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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sidwell college admissions a disaster this year in the early round...parents are up in arms. For some reason GDS and St Albans are doing better, not great but OK.  It's a strange year but worth noting Sidwell College admissions have been in flux for several years.[/quote]

Really? I know of at least 30 kids from the grade who got in to their ED's. How is that a disaster?[/quote]

Most kids who took the most challenge math and science courses didn't get in to their ED/EA.  [/quote]

Why? I don’t get why this group would not do well at ED vs the other kids? [/quote]

Because as the cream of the school, they are reaching for the stars and applying ED a single school with insanely low admit rates if you aren't legacy, URM, athlete. My guess is they will do fine in RD when they apply to several of such schools....one will bite.  [/quote]

They’re not “the cream of the school.” They’re kids who are very strong in science and math and who enjoy those subjects. There are other kids who are very strong students in other areas.[/quote]

Do you think this is primarily a consequence of the school not providing colleges with information on how hard comparatively those classes are (thus, explaining the unweighted grades), or colleges not caring?  Asking for a friend.[/quote]

It's probably because the ones getting in are the legacy applicants and they are not necessarily the ones in the most advanced classes.  So the top student (in top math track, etc) who applies to Penn ED from Sidwell is not getting in when 12 other kids have applied and 6 of them are legacy. Penn is going 
to take the very good but not superstar legacy kid every.single.time.  That's how the world works at these schools.  [/quote]
That’s what counselors are for, they should be able to recognize when a student fits what a university is looking for and help the kid get into the best spot.[/quote]

yeah, but parents don't want to hear the reality---the reality being that their kid may be the TOP academic kid but won't be getting into the Ivys because of who else is applying.

What you're suggesting is Sidwell telling a kid: "Hey, I know James has a 4.0 and has taken Math 1-4 but there are 15 legacies applying ED to Princeton and 4 are URM.  The chance of him getting into Princeton are slim-to-none. Duke is also full this year (with legacies and URM). We suggest he ED to Georgia Tech instead. 
Do you really think parents want to hear this or it's the school's responsibility to tell them this? [/quote]

There are so many false premises in this hypothetical that it’s just ridiculous to even try to respond. Do you have a Sidwell senior with a 4.0 who went through Math 1-4? If not, you should just stop. At Sidwell, kids like that are unicorns.

Your converse premises about legacies and URM taking all the slots are also false.[/quote]

Good Lord, you're getting hung up on the particulars of the hypothetical example that I pulled out of the air and missing the point.  Legacies do get in over more qualified kids at Sidwell (and at NCS and STA and GDS and all across the MontCo high schools).

So say rockstar kid has a 3.7 and took advanced Math class XYZ (or whatever GPA or classes would mark a top academic student at Sidwel).  Do parents really want to hear that that kid is going to be passed over in ED for legacy or URM kids and [b]advised to apply elsewhere? [/b]
[/quote]

Yes, absolutely! My kid is a Sidwell senior who did get accepted ED. My kid was wrestling between 2 schools to apply ED. Counseling office provided no advice or feedback about that choice and the two schools under consideration, which we would have appreciated greatly.

Just to be clear, this type of advice and counseling [b]does occur[/b] at some schools. It just doesn't happen at Sidwell. At Sidwell they don't advise or counsel, they approve lists and try to make sure that all the recs and forms are submitted on time. In contrast, here's a recent account from a parent on the college board (3.7 student at St. Albans thread) about the type of advice they got from their counselor (not a DC area independent):

[quote]Completely agree on the ED front. DC probably would not have gotten in RD - pretty certain. College counselor was even nervous because he estimated the ED1 was a low reach and wasn't sure DC's ED2 would pan out if DC didn't go for it in ED1. Part of this is that DC had been pretty clear they wanted to be done in ED1 if at all possible, so perhaps more risk averse than others. (DC had a high and a medium reach on list and decided to go for low reach and apply to the other two in RD if it came to that.)[/quote]

[b]Our kid really won the lottery when getting assigned this advisor, though I am not sure all parents want that kind of candid advice. Our three conversations with the counselor - one more than the customary two - were always frank and substantive. He tells the parents that the kids drive the process and he is there to provide guidance and feedback. If a DC decides to roll the dice for a high reach, he works to make it the best possible dice the kid can roll based on their stats, etc.[/b][/quote]

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