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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][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]

I'm the parent who isn't upset by the ED/EA outcomes people are claiming to top math/science kids had this year.  But as a parent whose child will go through this in the future and whose child (and family) is not Ivy or bust focused (so far, child may not want to apply to any Ivies).... I definitely would appreciate it if during admissions a counselor tipped us off that based on what they were observing.  I'm all for letting family/child determine their own choice (and risk) ultimately but it is definitely useful information to hear " I see your top ED choice is to X and that might be a big challenge, but I see you also really like Y and your ED chances may be better there". This is valuable....assuming, of course. that  as the counselors still genuinely put same effort into each child's ultimate choice and are not playing favorites or trying to block students from competing when they genuinely want to take a shot.  [/quote]

As someone with a high-stats/topmathtrack/unhooked kid who will be facing this soon, this is precisely what I want. One would assume that it is in the school's and the counselors' interest to place as many students as highly as possible; what might be affected by the various hooks and ladders people bring to the process is which schools a kid like mine would have the best shot at. "Penn is going to be hard to ED this year, maybe place your bet on X or Y" and so on is all one can ask for. I mean, what benefit would they derive from not passing that info along? My assumption is that the parents are likely to be the stubborn ones in these scenarios, insisting on EDing a particular school despite the odds being clearly laid out by a counselor?[/quote]

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