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[quote=Anonymous]We, as the parent community of Washington, partly have ourselves to blame for the applicant treatment at Sidwell. You can't blame the Admissions department at Sidwell for being human and having adapted to the vacuous onslaught of status seekers over the last two decades due to the POTUS child attends syndrome and the ensuring  applicant stampede. Literally thousands of parents a year trying to buy there way into the school, being VERY pushy and not self monitoring their own behavior because they seem to think their DC's future life DEPENDS on admission to Sidwell. I say this as a parent who has been to the Sidwell open house and was asked to submit a "family personal statement" in the form of a surprise essay that I had to sit in a chair sized for a 5 year old and write with a number 2 pencil. The AD explained that the decision had been made to do this as a surprise to avoid parents hiring a professional journalist to write it for them or spending too much time on it at home. Again, only ourselves to blame, people. Yes, it was ridiculous, but did anyone speak up, walk out, laugh ??? No, to the contrary, I remember silence ensued pretty quickly as necks bent and we all got to work.

Just as the Admissions team is overwhelmed so the teachers are similarly confronted all year by pushy parents who they are obliged to be nice to. For example, when I dropped of my DC for his Pre-K visit, the teacher was greeting my DC when she was interrupted by a man who stuck his outstretched hand between my 4 year old's face and the teacher and said, "hi, I'm Mr X, I'm a grandfather and also a lifer at Sidwell as are my two daughters, this is my grandson, so and so..." The teacher stiffened visibly, but nonetheless said hello and then looked at me somewhat apologetically. Imagine that seen replayed at every open house for months year in and year out.... a school pushes back after a while.

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