GDS and Sidwell comparison?

[Anonymous]

Sidwell college admissions a disaster this year in the early round...parents are up in arms. For some reason GDS and St Albans are doing better, not great but OK. It's a strange year but worth noting Sidwell College admissions have been in flux for several years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Twiddle dum and twiddle dee. Both good schools with great teachers but not necessarily geared for the STEM kid. Sidwell more mainstream in educational philosophy, more diverse students and better athletics while GDS is a little more innovative in terms of educational experience, more “woke”’ and more flexible curriculum than Sidwell. College admissions to the top schools is either legacy or $$$ or sports or some special hook. The regular smart but not super unique kid better set their sights on strong liberal arts colleges if they apply early decision. Both have super wealthy families and the middle class families in the donut hole feel squeezed with unabated tuition rises.

This might the most succinct and accurate post about these schools ever.

totally agree. Sidwell parent here

Historically, GDS has been the more diverse school. Today, they're similar in terms of diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell college admissions a disaster this year in the early round...parents are up in arms. For some reason GDS and St Albans are doing better, not great but OK. It's a strange year but worth noting Sidwell College admissions have been in flux for several years.

Really? I know of at least 30 kids from the grade who got in to their ED's. How is that a disaster?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I do not at this moment have a favorite, but one thing that I liked about GDS is the small class size and teacher ratio. Doesn’t that mean more individual attention? Sidwell has up to 20 kids in a class in elementary with one teacher (this was said twice during admissions process). I don’t know how many kids are in the GDS classrooms, but the website says the teacher student ratio is 6:1.

Did something change? When my child was in lower school at Sidwell, there were 2 teachers per class.

Yes. It has changed. It might revert after covid, but it's been like this for awhile

22 kids in a class is the same as public school. One of the reasons we want to make the switch (and I'd wager a lot of parents want to) is so DC has a smaller class size with more teacher engagement. 22 kids, really??

Again…yes, really.

The way the schedules work, and the kids are split up, there are almost never 22 kids in a classroom with a single teacher.

In the lower school, there are two teachers in every room.
In the middle school, they split up, so half the room goes to language, art or science, while the other half does english or history or math, and then they all flip.
In the upper school, the classes are all small either labs, or discussion for the humanities.

Yes SFS stuck with the two teacher model for lower school. Gds did not, it ceased two years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell college admissions a disaster this year in the early round...parents are up in arms. For some reason GDS and St Albans are doing better, not great but OK. It's a strange year but worth noting Sidwell College admissions have been in flux for several years.

Still a mess? And I mean the parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I do not at this moment have a favorite, but one thing that I liked about GDS is the small class size and teacher ratio. Doesn’t that mean more individual attention? Sidwell has up to 20 kids in a class in elementary with one teacher (this was said twice during admissions process). I don’t know how many kids are in the GDS classrooms, but the website says the teacher student ratio is 6:1.

Did something change? When my child was in lower school at Sidwell, there were 2 teachers per class.

Yes. It has changed. It might revert after covid, but it's been like this for awhile

22 kids in a class is the same as public school. One of the reasons we want to make the switch (and I'd wager a lot of parents want to) is so DC has a smaller class size with more teacher engagement. 22 kids, really??

Again…yes, really.

The way the schedules work, and the kids are split up, there are almost never 22 kids in a classroom with a single teacher.

In the lower school, there are two teachers in every room.
In the middle school, they split up, so half the room goes to language, art or science, while the other half does english or history or math, and then they all flip.
In the upper school, the classes are all small either labs, or discussion for the humanities.

This is at GDS or Sidwell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After visiting, I preferred GDS and my spouse preferred Sidwell. Kid got into Sidwell and waitlisted at GDS. Kid went to Sidwell and didn't like it very much.

Sidwell seemed more connected to DC power circles and, although Sidwell's culture seemed nice on the surface, the community felt very restrained. GDS seemed to have more individualistic kids and feels a little warmer.

Sidwell seems to be slightly more prestigious in the view of may DC people. I think this is based mostly on the parents, not the kids. College admissions are comparable (GDS may actually do slightly better).

I actually think kids are happier, on the whole, at somewhat less intense schools like Maret, Burke, Field, SAES, Bullis, etc.

+2 This was our impression as well.

Did you move your kid or did they stick it out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I do not at this moment have a favorite, but one thing that I liked about GDS is the small class size and teacher ratio. Doesn’t that mean more individual attention? Sidwell has up to 20 kids in a class in elementary with one teacher (this was said twice during admissions process). I don’t know how many kids are in the GDS classrooms, but the website says the teacher student ratio is 6:1.

Did something change? When my child was in lower school at Sidwell, there were 2 teachers per class.

Yes. It has changed. It might revert after covid, but it's been like this for awhile

22 kids in a class is the same as public school. One of the reasons we want to make the switch (and I'd wager a lot of parents want to) is so DC has a smaller class size with more teacher engagement. 22 kids, really??

It’s not the same as public b/c even though there is 1 main teacher, there are plenty of other staff (reading specialist, math specialist, counselor, just to name a few) so that 1 teacher doesn’t have to be all things to all kids. In addition there are separate teachers/classrooms for science, art, language, and PE. The kids are often in smaller groups. E.g., group A goes to art, group B stays in the classroom for math, and a couple of kids in group B go to the math specialist.

Hmm. So what percentage of the time is it 1 teacher with 22 kids at GDS in lower/middle school? They are not talking about this dynamic in any admissions sessions.

[Anonymous]

There is NO way the same math specialist can support 3-4 classrooms across five grades of daily math so what is going on?

And who’s an aide versus an teacher? Define aide and theire education and experience level. Sometimes I get the impression the school is running a college intern program for the edu department- which is fine, and they need the hours, but be upfront about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I do not at this moment have a favorite, but one thing that I liked about GDS is the small class size and teacher ratio. Doesn’t that mean more individual attention? Sidwell has up to 20 kids in a class in elementary with one teacher (this was said twice during admissions process). I don’t know how many kids are in the GDS classrooms, but the website says the teacher student ratio is 6:1.

Did something change? When my child was in lower school at Sidwell, there were 2 teachers per class.

Yes. It has changed. It might revert after covid, but it's been like this for awhile

22 kids in a class is the same as public school. One of the reasons we want to make the switch (and I'd wager a lot of parents want to) is so DC has a smaller class size with more teacher engagement. 22 kids, really??

Again…yes, really.

The way the schedules work, and the kids are split up, there are almost never 22 kids in a classroom with a single teacher.

In the lower school, there are two teachers in every room.
In the middle school, they split up, so half the room goes to language, art or science, while the other half does english or history or math, and then they all flip.
In the upper school, the classes are all small either labs, or discussion for the humanities.

This is at GDS or Sidwell?

Must be Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

At least in 6th grade on at GDS MS (5th was very recently added to MS, and I understand it's the same), kids go to different classrooms/teachers for their different subjects. (The pandemic of course greatly impacted this for the 20-21 school year.). A kid isn't with the same group of students all day, It's pretty much the same as what you would have in any public MS, just smaller classes and far fewer kids in each grade. I have no idea how Sidwell does it, but I can't imagine it's much different, but maybe it is.

[Anonymous]

So how many teachers and students per class in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc? Or at least for the main academic classes?
I understand Pe is the whole grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell college admissions a disaster this year in the early round...parents are up in arms. For some reason GDS and St Albans are doing better, not great but OK. It's a strange year but worth noting Sidwell College admissions have been in flux for several years.

Really? I know of at least 30 kids from the grade who got in to their ED's. How is that a disaster?

Just people making things up. Why? I don’t know. SFS admissions are fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I do not at this moment have a favorite, but one thing that I liked about GDS is the small class size and teacher ratio. Doesn’t that mean more individual attention? Sidwell has up to 20 kids in a class in elementary with one teacher (this was said twice during admissions process). I don’t know how many kids are in the GDS classrooms, but the website says the teacher student ratio is 6:1.

Did something change? When my child was in lower school at Sidwell, there were 2 teachers per class.

Yes. It has changed. It might revert after covid, but it's been like this for awhile

22 kids in a class is the same as public school. One of the reasons we want to make the switch (and I'd wager a lot of parents want to) is so DC has a smaller class size with more teacher engagement. 22 kids, really??

Again…yes, really.

The way the schedules work, and the kids are split up, there are almost never 22 kids in a classroom with a single teacher.

In the lower school, there are two teachers in every room.
In the middle school, they split up, so half the room goes to language, art or science, while the other half does english or history or math, and then they all flip.
In the upper school, the classes are all small either labs, or discussion for the humanities.

This is at GDS or Sidwell?

Must be Sidwell.

That’s not how Sidwell MS works. Ask me how I know.

[Anonymous]

Isnt grade 5&6 different in structure than grades 7&8 anyhow, at BOTH schools.
Pick a music, pick a language, change for PE class, etc.