There are nearly 90 independent schools who are members of AISGW, the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington — not including most parochial/diocesan schools. You can get a start on your research at aisgw.org, where you can make a good first cut by geography, coed vs. single-sex, etc.

Hoping that the ickiness of self-promotion is outweighed by the offer of knowledgeable advice, my own site has a bunch of info for parents who want to undertake the application process themselves, at this page: www.peterbraverman.com/diy

There are many schools that are very happy to have great, average kids. Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:Just curious-what factors Contribute to the 90th percentile kids getting rejected? No personality or what?

To be sure, it's uncommon for kids with very high scores across the board to be turned down at most schools, but it does happen. A bland personality usually isn't a deal-breaker, but a *difficult* personality can be. One girl's essays came off as terrifically arrogant and impressed with her own brilliance. Despite work on them, she wasn't able to change the tone sufficiently, and I suspect her visit didn't offer much evidence to the contrary either.

Another applicant, one of the most capable writers I've ever seen, had a father who boasted during an interview about how much s**t he gave his son's old school. I'm not sure why the father thought that would dispose anybody favorably to his son's application, and it didn't. It's hard for a parent to torpedo a 9th-grade application all by himself, but this dad managed to do it.

Everything counts. There is no formula. The norms of the SSAT and ISEE, pretty much by definition, are based only on the pool of kids applying to independent schools — so your child may score in the 90th percentile nationally, but only in, say, the 68th percentile on those tests. There are very few kids who score in the 90s on ALL of the subtests.

To answer the question more directly, it depends on the school. At the most competitive schools, it is common to see scores in the 90s, but that's only one factor that's assessed with many others. Advantages that I have seen offset lower scores include a parent who is an alumnus/a, siblings already enrolled, athletic prowess, and ethnic background or other diversity markers. At any given point in time, any given school may be more focused on one of those factors than on others.

I've worked with kids who had scores in the upper 90s across the board and were rejected (in most cases I saw those coming), and I've worked with kids with scores in the teens who were accepted at the most competitive schools (ditto). Everything counts. There is no formula.

Everything counts. That said, I've worked with independent school admission offices for nearly 20 years, and I've never heard someone say "We're concerned about John because Jane's grades are mediocre." It seems pretty far outside the admission process to compare siblings on that kind of metric.

If there are broader family issues (uncooperative parents, e.g., as a PP noted, or accounts frequently in arrears), those factors could certainly come into play. However, it seems like stating the obvious to say that admission officers recognize that children, even those from the same family, are different.

The advice above, about waiting to submit scores until you are sure which administrations you want schools to see, is sound. I am not aware of any schools that accept the SSAT but will not accept the ISEE, or vice-versa.

Anonymous wrote:... this is a move to get rid of standardized metrics, that measure, well, merit....

This is quite a statement. Not even the College Board contends that the SAT measures "merit."

Three years ago, when my daughter was just beginning a college search, an associate admission director at a "most-competitive" college made several comments downplaying their reliance on standardized tests. I asked during the Q&A, "You've spent some time explaining that standardized tests are not a primary criterion for admission. What information *do* you gain from SAT and ACT scores? What do those test scores tell you about applicants? In short, why do you require them?"

She was silent for a very long time — perhaps 15 seconds — before saying that she didn't really know. If an admission officer at a highly competitive school can't (or won't) tell us what she learns from standardized test results, I'm not sure what "merit" they're measuring.

Standardized tests provide a reasonably accurate measure of a specific skill set. I am not opposed to the tests per se; I am opposed to using them to draw conclusions beyond the skill set they assess effectively. I believe this is seldom discussed, in part because it is manifestly in the interest of test publishers to remain silent, allowing students and parents to interpret those scores in terms of "intelligence," "achievement," and "merit."

Anonymous wrote:No grades, and no APs, and colleges making SAT/ACT optional means that the entire application will be based on soft and subjective elements, mostly reflective of privilege. Interesting.

I don't think anybody believes that a new transcript will eradicate the disparities of privilege, but it's universally acknowledged, even by their publishers, that standardized test scores are already widely reflective of privilege. Witness the College Board's aborted attempt to assign "Adversity" scores on the SAT.

Today's standardized tests are still based fundamentally on a 1905 belief that people's overall intelligence can be measured and compared. (Incidentally, the Stanford tests were undertaken to "prove" that white people are smarter than all others, so it's hardly surprising that they reached that conclusion.) Back here in 2019, the adjunct high school program that Hawken is piloting this year is in Cleveland, not the suburbs (where Hawken's two main campuses are), and from what I understand the applicant pool has been largely non-wealthy — kids who, on the whole, perform far below their suburban counterparts on standardized tests. There is little danger that they will fare worse in a new system.

I'm not sure what point the PP is making. It seems like it's either: 1. there is no need for a better system, or 2. people shouldn't try to address that need because their attempts will be imperfect. The people working on the Mastery Initiative are far smarter and more practical than I am, and they are grappling earnestly with a stubborn problem. They may not solve it, but seeking to reduce inequality is certainly one of their goals. I'm excited to see how it launches.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of the independent schools won't accept incoming students senior year.

In my experience this is usually true of brand-new applicants, but situations can vary. For example:

A general policy against admitting seniors might be relaxed for an able senior who has just moved to the area.

Families in good standing who are considering a year off for a specific purpose (CityYear/CityTerm, study abroad, long-term family travel) would generally be allowed to return without incident, but it would obviously make sense to confirm with the school before making firm plans. As a PP noted, longevity at a school would make this decision even less dicey.

Families who leave in a maelstrom of anger and negativity because their sophomore wasn't in the right teacher's math class might not find their old school quite so welcoming.

Colleges are interested in a student's experiences as well as grades and test scores. As an alumni interviewer for my alma mater, I interviewed a girl from a high-profile DC school. She had taken a semester of junior year at City Term in New York and she showed uncommon self-reflection and mature perspective for a 17 year-old — largely, by her own reckoning, as a result of her time away. She was deferred from the Early Decision pool, but admitted in April.

Anonymous wrote:

I think it’s easier to be admitted in middle school. This year applications to the top privates for high school were very high.

I'm not sure if there are any data to support that first statement, but it does not match my experience over the past 15+ years. Put simply, it depends on the school and the year. When I worked at a PK–8, more than 90% of our ninth-grade applicants matriculated at their first- or second-choice schools. I never kept actual stats on applicants out of our school to 6 and 7 elsewhere, but I'd guess their admit rate was in the 33–50% range.

There are usually far more spots open for 9 than for 7, so it's obviously the ratio, rather than the numbers, that's important. Given the number of public school kids applying for 6 and 7, many schools would admit a promising student who doesn't have great middle school options over a student who is already enrolled at a perfectly good school, but whose family is considering a change for non-urgent reasons.

Applying to eighth grade is usually dicier than 6 or 7 (it's asking a student to make a transition IN and OUT during the same year), but occasionally it works. I worked with two eighth grade applicants to highly competitive schools last year, and while some schools said they simply didn't have any spots (and thus didn't even read applications), both applicants were offered admission at great places.

In my experience, there's no single reliable answer to the question of which grades are "easier" to get into.

Anonymous wrote:

pbraverman wrote:So the actual number of spots may be 0

As a former parent at PDS (which ends in 2nd grade), I find this very hard to believe given the number of graduates who have gone to GDS for 3rd grade in recent years.

I want to be clear that I have never discussed with Kim or Ronnie, the GDS lower school directors, exactly how this works at GDS; this point is pretty specific and deep in the weeds, so to speak. I'm only offering some examples of the way the math might reasonably work at any school. So, if any school anticipates some number of matriculants from a particular feeder school with whom they've had a long and successful relationship, they may not count those spots in the "available" numbers. Again, I'm not saying GDS does this specifically — just that there are usually contingencies that nobody, in some cases even the school, has any way of knowing in advance. One example is how many siblings will show up in a given year. If it's sometimes 5 and other times 15 (in sixth or ninth grade, e.g.), that means they can't convey accurately in advance how many spots will be available.

I hope that makes sense — I'm certainly not trying to confuse the issue or to claim very specific inside knowledge I don't have.

Anonymous wrote:

pbraverman wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Completely disagree with Peter. Our kids did MCPS for elementary and it was fine . Our middle school experience at a big 3 was light years better than friends' kids had at MCPS and the high school was even better. I think elementary is where you should save the $$$ and invest in middle and then high school. If you have to choose I'd send them to private in middle.

I'm not sure we disagree. My only point is that I sense most people begin by assuming that the upper grades are a better, ahem, investment, without considering the "inverse" approach. I mean only to encourage people to consider that, as there is a case to be made for either path, and reasonable parents can certainly do it either way.

It does seem we agree that middle school is not the gem in the crown of most public school systems.

That's also true of independent schools. Caveat emptor.

Middle school is challenging in most places, but the PP's statement is too broad a brush for me. It brings me back to an earlier point: I do think that middle school is the gem in the crown of many K–8 schools. It certainly was for my two kids.

Anonymous wrote:How many openings are typically available at GDS for 3rd grade? It says they expand slightly but do not give a number.

That is accurate in my experience. I would guess they don't offer a specific number because it's very low, and when there are slots they often go to siblings, talented kids who have just moved to DC, and other relatively unusual constituencies. For example (this is only for example — I don't know the actual numbers), say the second grade is three sections of 15 kids, a total of 45. The reason the number of admits is so low for third grade is that third grade also has 3 x 15, and the numbers don't expand to 60 students until grade 4.

So the actual number of spots may be 0, or it may be 4, and it will depend mostly on how many families are leaving the school for various reasons. They probably won't have a good idea of that until families' plans for 2020–2021 become clearer, which usually begins to happen around the time re-enrollment contracts are offered in February.

If you love the school, you'll have to go through the application process, unless they suggest otherwise. That said, I think it's fair to ask them not to review your application if there are no spots available. Last year another competitive school had no openings for 8, and told a family with whom I worked that they wouldn't read applications if there were no spots. To their credit they were very candid about it and kept the family informed along the way.

Anonymous wrote:Completely disagree with Peter. Our kids did MCPS for elementary and it was fine . Our middle school experience at a big 3 was light years better than friends' kids had at MCPS and the high school was even better. I think elementary is where you should save the $$$ and invest in middle and then high school. If you have to choose I'd send them to private in middle.

I'm not sure we disagree. My only point is that I sense most people begin by assuming that the upper grades are a better, ahem, investment, without considering the "inverse" approach. I mean only to encourage people to consider that, as there is a case to be made for either path, and reasonable parents can certainly do it either way.

It does seem we agree that middle school is not the gem in the crown of most public school systems.

Anonymous wrote:Wanting to repeat a grade will be a red flag for any mainstream school, especially GDS and Sheridan. McLean might be open to it 8f you explain why it's necessary and how it fits with the support it offers. I don't know anything about the other schools on your list.

This is simply not true in my experience, especially for a boy with a late summer birthday. At most schools the inquiry will convey an understanding of your child and an openness to finding the best fit for him. I would approach it as a question, not as a statement: "We have seen some dynamics that make us wonder whether applying to repeat third grade would make sense for James, especially since he's young in comparison to the rest of the grade. How do you handle situations like that?"

Most schools will appreciate that, as it signals a collaborative approach as well. And schools that don't like the question will have done you a favor: They will have let you know that they probably won't be good fits.

My own son, who has a late June birthday, repeated an early year. It was not a difficult decision at the time, but I am not exaggerating to say it was probably the most important decision we have ever made for him — it remapped his entire life's trajectory for the better.

Good luck!

Anonymous wrote:Understanding Admissions —- to the degree it’s possible —- requires you to look at this from the perspective of the school.

On any campus, there are different constituencies that Admissions has to serve. The CFO wants full classes and the tuition revenue associated with that. The coaches want athletes. The Drama department wants people interested in Theater. The faculty wants smart, hard-working kids. The Alumni want their kids and their friends admitted. And the list of constituencies goes on.

Above all, they don’t want problem kids or problem parents. They are expected to screen these out.

Admissions has to serve all these constituencies. and they have to maintain relationships over a period
Of years with schools that supply them applicants.

Admissions is going to be judged based on the satisfying the needs of almost everyone on campus.

From the outside the process looks capricious and unfair. But to the school, it’s rational.

This.

If parents understand only one thing about the admission process, it should be: THERE IS NO FORMULA. I've worked with kids who have SSAT scores in the teens who were offered admission at the most competitive schools in the DC area. I've worked with kids with SSATs in the upper 90s who were rejected. (In those rejection cases, I was not surprised, as there were serious flaws in their candidacies that were not directly related to grades or scores.)

Those simple facts should make it apparent that grades and scores do not tell the whole story, and my consistent experience is that — assuming a student's grades and scores are in the broad range of those among students who are accepted — the bulk of parents overestimate the importance of scores and grades in the process.