Big 3 Nightmare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

Was not thinking about college admissions. However, if it restricts their college choices relative to other school options, many would consider pulling kids.

You could always send your kid to public school.

As you know, raising children is a lot more complex than college outcome. There are both great public schools and great private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

I think maybe you are missing the bigger picture. Many parents I know having their kids start K at least at SFS are doing it because they are hearing horror stories of kids not getting accepted in 6th or 9th grade...so they are sucking it up now under the theory it is easier at K (don't know if that is true). They are UMC..but they definitely have better things they would like to spend $50k+ than private school. I get it...no tears for them. Point is they don't necessarily have super strong ideas that their kids need expensive private school for elementary school.

If the HOS of Sidwell were to now come up to them, ask them where they went to college (they say State U)...maybe ask if either parent played a college sport (or higher)...and then were to tell them that 98% of kids from SFS accepted to a top school were either legacy, athletes or URM...and if college admissions remains the way it is today, your kid has little to no chance at those schools...well, I bet many of those parents might take a beat. If HOS then said, we have kids getting rejected EA from UMD or Auburn...then they may really take a beat.

Not saying they will go public school either...but maybe they find the $25k/year private because the perceived benefit of exclusive college admissions from the Big3 doesn't seem to exist.

So, I get it...13 years from now is an eternity. Admissions could definitely change and there is the belief that the college-age cohort is peaking right now and will be much lower in 13 years. So, yes things can change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

NP. Not at all for me. We left because my kid’s supposedly great public middle school assigned two books to read in three years and had kids vaping in classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

NP. Not at all for me. We left because my kid’s supposedly great public middle school assigned two books to read in three years and had kids vaping in classrooms.

That doesn't explain why you went to a Big 3. Plenty of private schools could solve for those problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

NP. Not at all for me. We left because my kid’s supposedly great public middle school assigned two books to read in three years and had kids vaping in classrooms.

That doesn't explain why you went to a Big 3. Plenty of private schools could solve for those problems.

Those privates aren’t worth paying for versus free public school. Schools like Bullis, Field & Flint Hill are public schools that you pay for to say your kid goes to private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

NP. Not at all for me. We left because my kid’s supposedly great public middle school assigned two books to read in three years and had kids vaping in classrooms.

That doesn't explain why you went to a Big 3. Plenty of private schools could solve for those problems.

We liked it the best and for us, the costs came out to be the same because of aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

NP. Not at all for me. We left because my kid’s supposedly great public middle school assigned two books to read in three years and had kids vaping in classrooms.

That doesn't explain why you went to a Big 3. Plenty of private schools could solve for those problems.

They're just as expensive as the Big3.

[Anonymous]

The reality at the BIg3 is that about 1/2 the kids are on aid. DCUM likes to joke that it's all the country club set but it's also a lot of financially vulnerable but hard working kids that you're laughing at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality at the BIg3 is that about 1/2 the kids are on aid. DCUM likes to joke that it's all the country club set but it's also a lot of financially vulnerable but hard working kids that you're laughing at.

Someone being "on aid" doesn't mean they are financially vulnerable--just that 50k/yr for K-12 is a big expense for even UMC.

And if they truly are financially vulnerable, those are the kids that are getting in to some of their top choices.

[Anonymous]

Students from umc public schools are also having a tougher time this go around so unless you are willing to send your kid to a failing school or move somewhere random, that’s life for the well off and unhooked in the test optional era. We are at a Baltimore private, and this year’s results aren’t horrible. I do feel like the college counselors did a great job preparing kids for the changed climate and a lot of kids who were unhooked were accepted to T15 to T40 schools that love ED (Tufts, BC, Middlebury, Swat, Wash U, Emory).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality at the BIg3 is that about 1/2 the kids are on aid. DCUM likes to joke that it's all the country club set but it's also a lot of financially vulnerable but hard working kids that you're laughing at.

Lol financially vulnerable. Being able to pay $26k/year but not $50k/year does not mean you’re “financially vulnerable.” At all.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Agree with the above. More or less. EA/Ed round was essentially URM/Athlete and big donors. RD (which proved to be redemptive last year) has been weak (at best) this year. Lots of heartbreak.


Also a Big 3 parent of senior who has been seeing this play out - times are changing.

To OP - please help your DC learn to love the schools that chose them. They have had a great foundation and are set up for success. How you frame this can help them mentally.

That said - I am not diminishing the unpleasant journey of this year in college admissions - on that point, I can commiserate.

This is what I have observed at my kid’s Big 3. The kids that got in ED to Ivy schools were almost exclusively athletes or legacy. Kids at the top of the class both academically and in terms of overall presence - class officers, ECs, etc. - were deferred in ED/REA, but were shut out in RD. Last year, it seemed that things turned around in RD for almost all of those top kids. This year, they are ending up at great schools, but not the “dream schools.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students from umc public schools are also having a tougher time this go around so unless you are willing to send your kid to a failing school or move somewhere random, that’s life for the well off and unhooked in the test optional era. We are at a Baltimore private, and this year’s results aren’t horrible. I do feel like the college counselors did a great job preparing kids for the changed climate and a lot of kids who were unhooked were accepted to T15 to T40 schools that love ED (Tufts, BC, Middlebury, Swat, Wash U, Emory).

“Failing schools” and “schools in the middle of nowhere” send very, very few kids to top colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much did college admissions weigh in your original decision to send your child to a Big 3? Many start far before high school, so the reasons for attending the school were not mostly about a great college, were they?

The strivers start in high school. The secure wealthy folks start in K.

My kid is at a basic public where we have no connections.

But I see this word "striver" all the time on here. What do you care if people are striving for the top echelon of eduction or work or whatever? Why does this bother you so much? I find it distasteful in a society where we are supped to -or at least told we do- value hard work and that hard work will pay off in increased education/money/standing, that people come in here bit---g that people are trying to do just that.

Don't worry about what other people are reaching for. Reaching high is a good thing. Being so judgmental about them doing so, is not so much. Grow up.

I see people being called tools and I say, since when is a tool not cool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality at the BIg3 is that about 1/2 the kids are on aid. DCUM likes to joke that it's all the country club set but it's also a lot of financially vulnerable but hard working kids that you're laughing at.

Someone being "on aid" doesn't mean they are financially vulnerable--just that 50k/yr for K-12 is a big expense for even UMC.

And if they truly are financially vulnerable, those are the kids that are getting in to some of their top choices.

I’m the PP who referred to aid and I would never call myself financially vulnerable. There are families at the school who are financially vulnerable and I would not insult them by pretending I am one of them. We get a small amount of aid, not a lot, but it makes the school hard but possible rather than impossible.