Sidwell Paid a family $50K and agree to change grades??????????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shady student from a shady family. I’m sure the school signaled as much through teacher recommendations and perhaps unofficially through college counseling. Karma.

Probably. The teacher's recs were likely very lacking. Because they didn't like the kid. It happens. And it's totally fair. That's the point of recs and this would not be the first kid to get bad recs from teachers in college applications. I'm sure the teachers didn't write "AVOID AT ALL COST" on the recs but there are ways to write recommendations to show a lack of enthusiasm and college admissions officers can read between the lines easily. Mediocre recs from Sidwell says a lot, especially if we're dealing with a kid who'd otherwise be prime Ivy admit target (AA, Nigerian/immigration heritage, elite private school, good grades/scores). And who knows, maybe the teachers were even downright honest. I remember reading a college admissions handbook from my days applying to college that featured a real life admissions committee at a well-known school and I do remember the committee discussing a student whose teachers' recs admitted that while the student was a strong student, he was also pushy and rude. Of course he got rejected.

Same for Spelman. And Spelman may have also been yield protecting, assuming the girl would get into an Ivy and turn them down.

[Anonymous]

The family’s evidence of discrimination is that the child’s Math II and Calculus grades were incorrect on her original transcript. Part of the evidence of Math II discrimination is that the child’s 81% test grade was once raised to an 88% “in front of the entire class.” Um, I’ve taught and I’ve reviewed other teachers’ tests. Teachers make marking errors all the time. Sometimes they don’t see a student’s answer; the teacher marks the paper in error; or a test question is poorly written. Correcting the error is a good thing, and I’m sure other Math II students had errors corrected that year.

This family twice took Sidwell to arbitration while their children were enrolled. And the lawsuit gives a quotation from the dean that seems to show he was well fed up with them. There’s no way this young woman could get unbiased college recommendations from Sidwell. Then she applied to only top-tier colleges and universities, no safeties, though she did have at least one C on her transcript. Now the student is 23, and she and her family want to take this matter to a conservative Supreme Court. I have no doubt that the family feels like they’re getting justifiable revenge against Sidwell, but after reading the “Reasons for Granting the Petition” section, they look unhinged to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shady student from a shady family. I’m sure the school signaled as much through teacher recommendations and perhaps unofficially through college counseling. Karma.

Probably. The teacher's recs were likely very lacking. Because they didn't like the kid. It happens. And it's totally fair. That's the point of recs and this would not be the first kid to get bad recs from teachers in college applications. I'm sure the teachers didn't write "AVOID AT ALL COST" on the recs but there are ways to write recommendations to show a lack of enthusiasm and college admissions officers can read between the lines easily. Mediocre recs from Sidwell says a lot, especially if we're dealing with a kid who'd otherwise be prime Ivy admit target (AA, Nigerian/immigration heritage, elite private school, good grades/scores). And who knows, maybe the teachers were even downright honest. I remember reading a college admissions handbook from my days applying to college that featured a real life admissions committee at a well-known school and I do remember the committee discussing a student whose teachers' recs admitted that while the student was a strong student, he was also pushy and rude. Of course he got rejected.

Same for Spelman. And Spelman may have also been yield protecting, assuming the girl would get into an Ivy and turn them down.

Our college admissions system is broken or at least illogical in so many ways, whether it was Rick Singer gaming admissions through facilitating bribes to coaches and administrators, to the strange system of preferences and what makes a prime applicant.

One of the family's claimed injuries is that the school noted in its recommendation that the parents were from Nigeria, which in their mind could have weakened the daughter's affirmative action/URM boost at elite colleges (this was not the case). But think about it: the daughter of two Nigerian immigrants, one of whom is a medical doctor, gets a URM boost and is considered a "prime Ivy admit target." The daughter of a Bengladeshi immigrant factory worker would get no such affirmative action/URM preference.

[Anonymous]

Yup, so much corruption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The family’s evidence of discrimination is that the child’s Math II and Calculus grades were incorrect on her original transcript. Part of the evidence of Math II discrimination is that the child’s 81% test grade was once raised to an 88% “in front of the entire class.” Um, I’ve taught and I’ve reviewed other teachers’ tests. Teachers make marking errors all the time. Sometimes they don’t see a student’s answer; the teacher marks the paper in error; or a test question is poorly written. Correcting the error is a good thing, and I’m sure other Math II students had errors corrected that year.

This family twice took Sidwell to arbitration while their children were enrolled. And the lawsuit gives a quotation from the dean that seems to show he was well fed up with them. There’s no way this young woman could get unbiased college recommendations from Sidwell. Then she applied to only top-tier colleges and universities, no safeties, though she did have at least one C on her transcript. Now the student is 23, and she and her family want to take this matter to a conservative Supreme Court. I have no doubt that the family feels like they’re getting justifiable revenge against Sidwell, but after reading the “Reasons for Granting the Petition” section, they look unhinged to me.

I thought this too. Who doesn't apply to safeties with when doing Ivy's too. Teachers make mistakes all the time and they did correct it. I can see why they were upset over it being incorrect on a transcript but suing the school because she had no back up plan makes no sense. They probably spent a fortune on attorneys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The daughter of a Bengladeshi immigrant factory worker would get no such affirmative action/URM preference.

If such an applicant overcame financial or other adversity as a result of having non-URM immigrant factory worker parents, and wrote about this compellingly in an admissions essay, you're saying that this would not lead to any kind of diversity preference whatsoever?

[Anonymous]

Seems to me schools help difficult families and kids get into elite schools all the time, every year. In fact it is part of their attraction. So I can see why the family is crying foul. What's different about this family, v a hypothetical entitled but not overachieving white child from an American family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me schools help difficult families and kids get into elite schools all the time, every year. In fact it is part of their attraction. So I can see why the family is crying foul. What's different about this family, v a hypothetical entitled but not overachieving white child from an American family?

If you read all the way back to the original, amended complaint, they claim the same thing happened to their older daughter who only got accepted to Georgetown and Michigan because Sidwell was "not involved" in those applications. The whole thing makes no sense - they are lacking an understanding of the process (one of their claims is that Sidwell neglected to send an SAT II score to McGill when those scores don't even come from the school, but from the College Board - to which they did not submit a request) and their use of the legal system and the OHR to resolve (and escalate) conflict.

Also, she submitted her application to Spelman after the deadline and subsequently withdrew it - she was not rejected there. The other schools to which she applied were Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Harvard, Yale, McGill, UVA (where she was waitlisted), Penn, Brown, Princeton, Duke, Hopkins and CalTech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me schools help difficult families and kids get into elite schools all the time, every year. In fact it is part of their attraction. So I can see why the family is crying foul. What's different about this family, v a hypothetical entitled but not overachieving white child from an American family?

If you read all the way back to the original, amended complaint, they claim the same thing happened to their older daughter who only got accepted to Georgetown and Michigan because Sidwell was "not involved" in those applications. The whole thing makes no sense - they are lacking an understanding of the process (one of their claims is that Sidwell neglected to send an SAT II score to McGill when those scores don't even come from the school, but from the College Board - to which they did not submit a request) and their use of the legal system and the OHR to resolve (and escalate) conflict.

Also, she submitted her application to Spelman after the deadline and subsequently withdrew it - she was not rejected there. The other schools to which she applied were Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Harvard, Yale, McGill, UVA (where she was waitlisted), Penn, Brown, Princeton, Duke, Hopkins and CalTech.

So, they did not play by the rules and expected Sidwell to do things that they would not otherwise do for students, like send SAT scores. There are lots of entitled parents who act this way, though. Some parents outsource things that are really their purview in the college app process and just assume the school will handle it - and sometimes do. Did this family not get that special treatment, even just the reminder, follow up, etc that other kids got because they were difficult?

Just exploring options. In Sidwell's place, with a difficult family on child #2, I might have gone out of my way to be as buttoned up as possible and documented everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still find it hard to believe she was rejected at every school including the HBCU. Something isn't right. Sounds like Sidwell gave terrible recommendations. Glad she is at UPenn now. Also she was a track star at Sidwell and surprised she did not get in anywhere. The whole thing is so fishy.

I would agree if she hadn't applied to only the very top schools in the country. She admits (through the litigation) that she expected to rely on/benefit from affirmative action. Also, she wasn't rejected everywhere -- The appeals court decision says something about her being rejected or waitlisted or withdrawing applications from all the schools she applied to (but I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know which schools).

Schools like Sidwell want the students to succeed -- I don't think they want to lie to get kids into schools where they can't succeed. If they gave her "terrible" recommendations, which I doubt, it is entirely plausible that she deserved it.

Do private schools really write terrible recommendations for their own students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still find it hard to believe she was rejected at every school including the HBCU. Something isn't right. Sounds like Sidwell gave terrible recommendations. Glad she is at UPenn now. Also she was a track star at Sidwell and surprised she did not get in anywhere. The whole thing is so fishy.

I would agree if she hadn't applied to only the very top schools in the country. She admits (through the litigation) that she expected to rely on/benefit from affirmative action. Also, she wasn't rejected everywhere -- The appeals court decision says something about her being rejected or waitlisted or withdrawing applications from all the schools she applied to (but I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know which schools).

Schools like Sidwell want the students to succeed -- I don't think they want to lie to get kids into schools where they can't succeed. If they gave her "terrible" recommendations, which I doubt, it is entirely plausible that she deserved it.

Do private schools really write terrible recommendations for their own students?

Recs come from the teachers. I don't know how it works at every school. But a school with a strong record of sending students to the Ivies will likely be careful not to abuse the recommendations. Both teachers and Ivy admissions will have years of experience writing, reading and evaluating recommendations and can spot the genuinely enthusiastic from the humdrum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me schools help difficult families and kids get into elite schools all the time, every year. In fact it is part of their attraction. So I can see why the family is crying foul. What's different about this family, v a hypothetical entitled but not overachieving white child from an American family?

If you read all the way back to the original, amended complaint, they claim the same thing happened to their older daughter who only got accepted to Georgetown and Michigan because Sidwell was "not involved" in those applications. The whole thing makes no sense - they are lacking an understanding of the process (one of their claims is that Sidwell neglected to send an SAT II score to McGill when those scores don't even come from the school, but from the College Board - to which they did not submit a request) and their use of the legal system and the OHR to resolve (and escalate) conflict.

Also, she submitted her application to Spelman after the deadline and subsequently withdrew it - she was not rejected there. The other schools to which she applied were Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Harvard, Yale, McGill, UVA (where she was waitlisted), Penn, Brown, Princeton, Duke, Hopkins and CalTech.

Wow! 14 schools? I thought seniors apply to about 8 schools. Am I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Check out the college forum, on average students are applying to well over ten schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still find it hard to believe she was rejected at every school including the HBCU. Something isn't right. Sounds like Sidwell gave terrible recommendations. Glad she is at UPenn now. Also she was a track star at Sidwell and surprised she did not get in anywhere. The whole thing is so fishy.

I would agree if she hadn't applied to only the very top schools in the country. She admits (through the litigation) that she expected to rely on/benefit from affirmative action. Also, she wasn't rejected everywhere -- The appeals court decision says something about her being rejected or waitlisted or withdrawing applications from all the schools she applied to (but I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know which schools).

Schools like Sidwell want the students to succeed -- I don't think they want to lie to get kids into schools where they can't succeed. If they gave her "terrible" recommendations, which I doubt, it is entirely plausible that she deserved it.

Do private schools really write terrible recommendations for their own students?

If they do, and before they do, they should have counselled the student out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems to me schools help difficult families and kids get into elite schools all the time, every year. In fact it is part of their attraction. So I can see why the family is crying foul. What's different about this family, v a hypothetical entitled but not overachieving white child from an American family?

It may seem that way to you because you’re ignorant. An elite private isn’t going to damage its reputation with an elite college by advocating on behalf of a family of troublemakers.....regardless of race. But way to try and turn it into a racial motivation you utter mbecile.