those posts will come once people have time to absorb the results. Also, there’s a level of sensitivity posting those within the first 24 hours of people getting hammered with rejections.