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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My Sidwell senior got into 3 Ivies.  All in RD. Going to one.  It does happen.  Completely unhooked.  Not legacy, not URM, not first generation, not an athlete.  Very high stats. Hugely disappointing outcomes in early round, including safeties. Kid then wrote roughly 30 unique essays derived from 9 “root” essays, which I think made a critical difference IMO in the RD round.  Kid’s passion for deep intellectual inquiry came through loud and clear.  The essays were not perfunctory.   We accepted the reality that my kid “checked no boxes” in the early round.  If unhooked, accept the fact that in the early round colleges focus on their institutional priorities and my unhooked kid doesn’t fall into any of those categories.  Stay focused on making the essays extraordinary because high stats kids may have a tendency to undervalue the importance of the essays.  It took me a long time to convince my kid of this, but it finally broke through and fortunately worked out.  All the while, my kid remained very happy for the hooked kids and felt almost all were fully deserving of the opportunities they got.  Kid was constructive and so was I.   I’m trying not to sound preachy, but focus on what you can control not what you cannot.   [/quote]

You do sound preachy. How do you know the other parents didn't do all this and still didn't get into ivies or any of the other top schools? They are allowed to feel disappointed and upset. I do think that Sidwell does not serve its students well but that's another story for another day.[/quote]

I am not the pp you are replying to, but it is fine to be upset about college results, people need to remember, that no one is entitled to seats at a school. It is ridiculous what the parent community - this is not focused at Sidwell, but in the region generally, has devolved to. Ridiculous that people think there are like 20 schools that are acceptable and that if your kid isn't going to one of them, they are somehow less, and that the school they went to is a "scam"

People really need to check themselves.[/quote]

I'd recommend you google PBS Newshour college admissions. A fascinating piece that aired earlier this week. It highlighted a young woman who was admitted to Emory this admissions season. She got an 18 on the ACT (yep, an 18). In the era of test optional she simply didn't send the test result, a result that would have rightly eliminated her from consideration at such a university. The piece showed the admissions staff praise themselves for "opening up" admissions to candidates like this young woman.

Parents, do you think this is so great?  An 18 on the ACT?

In this area, it takes a tremendous amount of work and to get even a B+ at Sidwell, GDS or STA, so standardized test scores reinforce that these students are strong academic high flyers. These kids are not the ones getting anything close to an 18 on an ACT. (Say what you will about test prep around the margins, but getting an 18 means you are not an academic high flyer.)

This year, just as the PBS piece highlights, plenty of high achieving students were [b]displaced [/b]by students from less rigorous high schools and who were were able to hide their low standardized test results. In this case, the admissions staff at Emory seemed very proud of this fact, as if admission were itself an entitlement to be [b]doled out [/b]vs. earned by demonstrable achievement.

That unprecedented dynamic is why this year was especially rough for a lot of kids. Let's please stop minimizing what happened this year by suggesting it is "entitlement" by kids who got rejected. One could argue that it is entitlement to earn an 18 on the ACT and believe you should have a spot at Emory, let alone get that spot.

[/quote]

This is one of the grossest posts I have read on here in awhile.

And I don't care how hard you think students at $50,000/year tuition prep schools ''work.''

Typical leftist BS. Anybody who tells the truth gets shamed. This poster tells it like it is. And 18 on an ACT is not a good score.  Full stop. So go call someone else “gross” you scold. 
[/quote][/quote]

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