If schools made last year's admissions data widely available, would this be helpful to you?

[Anonymous]

I think OP and many others have suggested data points they'd like to see, so those would be the specific solutions they suggest.

We still seem to be talking in circles, to the point where it appears that we're ignoring each other's points. Or, to be frank, making silly straw arguments about social security numbers and the stats for blond white girls with buck teeth and SSATs of xxxx. Apparently that's what was going on for the first two pages of this thread, without anybody even mentioning affirmative action.

If the unspoken issue is really affirmative action, then can't get that debate over with, and stop dancing around it? My guess is that most people here, including me, don't want to see affirmative action stats published. If that's the case, then we could continue the discussion on the value of having an array of stats that doesn't include that particular one.

I'm guessing that most people here, including myself, don't want to see the affirmative action stats published. If that's

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Data from the past five years on a variety of outcomes (test scores and some other data that's been suggested here would help families understand what they were getting into before they filled out the applications and did the interviews. Knowing it all at the time you get rejected is too late.

I posted early on, then got swept up in other events. Here I am, back on the boards. The kids must be in bed.

We've been through this process twice. If we had known the odds or stats with the first one, we probably would not have applied to our first choice. In the end, DC got into the first choice. We heard stories on how difficult, etc. as the process unfolded. We threw everything we had at it and applied to what we hoped were safe schools as well as what were stretches, including our first choice. Right before the schools sent out their admit/denied letters, we talked about how the odds really were not in our favor because we were not legacy, etc. But we were lucky and DC was admitted to our first choice.

The schools are fairly straight forward about their intake numbers. I don't know how much more precise they could be. "We admit 20 K students every year." "Our third grade expands by 40 students." Etc. If someone had told us, "there is a chance that there may only be two slots if we admit all legacies, siblings, etc." then we probably would not have done it.

I would rather try and fail, then always wonder.....

[Anonymous]

Please define affirmative action stats?

What do you mean by affrimative action stats?

Why throw around loaded terms like affirmative action without definition?

You do not want to see affirmative action stats published?

What stats are you referring to?

Define what you are talking about?

[Anonymous]

The talk about affirmative action stats is a reference to the request for data on the percent of minority kids admitted. One, but certainly not the only, of a whole array of stats that a few posters have said the would like to see before deciding whether to apply.

[Anonymous]

What is a minority? (Non-Caucasoid? by implication Caucasoid is the majority?)

Is this a purely Racial distinction? Ethnic distinction? Religious distinction? Other? (all of the above in any combination)

How does an imigrant to US fit into your definition? (from Northern or Southern global territory)

Would "mixed" (any of the above combinations) be considered minority or majority?

[Anonymous]

I don't think this is about anything other than the question. Applicants to private schools in DC are generally well-educated people used to having more than a little control over and information about what goes on in their lives, and they're frustrated they don't have the same for this process. I've been on schools tours with parents trying to gather enough data to predict whether their child will be admitted, and it's incredibly frustrating to the school. There are intangibles in the process you will never be able to predict, and the more data they disclose, the more parents claim they are being unfair. If I were one of these schools, I would keep my books closed to all but the most basic statistics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are intangibles in the process you will never be able to predict, and the more data they disclose, the more parents claim they are being unfair.

Bingo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is about anything other than the question. Applicants to private schools in DC are generally well-educated people used to having more than a little control over and information about what goes on in their lives, and they're frustrated they don't have the same for this process. I've been on schools tours with parents trying to gather enough data to predict whether their child will be admitted, and it's incredibly frustrating to the school. There are intangibles in the process you will never be able to predict, and the more data they disclose, the more parents claim they are being unfair. If I were one of these schools, I would keep my books closed to all but the most basic statistics.

I wholeheartedly concur with this assessment. If you have a top choice for your DC, work hard to get in, but have back-up plans/alternate scenarios if DC is not admitted.

Frankly, what would folks do with more information? Leave their partner positions at law firms and start non-profits? Change religions? Make their kids simulate the WPPSI every night before they go to bed in anticipation of the test? Unless your family is faculty, legacy, and/or sibling preference, assume that the odds are not in your favor. Then make a decision if you still want to try for it.

[Anonymous]

If data desired is above and beyond that provided through dedicated research (school tours, discussion with school officials, other parents, students, published literature) that will allow one to accurately predict acceptance into an elite school (e.g., pre-school, kindergarten or elementary school) both schools and clients would have no need for an application process...an online computer matching process would suffice!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this is about anything other than the question. Applicants to private schools in DC are generally well-educated people used to having more than a little control over and information about what goes on in their lives, and they're frustrated they don't have the same for this process. I've been on schools tours with parents trying to gather enough data to predict whether their child will be admitted, and it's incredibly frustrating to the school. There are intangibles in the process you will never be able to predict, and the more data they disclose, the more parents claim they are being unfair. If I were one of these schools, I would keep my books closed to all but the most basic statistics.

I agree. No matter how much or how little data the schools provide, some people will always think they were unfairly denied access and will always feel slighted. I can understand their frustration, because we all think our children are amazing and fully deserving of the chance to attend whatever school we might apply to. However, the schools must make hard choices. Giving parents more or different data is not really going to change the results.

I can sympathize to some degree with the idea that a parent needs some basic sense of what the school is looking for and what your general odds of admission might be, so a parent can decide whether it's worth applying. However, a lot of that general data is already available. If the application fee were $50,000, of if applying to a school meant sending your child to a two-week bootcamp at the school, I might agree that I'd want to get more information before investing that much time/money on the application. But we're really only talking about $50 and a half-hour playdate for most of these schools. How much more research/data do you need when the investment is not much more than what you'd spend for a family of four at Austin Grill?

[Anonymous]

Yup, I agree with the PP's. People in this area are highly educated control freaks who just think if they have all the data they can determine the outcome. Hence the demand for "affirmative action" stats. As someone else said, what the hell is that? How do you keep such data? In my case, we are AA. We have a household income of over $400 K per year. We both went to DC private schools. Our kid had excellent test scores. How do you factor that into your "affirmative action" stats? Here's my take on this: Schools can smell desperate, controlling parents a mile away, and, unless they can endow a new building, they run like hell from them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, I agree with the PP's. People in this area are highly educated control freaks who just think if they have all the data they can determine the outcome. Hence the demand for "affirmative action" stats. As someone else said, what the hell is that? How do you keep such data? In my case, we are AA. We have a household income of over $400 K per year. We both went to DC private schools. Our kid had excellent test scores. How do you factor that into your "affirmative action" stats? Here's my take on this: Schools can smell desperate, controlling parents a mile away, and, unless they can endow a new building, they run like hell from them.

From what I've seen, the PP is pretty right. My inference, having been through the admissions process for a few kids, is that the schools are interested in families who work for the administration, have a certain lustre, etc. Lots of folks are attracted to bright, shiny objects. But they want balance and not every family who fits this bill will be admitted, especially if they don't think the family will be a good fit with the community. It is hard enough to run a school. The head and the administrators don't want to take calls every day from the same folks complaining about yet another issue.

There is one element in the admissions process, which can't be quantified and that is luck. A DC may be a great fit one year and not the next. You can't plan your conception around the kind of child that will be an attractive applicant for GDS, Maret, Sidwell, etc. for year t + 4.

[Anonymous]

I may have missed this but what about cutoff scores for SSAT scores (not IQ)? The schools have them but pretend they do not. A Sidwell administrator (middle school) told an open house that they did not have cutoffs. But several months later someone in Sidwell's admissions office told me they do. Talk about intellectual honesty! I now know this is a well known fact among private school families at schools like Lowell and Sheridan. We were applying from public. Of course the reason schools pretend publicly not to have cutoffs is 1.) they make exceptions and 2.) they use different cutoffs for different sets of applicants.
Do people think they should release these scores?

[Anonymous]

No.

[Anonymous]

You mean release them in the way some colleges do..the sliding scale? Test scores/GPA sliding scale (I have actually seen these printed in college offices.) Following the reasons 1 & 2 mentioned above, the sliding scale would be: income/test scores. You've just said it yourself. But l don't think printing that stuff would actually help people.

I DO understand feeling like an outsider. We were interested in only one school, and applied to that one school, and had no idea if what they were looking for was what they said they were looking for.... or would include us. It is an unnerving process when you approach it with zero connections, and outside of the social circles of the schools' existing communities. Once part of a school community, you do learn much more about it, and the nuances, etc. Some statistics though, can lead to greater misunderstandings. 19:05 & 19:14 make sense.