GDS - Wow!
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Anonymous
| My son is at WIS, also many Ivy’s: Yale, Stanford, UPenn etc. Don’t see major differences with other privates |
Anonymous
How do they determine the semi-finalist ? My son beat the score of his classmate at DC private who is on the list but somehow he’s not selected |
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Anonymous
All the privates do well. Sidwell/Maret have multiple Harvards. Much smaller than GDS. GDS did great too. Such a silly conversation. My bigger question is the percent of kids from privates at these elite schools; way more than publics. I know the kids are well prepared and great but does raise bigger questions about the whole system and the perpetuation of our privilege-based system. |
Anonymous
Not sure where to find the stats for other schools, but MIT has theirs posted from last year's incoming class: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/ 66% were from public school, 14% from independents, 8% from religious (the rest were international or home schooled). Sure, a larger percentage of graduating students from these prep schools are getting in, which makes sense when you have small class sizes with high achieving kids (and parents), but I don't think the overall student body of top universities tends to be mainly prep school kids. That said, a lot of those public school kids at MIT are likely from the selective TJ/Blair/RM/Walls type schools around the country, or from wealthier districts. I think parent education level, income, and involvement is likely the biggest factor, regardless of public or private high school. A Harvard admit from Sidwell with the same set of parents could likely get the same (or higher) GPA at a public, play a club sport, do the same ECs, take the same AP exams, get some private tutoring and test prep, and still get into Harvard. Which is exactly what's happening with a lot of the public school admits (said as someone who went to Yale from a selective public magnet in an already-wealthy district). I have no stats to back this up, but I'd say outside of programs like Questbridge (which I think is a great step in finding a solution to the privilege gap) most T10 students come from well-educated families. The privilege issue is definitely real, but I think a large percentage of public school admits to these colleges are coming from the same relative degree of privilege. Prep school is a piece of the puzzle, but certainly not the main issue. |
Anonymous
GDS almost always win the DC chapter in this competition and other math competitions like the Universal of Maryland. https://mathcomp.math.umd.edu/past-winners/ |
Anonymous
| Yes, privilege is a huge boost for admittance to the top 25 schools. It does seem like universities help maintain the elite class. But it is a difficult problem to solve. The US needs to do a better job combating child poverty. That would be a start at least. I wish 30% of top college students did not all go into finance and investment banking. Wish it was possible to spread talent out more |
Anonymous
WIS has posted two (2) Ivy-bound students on Instagram, so far. Those numbers are worse that Maret’s. Please come back when the posts actually support your statement—WIS isn’t ready to enter this chat yet. P.S. Stanford is not an Ivy. |
Anonymous
Privilege begets privilege. It always has, and it always will. |
Anonymous
Gagged. |
Anonymous
Doesn't look like it compared to the neighboring public school. |
Anonymous
It's just a math cutoff of the PSAT, plain and simple. Each state has a different cutoff. DC and International schools have their cutoff set to equal the highest state cutoff, which is usually NJ or MD. Here is a breakdown of cutoffs: https://www.compassprep.com/national-merit-semifinalist-cutoffs/ |
Anonymous
Yay! You found a math competition that GDS actually wins—whew! They only seem to win the DC competition because a Maryland public school appears to win the entire competition every year. I bet you were up googling all night. Congratulations to GDS, though! |
Anonymous
13 Ivy and 6 Ivy+ posted and at least 3 others still deciding between Ivys yet to post. |
Anonymous
He’s 36 out of 36 on math section as well as 2 others so not sure why he’s not semi-finalist. I emailed the school |
Anonymous
Good. The school is in a better position to explain what happened to you than DCUM. |