Is it true that Sidwell students don't graduate with a GPA?

[Anonymous]

How does that work for colleges?

[Anonymous]

I attended a private school that didn't use GPAs or rank us. On our college applications we were told to put uncalculated and unranked in those boxes. It certainly didn't affect our college admissions. If it's a strong, reputable school, as Sidwell is, I doubt it matters at all in terms of college admissions.

[Anonymous]

My private school did not use GPAs or rankings, nor did my undergrad (Brown). Never mattered (got into law school without a real GPA, just a transcript).

[Anonymous]

Have a friend who went to a public HS that was so competitive, they did the same thing. She's a department chair at a university now.

[Anonymous]

The transcripts are sent to whatever colleges and universities the student apply. Being a Quaker school, they just don't use class ranks.

[Anonymous]

Potomac School doesn't do GPA or ranking either - which I think is great!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I attended a private school that didn't use GPAs or rank us. On our college applications we were told to put uncalculated and unranked in those boxes. It certainly didn't affect our college admissions. If it's a strong, reputable school, as Sidwell is, I doubt it matters at all in terms of college admissions.

Ditto for me. Our private HS also didn't rank its students but most colleges knew of our school's reputation for producing students who were more than ready for college.

[Anonymous]

Not listing class rank doesn't mean a student can't calculate his/her own GPA. They're two different things, class rank and GPA.

[Anonymous]

Well, of course, but it means that the constant "what is my GPA? or Oh no, I'm down to a 3.87" doesn't hang over their heads. The GPA was something that my son didn't have to deal with until college apps and Potomac just gave them the corresponding values and let them do it.

[Anonymous]

Well of course, I agree, but but re-read the subject line. This is really about class rank, not GPA. And what to college counselors tell students at schools that don't use a class rank model? Do colleges calculate GPA anyway?

[Anonymous]

Sidwell hasn't had class rank for a long time - at least back to my time there in the 70's. We did, however, have Sidwell Scholars, which I think represented the top 10 or 20 pecent of the class. So they had class rank then but they didn't publish it. Not sure about GPAs. I am pretty sure we had them or knew them when I was there.

[Anonymous]

My independent school in Baltimore had a full-time college counselor who not only worked with each student to determine where to apply, but also cultivated relationships with admissions counselors so that she could walk them through the grading system in our school and show them how we measured up to students from the big high schools that rank and calculate. She spend much of the year traveling in order to put on her one-woman show about the school. Once the applications were in, she checked back with the admissions committees to explain the relative position of each applicant within our class. For a tiny girls' school in Baltimore, we had fantastic admissions, which I attribute in part to her work.

Looking back, it's amazing to me how many resources I had at my disposal because my parents could send me to that school.

[Anonymous]

When I was at Harvard, lo these many years ago, they not only calculated GPAs themselves, they used high-school specific multipliers (inflators and deflators) based on their experience with students who enrolled. At least that's what we heard at the time from someone who should know (he prepared the school's amicus brief in Bakke).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My independent school in Baltimore had a full-time college counselor who not only worked with each student to determine where to apply, but also cultivated relationships with admissions counselors so that she could walk them through the grading system in our school and show them how we measured up to students from the big high schools that rank and calculate. She spend much of the year traveling in order to put on her one-woman show about the school. Once the applications were in, she checked back with the admissions committees to explain the relative position of each applicant within our class. For a tiny girls' school in Baltimore, we had fantastic admissions, which I attribute in part to her work.

Looking back, it's amazing to me how many resources I had at my disposal because my parents could send me to that school.

Yeah, I was shocked to hear about the resources devoted to college admissions by my DC's school. It's still years away for us, but, wow, what a leg up these kids get. I don't think it helps all of the kids maximize their odds of admission to their first-choice schools (e.g a kid that could have been at the top of his/her high school class elsewhere but is one of a couple dozen in an elite private school and who isn't a legacy, might have less chance of getting admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton despite great counseling). But it seems to ensure that the worst case scenario is pretty damn good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My independent school in Baltimore had a full-time college counselor who not only worked with each student to determine where to apply, but also cultivated relationships with admissions counselors so that she could walk them through the grading system in our school and show them how we measured up to students from the big high schools that rank and calculate. She spend much of the year traveling in order to put on her one-woman show about the school. Once the applications were in, she checked back with the admissions committees to explain the relative position of each applicant within our class. For a tiny girls' school in Baltimore, we had fantastic admissions, which I attribute in part to her work.

Looking back, it's amazing to me how many resources I had at my disposal because my parents could send me to that school.

Yeah, I was shocked to hear about the resources devoted to college admissions by my DC's school. It's still years away for us, but, wow, what a leg up these kids get. I don't think it helps all of the kids maximize their odds of admission to their first-choice schools (e.g a kid that could have been at the top of his/her high school class elsewhere but is one of a couple dozen in an elite private school and who isn't a legacy, might have less chance of getting admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton despite great counseling). But it seems to ensure that the worst case scenario is pretty damn good.

That is EXACTLY RIGHT and is really the advantage of a top private school education over public (from a college admissions standpoint). Those graduating in the 30%-50% at public go on to community college, maybe. Those graduating in the 30%-50% at private go on to a top 50 university or top small liberal arts college... maybe not Harvard or Stanford, but places like Duke, Emory, William & Mary, Wake Forest, Williams, etc.

This does not get discussed enough on this board.