School advising kids to "try again next year" regarding college applications

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ps. at GDS and Sidwell, CC offices stopped releasing the annual list and now just show last 5 years combined in any public document.

Again, this is not true. See the link below, pages 22-23 which shows the matriculations of the Class of ‘22 alone. I can’t speak to Sidwell, but this is a publicly available document on the GDS website and every family gets this mailed to their home.

https://issuu.com/georgetowndayschool/docs/cover-magazine-fall2022


And this link shows four years of matriculation, which is what they have always shown:

https://www.gds.org/academics/college-counseling/matriculation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

I heard that you are making sh*t up. What schools have released RD decisions?

Someone keeps making this point, but a lot of kids apply almost entirely EA. There are many schools where is you look at the scattergrams at NCS, plenty of students apply EA and no one applies RD, and they tend to be lower ranked schools that have become more unpredictable. So while I think results will shake out in March to be better than they are now, many kids have heard from a slew of EA schools and may not be waiting on many if any RD schools.

Many of the top schools don't even offer EA, or only do restrictive EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

I heard that you are making sh*t up. What schools have released RD decisions?

Someone keeps making this point, but a lot of kids apply almost entirely EA. There are many schools where is you look at the scattergrams at NCS, plenty of students apply EA and no one applies RD, and they tend to be lower ranked schools that have become more unpredictable. So while I think results will shake out in March to be better than they are now, many kids have heard from a slew of EA schools and may not be waiting on many if any RD schools.

Many of the top schools don't even offer EA, or only do restrictive EA.

But not everyone applies to top schools. And those who do apply to SCEA schools also apply to the big State schools with EA because that’s what they are permitted to apply to. My point is that this concern is not necessarily BS. Someone made the point earlier in this thread they are talking about schools ranked 75 and below. Just because this is not true for everyone does not mean it is not true for anyone. I think it’s fair to acknowledge that before accusing someone of “making sh*t up.” At this time of year, this already toxic board becomes more toxic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has been posted before but here is the class of 2021 and class of 2022 GDS acceptance list (based off of pubic Ig posts which for '22 were 90%+ of the class and 2021 were 50% of the class) - so NOT fullsome but pretty close directionally. List includes all college who took 2 or more GDS kids combined between 2021 and 2022. This is matriculations not all acceptances of course.

College Count
University of Michigan 8
Tufts 7
Wash U 7
Brown 6
NYU 6
Duke 5
Cornell 4
Harvard 4
Macalaster 4
Tulane 4
University of Toronto 4
University of Wisconsin 4
Boston College 3
Georgetown 3
UPenn 3
University of Chicago 3
Wesleyan 3
Yale 3
Barnard 2
Bates 2
Boston University 2
Bryn Mawr 2
Carnegie Mellon 2
Colby 2
Colgate 2
Hamilton 2
Middlebury 2
Northeastern 2
Rice 2
UC Davis 2
USC 2
UT Austin 2
University of Colorado - Boulder 2
University of St Andrews 2
Wake Forest 2
Wellesley 2
Williams 2

Acceptances or matriculations?

This isn’t helpful, some students could have multiple acceptances and this is over two years. Actual matriculation stats would be useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yes, kids are getting rejected at schools like Boulder, Auburn, Indiana, Penn State, etc. This was not happening even 2 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Yah, nope. Money is well spent regardless. To each their own.

One more time for the cheap seats: you do not send a kid to a private school, Big 3 or whatever, solely because you think it will increase their chances to get into an Ivy or the cream of the crop schools. If this is your attitude, you deserve to be disappointed.

One more time for the cheaper seats: we are not talking about "Ivy or cream of the crop schools". We are talking about kids getting rejected from all their picks ranked 75+.

Yes, kids are getting rejected at schools like Boulder, Auburn, Indiana, Penn State, etc. This was not happening even 2 years ago.

This area really screwed teens’ applications by shutting down everything for two years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does no one realize this is a dumb metric considering public covers a much wider range and percentile of abilities, socioeconomics, and even desire to attend college immediately following high school? Further public schools in this area could have a senior class 3x the size of a private school senior class.

Which is why anyone with half a brain usually makes comparisons involving specific public schools like Whitman, Langley, and Jackson-Reed which in many respects (e.g., full pay, Ivy legacies, recruited athletes in fringe sports) are fairly similar to the selective private schools around town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Hmmm. So it is the school's job to place your child in their dream school for college, or the experience wasn't worth anything? I disagree completely. I have a child at NCS/STA and I know my child will be beyond well prepared for college. They will start to visit schools next year or this summer and we will look at many different sorts of schools, not just those everyone else will apply to. If they are applying to "lower tier" schools they will be schools that are great fits with excellent programs that fit my child's personal goals and interests. Then no matter which application leads to an acceptance letter things will be okay. Will the option to transfer if need be be open, of course. A gap year, yes if there is a solid plan to make it worthwhile. But to say that four years of solid curriculum, athletics, arts and hard studying which led to great amounts of learning are meaningless if they don't get into Yale,etc? Well that, madam, is ridiculous and beside to point.

I feel bad for kids who aren't counseled to only to apply to schools they are excited to go to (in a variety of acceptance ranges). They can be found.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I heard from my kid that results are so bad this year at our (Big3) school that the college counseling office is now telling kids
to either take a gap year OR matriculate at a lower tier school and "try again next year".

Have you heard this? It is worrisome or typical advice?

If I spent 200k on a high school and that was the outcome, I'd want a refund

Hmmm. So it is the school's job to place your child in their dream school for college, or the experience wasn't worth anything? I disagree completely. I have a child at NCS/STA and I know my child will be beyond well prepared for college. They will start to visit schools next year or this summer and we will look at many different sorts of schools, not just those everyone else will apply to. If they are applying to "lower tier" schools they will be schools that are great fits with excellent programs that fit my child's personal goals and interests. Then no matter which application leads to an acceptance letter things will be okay. Will the option to transfer if need be be open, of course. A gap year, yes if there is a solid plan to make it worthwhile. But to say that four years of solid curriculum, athletics, arts and hard studying which led to great amounts of learning are meaningless if they don't get into Yale,etc? Well that, madam, is ridiculous and beside to point.

I feel bad for kids who aren't counseled to only to apply to schools they are excited to go to (in a variety of acceptance ranges). They can be found.

Maybe folks can perhaps explain the dichotomy between selecting a top private school for HS, but then in the same breath justifying a "lower tier" college.

There are tons of private schools in the DC area, and yet STA/NCS, Sidwell & (what is #3...GDS? Potomac?) are the equivalent of HYP in terms of how they are viewed on DCUM.

It just doesn't make a ton of sense that parents specifically sought out the HYP of private DC schools, and then claim it had nothing to do with where they went to college. It just feels like parents are trying to rationalize their kids' college results coming in below expectations based on attending the HYP or private DC schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh no, it's getting hard for even rich people to buy their way into selective colleges. Oh no.

+1
Boo hoo.

Anyone paying attention should have seen that college applications are up (thank you, Common App and test-optional), and there are too many applicants for admission to be much more than a lottery for many kids. And parents and counselors should have been telling kids this. And the advice to go to a school that you got into or take a gap year seems...obvious? What else can you do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that advising kids to matriculate to one of the schools that accepted them is hardly alarming advice, and that, if they are opposed to that then advising them that their other options are to take a gap year or go to a school that accepted them and try to transfer in a year is just speaking truth.

What else would you want them to say to a kid who chose their matches and safeties badly and is now upset at their options? Is there some other option missing?

I'd want to know how much input the counselor had in making the list and advising on which schools were safeties

But that doesn't matter for the current crop of kids. If you didn't get into one of your dream schools, then you either go to a school that accepted you, and try to transfer if you're not happy there, or you take a gap year and try again. What other possible advice could the counselor give?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ps. at GDS and Sidwell, CC offices stopped releasing the annual list and now just show last 5 years combined in any public document.

Again, this is not true. See the link below, pages 22-23 which shows the matriculations of the Class of ‘22 alone. I can’t speak to Sidwell, but this is a publicly available document on the GDS website and every family gets this mailed to their home.

https://issuu.com/georgetowndayschool/docs/cover-magazine-fall2022


And this link shows four years of matriculation, which is what they have always shown:

https://www.gds.org/academics/college-counseling/matriculation

Wait a minute the list you posted does not show how many per school...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has been posted before but here is the class of 2021 and class of 2022 GDS acceptance list (based off of pubic Ig posts which for '22 were 90%+ of the class and 2021 were 50% of the class) - so NOT fullsome but pretty close directionally. List includes all college who took 2 or more GDS kids combined between 2021 and 2022. This is matriculations not all acceptances of course.

College Count
University of Michigan 8
Tufts 7
Wash U 7
Brown 6
NYU 6
Duke 5
Cornell 4
Harvard 4
Macalaster 4
Tulane 4
University of Toronto 4
University of Wisconsin 4
Boston College 3
Georgetown 3
UPenn 3
University of Chicago 3
Wesleyan 3
Yale 3
Barnard 2
Bates 2
Boston University 2
Bryn Mawr 2
Carnegie Mellon 2
Colby 2
Colgate 2
Hamilton 2
Middlebury 2
Northeastern 2
Rice 2
UC Davis 2
USC 2
UT Austin 2
University of Colorado - Boulder 2
University of St Andrews 2
Wake Forest 2
Wellesley 2
Williams 2

Acceptances or matriculations?

matriculations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has been posted before but here is the class of 2021 and class of 2022 GDS acceptance list (based off of pubic Ig posts which for '22 were 90%+ of the class and 2021 were 50% of the class) - so NOT fullsome but pretty close directionally. List includes all college who took 2 or more GDS kids combined between 2021 and 2022. This is matriculations not all acceptances of course.

College Count
University of Michigan 8
Tufts 7
Wash U 7
Brown 6
NYU 6
Duke 5
Cornell 4
Harvard 4
Macalaster 4
Tulane 4
University of Toronto 4
University of Wisconsin 4
Boston College 3
Georgetown 3
UPenn 3
University of Chicago 3
Wesleyan 3
Yale 3
Barnard 2
Bates 2
Boston University 2
Bryn Mawr 2
Carnegie Mellon 2
Colby 2
Colgate 2
Hamilton 2
Middlebury 2
Northeastern 2
Rice 2
UC Davis 2
USC 2
UT Austin 2
University of Colorado - Boulder 2
University of St Andrews 2
Wake Forest 2
Wellesley 2
Williams 2

Acceptances or matriculations?

This isn’t helpful, some students could have multiple acceptances and this is over two years. Actual matriculation stats would be useful.

Read what I wrote. It’s matriculations. As I wrote. And the instagrams are up so feel free to find them.

And the number after the college name is the number of kids who matriculated.

Is there something else you wanted? A thank you would have been ok too. If you had bothered to read the post before firing your missile

[Anonymous]

This thread is my yearly reminder that if you choose private school for your child it should be because the school's mission an experience are true to your deeply embedded values. Like learning how to think in a critical and artful way, or because you like to be surrounded mostly by entitled privileged people. But definitely not for the guaranteed college admissions results, because these are never guaranteed.