Has your first choice school changed since you started applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think GDS has like 15 truly open spots for 9th grade this year. Someone on here asked admissions and they said 7 girl spots, 7 boy spots. Admissions must know this as they have to then interview 400 kids who won't make it. It must seem like a waste of time to them.

This makes sense, but it sounds like they're solving it the worst possible way. It would be kinder to all involved to do a first screen of applications and invite a smaller group for interviews. No need to waste everyone's time - staff and families - interviewing kids who don't have any chance of admissions, either because they're not qualified, they help balance the existing class, or something else. Instead they're putting a lot of kids and families through an unpleasant experience with burned out staff and creating a generally negative impression of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What were the GDS essay questions?

I’m curious too!

How would you describe your philosophy of life – your personal commitments, set of guiding principles, or deepest beliefs?

How do you like to spend your time outside of school?

What academic subjects most inspire you? Why?

Write about a change you’d like to make in your school or neighborhood community.

Describe a time when you encountered a particularly challenging situation. What was challenging about it, and how did you respond?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think GDS has like 15 truly open spots for 9th grade this year. Someone on here asked admissions and they said 7 girl spots, 7 boy spots. Admissions must know this as they have to then interview 400 kids who won't make it. It must seem like a waste of time to them.

This makes sense, but it sounds like they're solving it the worst possible way. It would be kinder to all involved to do a first screen of applications and invite a smaller group for interviews. No need to waste everyone's time - staff and families - interviewing kids who don't have any chance of admissions, either because they're not qualified, they help balance the existing class, or something else. Instead they're putting a lot of kids and families through an unpleasant experience with burned out staff and creating a generally negative impression of the school.

Such a good idea in general!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah ours changed drastically based on the admissions interviews and our interactions with the school. Our original top choice was just awful during the interview process, and we had separate interviews for two kids, each with different admissions officers. In both interviews, the interviewers gave off big "IDGAF" energy. They barely wanted to get to know us or our kids, one just talked at us and the other was barely engaged.

And then our last choice school, the one that we threw in last minute turned out to be really great. Our daughter liked her interactions with the school and we really liked our conversation. We still haven't been able to visit in person b/c of COVID so if we get in, we'll have to figure out if the online vibe matches the in-person one.

I am still shocked though by our formally first choice school. Like I know you are a highly sought after school, but I would imagine that a LOT of parents (and kids) are turned off by that kind of attitude.

Is this gds?

Not pp, but I could have written this and our top choice was GDS. I don’t know what to make of the parent interview, but seemed as though the interviewer was just checking the boxes but not really interested in getting to know us.

Yeah. Us too.

[Anonymous]

+1: MS application for GDS: the admissions officer was doing a Power Point show and tell during the parents’ interview. A real waste of our time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think GDS has like 15 truly open spots for 9th grade this year. Someone on here asked admissions and they said 7 girl spots, 7 boy spots. Admissions must know this as they have to then interview 400 kids who won't make it. It must seem like a waste of time to them.

This makes sense, but it sounds like they're solving it the worst possible way. It would be kinder to all involved to do a first screen of applications and invite a smaller group for interviews. No need to waste everyone's time - staff and families - interviewing kids who don't have any chance of admissions, either because they're not qualified, they help balance the existing class, or something else. Instead they're putting a lot of kids and families through an unpleasant experience with burned out staff and creating a generally negative impression of the school.

Such a good idea in general!

This seems off. They generally take 50 kids for 9th, so 35 are already allocated to siblings? Don’t most siblings join in younger years at a k-12? If it truly is only 15 spots, what a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1: MS application for GDS: the admissions officer was doing a Power Point show and tell during the parents’ interview. A real waste of our time.

Same. Not to mention that our DD had to sit through the entire HOUR LONG presentation while the admissions person talked at us with large words and comments that were too high level for a MS age kid to understand.

I got the impression they were only looking for the social climber types who would look past the shitty treatment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1: MS application for GDS: the admissions officer was doing a Power Point show and tell during the parents’ interview. A real waste of our time.

Same. Not to mention that our DD had to sit through the entire HOUR LONG presentation while the admissions person talked at us with large words and comments that were too high level for a MS age kid to understand.

I got the impression they were only looking for the social climber types who would look past the shitty treatment.

We applied for lower school and same. It became apparent it wasn't about getting to know the applicant or giving a good impression of the school. It's a hefty investment but guess they dont give af as the line is long. Not the kind of vibe we were expecting.

[Anonymous]

We must be in the minority. Our interview for HS was literally like 2 hours long and felt like it was a nice conversation. We aren’t connected in any way. We also appreciated the open houses. There seemed to be really good rapport between the students and teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We must be in the minority. Our interview for HS was literally like 2 hours long and felt like it was a nice conversation. We aren’t connected in any way. We also appreciated the open houses. There seemed to be really good rapport between the students and teachers.

Are you talking about the virtual open houses? GDS did not have any in person open houses this admissions season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think GDS has like 15 truly open spots for 9th grade this year. Someone on here asked admissions and they said 7 girl spots, 7 boy spots. Admissions must know this as they have to then interview 400 kids who won't make it. It must seem like a waste of time to them.

This makes sense, but it sounds like they're solving it the worst possible way. It would be kinder to all involved to do a first screen of applications and invite a smaller group for interviews. No need to waste everyone's time - staff and families - interviewing kids who don't have any chance of admissions, either because they're not qualified, they help balance the existing class, or something else. Instead they're putting a lot of kids and families through an unpleasant experience with burned out staff and creating a generally negative impression of the school.

Such a good idea in general!

This seems off. They generally take 50 kids for 9th, so 35 are already allocated to siblings? Don’t most siblings join in younger years at a k-12? If it truly is only 15 spots, what a waste of time.

They take 30 kids for 9th, allocate half of those spots to siblings and split the remaining half between boys and girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We applied to a K-12 and a K-8. The K-12 was initially my top choice but I am thinking more strongly about the K-8 now, followed by our strong public HS. Saves $200k and hopefully better college outcome? We’ll see what happens

This is the route we are going. I think private when young ,to learn how to learn, and public for activities and easier college acceptance, is the way to go.

[Anonymous]

They take about 50 for 9th, not 30.

[Anonymous]

The school I had ranked #3 going in is now #1 for DS, who has applied for admission to 9th grade. Much of it comes down to whether or not the school offered an in-person open house and/or shadow day. DS feels little connection or affinity to any school that did not provide the opportunity to go on campus and to spend time with current students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school I had ranked #3 going in is now #1 for DS, who has applied for admission to 9th grade. Much of it comes down to whether or not the school offered an in-person open house and/or shadow day. DS feels little connection or affinity to any school that did not provide the opportunity to go on campus and to spend time with current students.

The cathedral schools are the only ones that we applied to that did an in person visit tour