Reply to Sidwell Obsession

Forum Index » Private & Independent Schools

Reply to "Sidwell Obsession"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let me chime in about the Sidwell thing. I had one kid at Sidwell for 10 years, another for 9. The older one graduated in the middle of his class from Sidwell (with average Sidwell SAT scores, which are about 2100, not 2350!), went to a very good but not ivy-level liberal arts college, and is now doing well in his chosen career (finance). The second kid was a stellar student at Sidwell in grades K-8, and then transferred to a top Montgomery County public school, where he continued to be a stellar student, and is now attending an Ivy-level college and doing quite well there. Sidwell did not "produce" wither #1 or #2 kid; they both received fine educations there, but I can't honestly say that the public high school was, all things considered, an inferior experience, or that Sidwell was superior. It all depends of the kid.  In fact, there were some things #2 got to do - and excell at - at the public high school that   
were not available at Sidwell.It was amusing to me that when we told some of #2 classmates' parents, at the end of 8th grade, that he would be transferring to a public school, they were truly concerned that #2's life prospects would be quickly heading south. I can tell you that just isn't the case. #1's cohort at Sidwell was the jockish, partying, social, middle-of-the-class (or worse) crowd, all nice kids, all doing well enough in life now, but by no means setting the academic world on fire. They didn't go to Ivies - they went to places like Michigan, Kenyon, NYU, etc - fine enough schools,  of course, but not the Harvard/Yale/Princeton sugarplums that dance in the heads of many DCUM types. And colleges of that ilk are the norm, not the exception, for most graduates of Sidwell, STA, Maret, etc. While maybe 20 kids out of Sidwell's 110 or so graduates will go to Ivies, most will be Cornell/Penn/Brown rather than HYP. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just sayin.
By comparison,  #2's cohort at the public high school was the top-10% crowd - the ones who took 12 APs, debated, edited the newspaper, interned at NIH, etc. Those kids ALL ended up at Ivy-level schools, without the $120K in Sidwell tuition, and with a rich, full high school experience. The difference, I will concede, is that the middle-of-class kids at the public hs are not a match for Sidwell's middle. But at the top, it's all the same. [/quote]

I agree with most of what you stated and think that if Ivy is your goal then unless you know your child is going to be in the top 10% of their class in private that you are probably better transfering to a public.  Your kid will still be in the top % but will probably have fewer legacies to compete with and it might increase their overall chances of getting in.  Where I disagree with you is that the top 10% of students in Montgomery County or most public HS, even elite ones, get into Ivy leagues.  Even with a lot of legacies you are probably looking at 10 or 30 students max attending Ivy league schools.  I'm sure they went to great schools but there is no way the top 10 % in the large schools in Montgomery County go to Ivy league schools, that could be 200 students.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics