The Potomac School - 2016 College List?

[Anonymous]

I think U of C's class size is a little over 1600 these days, but, yes that does seem like a surprisingly large number from a small group of schools. OTOH, U of C is tied for number 4 with Stanford and Columbia on USNWR's current ranking and has made a big push to compete with HYP for top students. Meanwhile, as HYP becomes harder to get into and shifts its focus toward attracting first gen and lower-income students, you have students at elite private schools who can't count on legacy to get them in and are looking for alternatives. So there's a kind of synergy here that makes these kids attractive to U of C and U of C attractive to these kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell tends to get about 30 kids into the Ivies each year, and this year is the same. If you add in Chicago and Stanford, the number goes past 40.

Chicago is a great school, probably more rigorous than most Ivies, but it can be grueling. Not for everyone.

As for sports recruits, most of Sidwell's recruits are very strong students -- getting good grades in top classes. Sports definitely helps, but all those kids certainly were in the tier of kids who would have been encouraged to apply to Ivies.

Why in the world do they not publish their list?

Sidwell does publish its list, but just doesn't post it on the Internet. A PP posted this note last week on a Post article summarizing Sidwell's results. A little less stunning than the 30 to Ivies and 10+ to Stanford and Chicago listed above. In 2012, looks closer to 17 than to 40+:


"Apparently, Sidwell does publish its results. A quick internet search shows this article giving the numbers for Sidwell's class of 2012: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggl...e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_blog.html The Post article quotes the Sidwell alumni magazine on the numbers: "The magazine said two Ivy schools, Brown and Harvard, will be getting at least four Sidwell grads, but so will NYU, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Michigan and Tufts. Two other Ivies, Columbia and Penn, will get three Sidwell grads each. The other colleges in that category were Boston College, Emory, Georgetown, Occidental, and the University of Chicago. The magazine failed to reveal if anyone got into Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth or Cornell."
So, at least in 2012, Sidwell had at least 14 going to Ivies (Brown 4, Harvard 4, Columbia 3, Penn 3, and the four other Ivies unknown--although presumably less than 3), and had 3 going to Chicago.
Of course, these are great numbers for a class of 123, but not the same as the numbers being thrown around here."

You know, of course, this is a bit dated. Last year they sent 18 kids just to Penn and Yale. The total Ivy number was in the low 30's. And in Stanford and Chicago and it was 40. This year, different mix but similar overall number.

This really isn't all that dated. It's from four graduating classes ago (basically Sidwell kids that just graduated from college last month). Unless you have more recent published data to put up against the data cited by the Post in 2012, it's hard not to be skeptical of claims that Ivy matriculations have basically doubled (while acknowledging that either 2012 or 2016 were aberrations---but your 2016 numbers still seem to be nothing more than word of mouth).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell tends to get about 30 kids into the Ivies each year, and this year is the same. If you add in Chicago and Stanford, the number goes past 40.

Chicago is a great school, probably more rigorous than most Ivies, but it can be grueling. Not for everyone.

As for sports recruits, most of Sidwell's recruits are very strong students -- getting good grades in top classes. Sports definitely helps, but all those kids certainly were in the tier of kids who would have been encouraged to apply to Ivies.

Why in the world do they not publish their list?

Sidwell does publish its list, but just doesn't post it on the Internet. A PP posted this note last week on a Post article summarizing Sidwell's results. A little less stunning than the 30 to Ivies and 10+ to Stanford and Chicago listed above. In 2012, looks closer to 17 than to 40+:


"Apparently, Sidwell does publish its results. A quick internet search shows this article giving the numbers for Sidwell's class of 2012: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggl...e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_blog.html The Post article quotes the Sidwell alumni magazine on the numbers: "The magazine said two Ivy schools, Brown and Harvard, will be getting at least four Sidwell grads, but so will NYU, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Michigan and Tufts. Two other Ivies, Columbia and Penn, will get three Sidwell grads each. The other colleges in that category were Boston College, Emory, Georgetown, Occidental, and the University of Chicago. The magazine failed to reveal if anyone got into Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth or Cornell."
So, at least in 2012, Sidwell had at least 14 going to Ivies (Brown 4, Harvard 4, Columbia 3, Penn 3, and the four other Ivies unknown--although presumably less than 3), and had 3 going to Chicago.
Of course, these are great numbers for a class of 123, but not the same as the numbers being thrown around here."

You know, of course, this is a bit dated. Last year they sent 18 kids just to Penn and Yale. The total Ivy number was in the low 30's. And in Stanford and Chicago and it was 40. This year, different mix but similar overall number.

This really isn't all that dated. It's from four graduating classes ago (basically Sidwell kids that just graduated from college last month). Unless you have more recent published data to put up against the data cited by the Post in 2012, it's hard not to be skeptical of claims that Ivy matriculations have basically doubled (while acknowledging that either 2012 or 2016 were aberrations---but your 2016 numbers still seem to be nothing more than word of mouth).

Lame attempt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell tends to get about 30 kids into the Ivies each year, and this year is the same. If you add in Chicago and Stanford, the number goes past 40.

Chicago is a great school, probably more rigorous than most Ivies, but it can be grueling. Not for everyone.

As for sports recruits, most of Sidwell's recruits are very strong students -- getting good grades in top classes. Sports definitely helps, but all those kids certainly were in the tier of kids who would have been encouraged to apply to Ivies.

Why in the world do they not publish their list?

Sidwell does publish its list, but just doesn't post it on the Internet. A PP posted this note last week on a Post article summarizing Sidwell's results. A little less stunning than the 30 to Ivies and 10+ to Stanford and Chicago listed above. In 2012, looks closer to 17 than to 40+:


"Apparently, Sidwell does publish its results. A quick internet search shows this article giving the numbers for Sidwell's class of 2012: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggl...e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_blog.html The Post article quotes the Sidwell alumni magazine on the numbers: "The magazine said two Ivy schools, Brown and Harvard, will be getting at least four Sidwell grads, but so will NYU, Swarthmore, Wesleyan, Michigan and Tufts. Two other Ivies, Columbia and Penn, will get three Sidwell grads each. The other colleges in that category were Boston College, Emory, Georgetown, Occidental, and the University of Chicago. The magazine failed to reveal if anyone got into Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth or Cornell."
So, at least in 2012, Sidwell had at least 14 going to Ivies (Brown 4, Harvard 4, Columbia 3, Penn 3, and the four other Ivies unknown--although presumably less than 3), and had 3 going to Chicago.
Of course, these are great numbers for a class of 123, but not the same as the numbers being thrown around here."

You know, of course, this is a bit dated. Last year they sent 18 kids just to Penn and Yale. The total Ivy number was in the low 30's. And in Stanford and Chicago and it was 40. This year, different mix but similar overall number.

This really isn't all that dated. It's from four graduating classes ago (basically Sidwell kids that just graduated from college last month). Unless you have more recent published data to put up against the data cited by the Post in 2012, it's hard not to be skeptical of claims that Ivy matriculations have basically doubled (while acknowledging that either 2012 or 2016 were aberrations---but your 2016 numbers still seem to be nothing more than word of mouth).

Lame attempt.

Lame? Not PP and no dog in this fight (my kids are still in a K-8), but I hope you can understand why some find fishy the ever more impressive Sidwell college matriculation numbers--always based on the reliable reporting of a Sidwell student to his or her DCUM poster parent.

I did a search of this forum and the only PUBLISHED report of Sidwell's exmissions for a specific graduating class is the Post's article cited earlier for the not-too-long ago class of 2012 (after all, Potomac publishes its combined matriculation list for 2011-2015, so the actual subject of this chain doesn't consider 2012 a long time ago). So let's compare the Post's report to numbers provided by anonymous DCUM posters:

Anonymous poster says Sidwell's Ivy matriculations for 2016 are 30. Post lists 14 Ivy matriculations from Sidwell in 2012.
Anonymous poster says Sidwell's Ivy matriculations for 2015 are in "low 30s." Again, Post lists 14 Ivy matriculations from Sidwell three years earlier.
Multiple anonymous posters say Sidwell's Chicago matriculations for 2016 are 10. Post lists 3 Chicago matriculations from Sidwell in 2012.
Multiple anonymous posters say Sidwell's Stanford matriculations for 2016 are 3. Post says Stanford didn't even make it into Sidwell's reporting on its matriculations in 2012.
Anonymous poster says Sidwell's matriculations at Yale and Penn for 2015 are 18. Post says Sidwell sent 3 to Penn, and Yale didn't even make it into Sidwell's reporting on its matriculations in 2012.

Now do you see why anonymous parent reporting seems a little BSish?

Of course, there could be possible explanations, such as the 2012 class was embarrassingly subpar or that college admissions directors are so smitten with the Obamas that they will admit anyone who may have rubbed shoulders with them in high school, but without any published data, it seems reasonable to be suspicious of claims of unpublished numbers that are all roughly double the only published numbers.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, my neighbor's kid goes to Sidwell, so I've seen the quarterly school magazine or whatever it is that comes in the mail. It had a short writeup on college admissions that sounds very similar to that Washington Post piece that someone posted. If the one I saw is any guide, even the magazine writeup circulated to Sidwell people is pretty sparse. It's not comprehensive. Just lists things like the school with the most students attending (something like 8-10 to Michigan in the one I saw), the number of students going to each of several Quaker schools (including Penn), the numbers going to each of a few far-away California schools (like Stanford), and maybe a few other assorted colleges. If you tried to use a writeup like that to estimate how many students are going to Ivy or other top colleges, you'd be missing the mark.

HTH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous poster says Sidwell's matriculations at Yale and Penn for 2015 are 18. Post says Sidwell sent 3 to Penn, and Yale didn't even make it into Sidwell's reporting on its matriculations in 2012.

Now do you see why anonymous parent reporting seems a little BSish?

It was pretty thoroughly discussed last year, and confirmed here by many posters (albeit anonymous) that Sidwell had something like 11 students going to Yale in the 2015 class. So saying Yale+Penn=18 doesn't seem like a stretch to me. Can't speak to the other numbers.

My two cents - Speaking personally, I'd say Sidwell's a school lots of really smart kids attend. There are a few other private schools in the DC area that are considered in the same general tier of school, like NCS and St Albans and maybe GDS or Maret. I'd assume those high schools "compete" for many (but obviously not all) bright and accomplished students. So I'd also assume they all send those bright and accomplished students to a similar mix of top colleges each year. I'm sure there are year-to-year variations, but I'd bet they even out over time. Those same private schools seem to have been considered the top schools in DC for 30+ years now, so I doubt there's much change over time relative to one another. So for example, if you see 25-30% of NCS students going to top colleges, I'd bet that about 25-30% of the students from Sidwell and St Albans are going to top colleges too.

That's maybe rougher and less-precise that people here want, and it lends itself less to comparison and bragging because it suggests rough parity, but I'd bet it's pretty accurate if all the numbers were magically revealed. Also, in the end, do you really care how some other kids did? Don't you really just care about how your own 1-3 kids will do?

[Anonymous]

Its silly to keep arguing about this. The Sidwell parents who have a kid going to an ivy or any other college know how many other kids are matriculating with them because Sidwell is a small school and once the kids decide where they will go, they immediately identify which class members are going to the same college. So in our case, our kid is one of six going to Dartmouth this year. And last year 10 or 11 kids did go to Yale. Last year there was a photo circulating with most of them in their Yale shirts on Shirt day. This year the guidance counselors told the seniors not to expect that Yale would take 10, but Chicago did. I agree that Sidwell's numbers as a percentage are probably very similar to NCS, which has a similarly rigorous reputation.

The only difference of opinion I have with the above poster is the implicit idea that these kids are smart and would go to great colleges anyway, even if they went to a less rigorous high school. I know for my kid that is not true. Entering Sidwell as a bright and motivated kid from a good public school, my kid's scores were good, but not outstanding and he was an OK writer. At Sidwell, he had to study consistently 3 hours per night and on the weekend to keep up, ( Im not sure that this level of difficulty is required for a rigorous program). He graduated with almost perfect scores and the ability to write quickly and coherently. So I credit the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only difference of opinion I have with the above poster is the implicit idea that these kids are smart and would go to great colleges anyway, even if they went to a less rigorous high school. I know for my kid that is not true. Entering Sidwell as a bright and motivated kid from a good public school, my kid's scores were good, but not outstanding and he was an OK writer. At Sidwell, he had to study consistently 3 hours per night and on the weekend to keep up, ( Im not sure that this level of difficulty is required for a rigorous program). He graduated with almost perfect scores and the ability to write quickly and coherently. So I credit the school.

I'm the PP you're referring to, and I agree with your point. I wasn't trying to suggest that it doesn't matter at all where the kids go to school. A smart kid at a less rigorous school might not fulfill his potential. Or similarly, a kid at even a rigorous school that's just a bad fit for the particular child might not do as well as in another environment (for example if a child needs structure but the school is unstructured). I'd say though that all of the schools I discussed are pretty similarly rigorous, so as long as the basic structure is not a problem, the match will be fine for most kids.

As a spin-off point, I wonder if the structure is why Sidwell in particular seems to do well among those schools. According to reputation at least, it has a rigorous structure without many distinguishing factors that might turn off kids. St Albans and NCS have the single-sex thing, which might be a difficult environment for some kids. GDS has that whole unstructured vibe, which might not fit some kids. AFAIK, which admittedly isn't much, Sidwell's "distinctive feature" is Quakerism, which I've never thought of as likely to generate a bad fit with anyone. So at St Albans or NCS or GDS, maybe 95% of kids do fine, but 5% will be turned off by the particulars of the structure. But at Sidwell, 100% will do fine and none will be turned off by the environment. Not sure if that makes any sense - maybe not because the 5% who can't mesh with the environment could just switch schools. Interesting to consider though.

[Anonymous]

Not all smart kids are a good fit for Sidwell US. If a very bright child is anxious or very quiet it might not be a good fit. Although the classes are orderly and the kids are well behaved, the teachers expect that the kids will participate actively in discussions and stand up to verbal give and take. This is part of the learning process. Also becuase of grade deflation, a kids who is going to worry a lot about getting Bs will be miserable there. It is a good fit for bright, hardworking, outgoing kids, self-confident types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, my neighbor's kid goes to Sidwell, so I've seen the quarterly school magazine or whatever it is that comes in the mail. It had a short writeup on college admissions that sounds very similar to that Washington Post piece that someone posted. If the one I saw is any guide, even the magazine writeup circulated to Sidwell people is pretty sparse. It's not comprehensive. Just lists things like the school with the most students attending (something like 8-10 to Michigan in the one I saw), the number of students going to each of several Quaker schools (including Penn), the numbers going to each of a few far-away California schools (like Stanford), and maybe a few other assorted colleges. If you tried to use a writeup like that to estimate how many students are going to Ivy or other top colleges, you'd be missing the mark.

HTH

That sounds kinda stalkerish, LOL! Or do most people read their neighbors' mail?

[Anonymous]

So going back to the OP's original question.... it does seem strange that a school would not publish the colleges that it's students are admitted to - no dog in this fight but why would a school not provide that data? Surely prospective kids and families want/need to know this kind of information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So going back to the OP's original question.... it does seem strange that a school would not publish the colleges that it's students are admitted to - no dog in this fight but why would a school not provide that data? Surely prospective kids and families want/need to know this kind of information.

Please find the 1,000 other threads on this same point. I am sure that it occurred to them and they decided differently. It is hard to argue that the school has suffered because of this choice.

[Anonymous]

Plus, I thought that the OP's original question related to Potomac. All of this talk of Sidwell is tiring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GDS's matriculation list (or a map) is usually published in the Fall magazine. Here's a link for the Class of 2015.

https://issuu.com/jasonstpeter/docs/gds-fallmag_annualreport-1218draft

Interesting list. I'd say the list is a lot broader than my kids' school, but they get a decent number of kids into top schools.

We are talking about class of 2016 not 2015. All schools mentioned did well in 15, it is 16 that the drop off happened for all schools other than NCS. Not an NCS parent but a Holton Parent.

The Holton list for 2016 is out. So I have no idea what PP was talking about...

https://www.holton-arms.edu/scholar/college-counseling/matriculation