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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our neighbor’s son, who is a senior at Wilson, applied to Dartmouth and got in. He is a good student and is active in various clubs at school. But I do feel like if he were the same student at Sidwell, STA etc, there’s no way he would have gotten in.

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You can't be sure of this. There are parts of the application you cant judge - the essay and teacher recs. People forget that teachers can make or break an application. I believe that lots of kids that have the "stats" for an Ivy, don't get the ringing endorsement from their teachers.

Wilson students students do get a boost for coming from an urban high school with a majority minority population. This especially works in favor of white students.[/quote]

But not for much longer as the demographics shift to whiter and even wealthier. It will take a couple years for admissions reps to catch up but Wilson will soon be seen as a N Arlington school in upper NW. [/quote]

This is actually a very interesting point.  I have a Deal 6th grader and have been surprised how white and similar it is to our JKLM feeder.  Parents I know with kids in 8th and 6th at Deal have commented how noticeable the shift has been in even 2 years. 
Wilson white kids have always received an "urban bump".  The Dartmouth kid above is a good example:  sounds like he has good grades and test scores and recs but is otherwise unremarkable.  A kid like this from Fairfax or Bethesda would never get into an Ivy in this day and age. 
It's going to be interesting when college reps catch on to how wealthy and white Wilson is becoming.  I imagine we're probably 5-10 years away from this.  
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I work in college admissions, and worked as an admissions officer for an Ivy 15 years back. I'm not sold on the "urban bump" theory.

What happens at many elite colleges is that all applications coming in from the DC Metro area are thrown into the same "basket" (e-basket these days of course, literally a basket in the old days).  If you want the kid get out of the basket, s/he needs to graduate from a high school outside the Metro area (colleges are more likely to sort applicants by high school location than by parents' address).

Any given Wilson student is likely to come across as more interesting, thoughtful and resourceful to admissions officers than your garden-variety Fairfax or Bethesda student who aspires to attend the same college, which certainly doesn't hurt. But Wilson students aren't getting the sort of breaks in admissions for attending Wilson (regardless of SES) vs. a private or suburban program in the way DCPS parents tend to assume.  They're not in fact being cut slack on comparative scores, grades or extra-curriculars for attending Wilson, not from what I've seen.  [/quote]

Well I was told that they do by an admissions officer at a selective college so.....YMMV.[/quote]

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