Sidwell College Admissions This Year

[Anonymous]

Here’s an exercise: one year later none of this will matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. Sidwell kids seem to have great choices so far based on the Instagram account, which admittedly doesn’t have a lot of data yet. Are the kids who have not yet posted shut out of all their targets? For those posters who are angry, what outcome would allow you to say that it was a successful year?

Obviously their student was rejected by a top desired school and they are struggling with anger over the rejection.

With due respect, not so interested in speculation but rather from posters with direct knowledge of the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College admissions have been unpredictable and sometimes shocking. But Sidwell students have been well prepared to succeed wherever they go. College isn't the end goal. It's just another step. They will all be fine.

This may all be true, but it’s also a distraction in the context of this discussion. This is the kind of nonsense that Mamadou and the school trots out, consistent with its arrogant and dismissive tone towards parents. It is a very convenient way to deflect any scrutiny of the school.

“Shocking” results are not OK just because the kids are well prepared. Saying that they will all be fine in this context suggests that college placement doesn’t matter.

It matters but not to the extent of the drama on dcum. Shocking, bloodbath, carnage....come on. That is overly dramatic nonsense. There are way too many applicants for way too few spots. The math is the math regardless if you learned the math at a fancy private school or anywhere else.

Agreed. We've had multiple kids in the US recently. The process now sucks for most applicants from Big 3 high schools. The truth is the selective colleges don't want these kids anymore and there's nothing we can do about it. I think it's their loss. I'm not a Sidwell kool aid drinker, but based on what i've seen from my older kids and their friends, these students are so well prepared to be engaged, curious, thoughtful and productive members of society. I'm proud of the people they're becoming. I understand the pain of working so hard and now having to go to what feels like a second tier school, but there's only so much you can control.

I think they're great kids, but the students that many colleges are now prioritizing are ALSO great kids, and we all benefit from institutions of higher learning that bring together a broad range of experiences, identities, and perspectives and support social mobility (where the US doesn't even rank in the top 25 worldwide). Not to mention that first-generation college students, to take one example, still represent a small minority at most schools. The majority of the slots continue to go to traditionally preferred applicants. In Yale's class of 2025, nearly 1/3 of students who attended high school in the US attended an independent day or boarding school. (6% attended a religious school.) Secular private schools educate only 2-3% of students nationwide.

Is this causing me a lot of private angst as a private school parent? Yes. Do I think colleges are doing the right thing? Yes. (Now if only they would get rid of those athlete slots... )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College admissions have been unpredictable and sometimes shocking. But Sidwell students have been well prepared to succeed wherever they go. College isn't the end goal. It's just another step. They will all be fine.

This may all be true, but it’s also a distraction in the context of this discussion. This is the kind of nonsense that Mamadou and the school trots out, consistent with its arrogant and dismissive tone towards parents. It is a very convenient way to deflect any scrutiny of the school.

“Shocking” results are not OK just because the kids are well prepared. Saying that they will all be fine in this context suggests that college placement doesn’t matter.

Why is it Sidwell's fault that COVID prompted colleges to go test optional causing a steep decline in acceptance rates everywhere? All they can do is advise families of the landscape, which they did. The kids who were realistic about their options and chose a variety of schools that would make them happy, did fine. I have yet to hear about a senior who had no options.

IMO they did not advise families of the landscape or actually counsel families. “They will all be fine” is their crutch for not doing any meaningful, real advising or advocacy.

They absolutely did. Lauren was very clear from the beginning of junior year how COVID was changing things, how the then current class (2021) had to adjust and how it was very important not to focus on the reach+ schools but rather the targets and safeties. Sorry you didn't get the message. It was pretty clear at the time.

Sure, but this puts the burden onto the students entirely, rather than to say how the school will maximize opportunities in this situation.

The burden is on the students. That is who is getting to these places. A high school can't change that. A high school can make a kid into an athletic recruit? A development case? A published author or researcher? A musical virtuoso? Look at who these elite college admit? Great stats from a great high school is not enough.

The great high school education is to prepare the student to excel at the ultimate college destination. It cannot engineer that destination.

DP. I believe what pp was saying is that the school should provide real and meaningful individual counseling advice to students, and the school shouldn’t act as if it has no obligation to help engineer the best outcomes—which a school can still do. Partly by providing good advice, and partly through its advocacy for each student. Sidwell’s CCO appears not to believe it has a responsibility to play such a role. And if it does try, it clearly does not do a very good job at it.

This is what the pps were getting at with the “turbocharged” comments (also not mine). A good CCO can still do much more than just provide information and push paper to make sure deadlines are met. Sidwell’s CCO is not good.

Well, should they be? Public school kids don’t have access to a specialized “CCO”. Posts like this make me want our system to be like the Canadian university admissions process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this thread: Pot stirring spinster and incel trolls and jealous and unhappy low caste losers with a dipsh*t public school kid at JMU. SF parents don’t talk like this and don’t think about college in terms of tiers. That all teases out YOU are a pathetic striver who spends too much time on the internet and obsessing over status. SF kids can go to Tulane, USC, Michigan, Boston College, NYU, GU, Wake Forest or some LAC you’ve never heard of and will remain top of the heap. They will glide through college and become far more successful than your small minded unwashed spawn. Let’s be honest, what this really boils down to is you and your kids are unable to orbit anyone affiliated with SF. You’re on the outside looking in and it is a painful reminder of where you REALLY stand in life and society — and it is the rung your mediocre kids will remain.

That's where the envy really comes from. No amount of obsessively reading college forums or studying what you perceive to be "classy" conduct will ever get your children into an upper caste you so desperately crave. This is all futile and you know it. So you spam echo chamber forums like this with clueless and ignorant potshots, pretending to know anything, even going so far as to pretend to be a "Big 3" parent. A little hit of dopamine from your meta role play until your sloppy bald husband walks by with a hole in his sock, or you see the empty bottles of cheap wine in the kitchen, or you look outside and see your 2014 CR-V. Ah there it is, a reminder of where you REALLY stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an exercise: one year later none of this will matter.

Mamadou has entered the chat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. Sidwell kids seem to have great choices so far based on the Instagram account, which admittedly doesn’t have a lot of data yet. Are the kids who have not yet posted shut out of all their targets? For those posters who are angry, what outcome would allow you to say that it was a successful year?

Obviously their student was rejected by a top desired school and they are struggling with anger over the rejection.

With due respect, not so interested in speculation but rather from posters with direct knowledge of the situation.

Fair enough but there are lots of upset parents dealing with college rejections at this time of year. I know plenty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College admissions have been unpredictable and sometimes shocking. But Sidwell students have been well prepared to succeed wherever they go. College isn't the end goal. It's just another step. They will all be fine.

This may all be true, but it’s also a distraction in the context of this discussion. This is the kind of nonsense that Mamadou and the school trots out, consistent with its arrogant and dismissive tone towards parents. It is a very convenient way to deflect any scrutiny of the school.

“Shocking” results are not OK just because the kids are well prepared. Saying that they will all be fine in this context suggests that college placement doesn’t matter.

Why is it Sidwell's fault that COVID prompted colleges to go test optional causing a steep decline in acceptance rates everywhere? All they can do is advise families of the landscape, which they did. The kids who were realistic about their options and chose a variety of schools that would make them happy, did fine. I have yet to hear about a senior who had no options.

IMO they did not advise families of the landscape or actually counsel families. “They will all be fine” is their crutch for not doing any meaningful, real advising or advocacy.

They absolutely did. Lauren was very clear from the beginning of junior year how COVID was changing things, how the then current class (2021) had to adjust and how it was very important not to focus on the reach+ schools but rather the targets and safeties. Sorry you didn't get the message. It was pretty clear at the time.

Sure, but this puts the burden onto the students entirely, rather than to say how the school will maximize opportunities in this situation.

The burden is on the students. That is who is getting to these places. A high school can't change that. A high school can make a kid into an athletic recruit? A development case? A published author or researcher? A musical virtuoso? Look at who these elite college admit? Great stats from a great high school is not enough.

The great high school education is to prepare the student to excel at the ultimate college destination. It cannot engineer that destination.

DP. I believe what pp was saying is that the school should provide real and meaningful individual counseling advice to students, and the school shouldn’t act as if it has no obligation to help engineer the best outcomes—which a school can still do. Partly by providing good advice, and partly through its advocacy for each student. Sidwell’s CCO appears not to believe it has a responsibility to play such a role. And if it does try, it clearly does not do a very good job at it.

This is what the pps were getting at with the “turbocharged” comments (also not mine). A good CCO can still do much more than just provide information and push paper to make sure deadlines are met. Sidwell’s CCO is not good.

They cannot control the choice that so many students to make to apply to extremely competitive schools where they are extremely unlikely to gain admittance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this thread: Pot stirring spinster and incel trolls and jealous and unhappy low caste losers with a dipsh*t public school kid at JMU. SF parents don’t talk like this and don’t think about college in terms of tiers. That all teases out YOU are a pathetic striver who spends too much time on the internet and obsessing over status. SF kids can go to Tulane, USC, Michigan, Boston College, NYU, GU, Wake Forest or some LAC you’ve never heard of and will remain top of the heap. They will glide through college and become far more successful than your small minded unwashed spawn. Let’s be honest, what this really boils down to is you and your kids are unable to orbit anyone affiliated with SF. You’re on the outside looking in and it is a painful reminder of where you REALLY stand in life and society — and it is the rung your mediocre kids will remain.

That's where the envy really comes from. No amount of obsessively reading college forums or studying what you perceive to be "classy" conduct will ever get your children into an upper caste you so desperately crave. This is all futile and you know it. So you spam echo chamber forums like this with clueless and ignorant potshots, pretending to know anything, even going so far as to pretend to be a "Big 3" parent. A little hit of dopamine from your meta role play until your sloppy bald husband walks by with a hole in his sock, or you see the empty bottles of cheap wine in the kitchen, or you look outside and see your 2014 CR-V. Ah there it is, a reminder of where you REALLY stand.

Same poster?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. Sidwell kids seem to have great choices so far based on the Instagram account, which admittedly doesn’t have a lot of data yet. Are the kids who have not yet posted shut out of all their targets? For those posters who are angry, what outcome would allow you to say that it was a successful year?

Obviously their student was rejected by a top desired school and they are struggling with anger over the rejection.

With due respect, not so interested in speculation but rather from posters with direct knowledge of the situation.

Fair enough but there are lots of upset parents dealing with college rejections at this time of year. I know plenty.[/quote]

I bet there are more upset parents than upset seniors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an exercise: one year later none of this will matter.

To the upper caste at SF it does not matter now. This thread was likely created by and certainly the overwhelming majority of the responses are fueled by sorry saps who have zero affiliation to Sidwell. Likely no affiliation to any private school. I'd bet many do not even have children. It's the same unhinged trolls who spam the private school forum all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. Sidwell kids seem to have great choices so far based on the Instagram account, which admittedly doesn’t have a lot of data yet. Are the kids who have not yet posted shut out of all their targets? For those posters who are angry, what outcome would allow you to say that it was a successful year?

Obviously their student was rejected by a top desired school and they are struggling with anger over the rejection.

With due respect, not so interested in speculation but rather from posters with direct knowledge of the situation.

Fair enough but there are lots of upset parents dealing with college rejections at this time of year. I know plenty.[/quote]

I bet there are more upset parents than upset seniors.

Seniors are also upset but the parents are the ones in here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inside goss easy that this has been a pretty rough year at Sidwell. Some of the "best" students don't have strong options.

Disagree.

What do you consider options that are not strong?

Bumping this bc I think all of this is perspective. I know a Sidwell kid who was disappointed with their “safety,” which was a top 30 school with less than 10% admit rate. That kid has luckily shifted gears and now sees this is a great choice but to listen to parents this is the kind of “bloodbath” they are referencing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Seniors are also upset but the parents are the ones in here.

No, the chatter here is not reflective of SF families. It's sad trolls stirring the pot; trolls who likely have no affiliation with the school or any private school. Many of these responses detail creeping around social media accounts. This is not normal behavior, it's unstable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s an exercise: one year later none of this will matter.

Mamadou has entered the chat.

Ha ha..