Reply to Where does a 3.5 Sidwell kid end up going to college?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Have any top private 3.5s gotten college results yet?[/quote]

3.5 Big 3 kid: accepted Amherst,  Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence, UMCP Scholars, University of Miami( with merit aid); deferred Harvard: Waiting on three other ivies plus final form Harvard. [/quote]

I am glad you posted – – with 20 pages, clearly people are interested in this issue and like hearing specific anecdotes. Sounds like a great outcome for your child, congrats.   Don't worry about all the grumps.[/quote]

+1 With a DS with similar profile--though a few years out still--I find it quite encouraging to hear results. Thank you.[/quote]

Now Dartmouth is added to this list?  I'm sorry, but this kid is clearly jumping off the page in college admissions offices.  So anyone who thinks that an unhooked acceptance from Amherst and Dartmouth is the likely result of their otherwise [b]unexceptional DC getting a 3.5 GPA at Sidwell [/b][bis setting themselves up for crushing disappointment.  I guess if grading is so tough that 3.5 really represents the very top tier of students, then maybe I would reconsider, but without any class ranking, who knows.

What this shows is that 3.5 is by no means disqualifying, nothing more.[/quote]

In some ways I agree that a 3.5 form Sidwell will not disqualify you from any college except maybe HYP.  Hard to say this without sounding snobby but there are not any unexceptional 3.5 students at Sidwell.  It is probably the case at other schools without grade inflation too. That grade point at Sidwell means that they kid is receiving As and absolutely at the top academically in one group of classes, say math and science ( or history and English), and very good at the rest.  Also all kids with this GPA that I knew were deeply and passionately involved in ECs and are amazing to talk to.  They have spent a year studying in China and are fluent in Mandarin, or they have interned at NIH and can tell you with great excitement about the new discoveries about the brain,  you get the idea. I might add that in oder to attain this GPA you must write well and you will have several teachers who gave you As ( a rarity) and will write incredible recommendations for you.  Sorry to go on and on, but this explains why my kid with this GPA is now at an Ivy. [/quote]

I was the PP reacting to both Dartmouth and Amherst being on the list.  These two schools are particularly impossible to get into, and so their presence on the list should not really be encouraging unless your child is truly excelling at Sidwell, which is consistent with there not being "any unexceptional 3.5 students at Sidwell."  I used to teach at a school that graded like Sidwell, and there's not just an absence of grade inflation, there is also a lot of grade compression.  So almost no written work would earn a 90-92 and none higher, a small handful of excellent papers would get 86-89, and then almost everything else was 80-85.  So 3.5 is massively better than 3.0-3.2.[/quote]

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