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Sidwell & Maret
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Anonymous
| i think if you want to make the best decision you need to get all the information. To me, that means visiting schools, talking to administrators and students. but it also means perusing these forums and sifting through the snark and paranoia to find whatever nuggets of truth are there. i love to hear what people say about the schools and I trust myself to triangulate my other info sources and distinguish valid info from BS. |
Anonymous
| To the OP -- no one can blankly tell you if your child will get in or not with a certain score. We'd need to know what grade they're applying to; what school they'r coming from; what sex is the child; what do the parents do and where'd they go to school; are you a diversity applicant; does the child have any "standout" skills such as being a superb athlete, musician, artist, etc. Don't let anyone scare you away -- give it a go and see what happens. |
Anonymous
| I'm not sure being a great artist or musician counts, except to the extent that your kid plays the bassoon and the school orchestra needs one. In that case, skills on the bassoon wouldn't really matter, just that the right sound comes out once in a while. But being a great athlete, yes. I know a few kids who were recruited to top DC privates on the basis of athletic skills, but none who was recruited on the basis of music or art. If anybody has any examples to prove me wrong I'd be happy to see them, but I'm not sure they exist. |
Anonymous
Aren't we talking about 4 year olds here? How does any applicant for kindergarten have a "standout" skill? |
Anonymous
| bed wetting. |
Anonymous
|
I would say the difference between sidwell and maret is
a) reputation (sidwell wins) b) size (personal choice) c) athletic facilities (sidwell wins) d) athletics program (maret wins) d) neighborhood (even) e) arts (maret wins) f) rigor of academics (sidwell wins) |
Anonymous
I sincerely hope D) is a joke... |
Anonymous
| why would that be a joke? both high school campuses are equally close to subways and most lower schools get driven. |
Anonymous
| How do they compare with respect to sibling policies and sibling acceptance rates? |
Anonymous
I meant the first D). Not really sure why the person who posted the list made two "D's"..... There is no way Maret's athletic program is better than Sidwell. Just go into Maret's gym and look how many banners are on the wall, then go into Sidwell's gym and look at how many banners are on the wall. It's not even CLOSE. |
Anonymous
|
WPPSI scores through age 4 have NO value in terms of predicting future academic success. Anybody who tells you otherwise is not familiar with longitudinal studies. Schools must have some awareness of this and must look for other indicators of academic potential.
It's not at all true that if your child gets into Sidwell or Maret that he or she will be surrounded by brighter kids. There are plenty of slow kids at these schools, in large part because WPPSI scores of young children lack predictive value. |
Anonymous
| Especially because sibling or alumni kids may have been let in on that basis vs their abilities. This is true for most private schools in the area. |
SAM2
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Please provide links to these longitudinal studies that show WPPSI scores have zero value in predicting future academic success. Thanks. |
Anonymous
Not the original poster you referenced but I have read several studies that conclude limited predictive value, haven't read anything with no predictive value. However, I believe the poster is correct that there is no correlation between LONG term academic success and scores at age 4 because many kids get lower scores by the time they are 8 years old. I know that the WPPSI-III is limited to the predicting academic performance up to grade 3 and is only correlated to verbal ability, not nonverbal or performance scores. This is one book you can look at: Reliability and validity in neuropsychological assessment by Michael D. Franzen. There are several studies in academic journals but you need a subscription or pay per article to read them so I can't provide links. Maybe the poster who made the claim can. Most parents do not understand what the score means--they don't understand confidence intervals which could shift a child's score down or up, e.g. high average to superior. My child scored well, yes, he is smart or "superior" in IQ range, however, this does not mean he will be academically successful. I know too many kids who were labels gifted and didn't do well in school. |
SAM2
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I suspect we agree on the "limited predictive value" point, depending on how we each define "limited." I've read a little bit on the subject, and seen long-term predictive estimates ranging from approximately 0.25 to 0.65. Personally, I think the "true" number is probably closer to 0.25, but smarter people than I am could argue about that for years. I haven't seen any reputable research suggesting it's zero, but I'm sure it must exist, which is why I asked PP to provide links to the longitudinal studies she cited. Your comment about verbal ability correlating best is definitely consistent with what I've read. Thanks to the reference to Franzen. In case anyone else is interested, here is a link: http://goo.gl/mjIFO . Pages 87-89 contain his summary of the WPPSI. That description includes your point that WPPSI is correlated up to grade 3, but I don't read him as suggesting it's not correlated beyond that point. Indeed, at the top of page 89, Franzen references on study that suggests a 0.73 correlation over 12 years (i.e., from approximately age 4 to age 16?). I sometimes struggle to understand this stuff though, so maybe I am misreading that point. I'd appreciate any explanation/guidance, since you seem to have more experience than I do (and better access to academic materials!). If you have other suggestions, I'd be interested in reading them. If you provide the title/author, I might be able to figure out a way to access them. Thanks again. |