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[quote=Anonymous]Wow, 8:31 seems like the kind of parent that prompted the whole SFS rumor mongering mess. Our kids go to another school but we know many SFS alumni and parents and I think it is a fantastic school.  I don't know the counselor she's talking about, but let's run through some of her complaints just for fun:

1)  "sloppy, failed to spell-check emails" -- We all strive to be perfect in every aspect of our jobs, but everyone makes mistakes. Especially if you are bombarded by anxious students and parents with daily or hourly emails that border on the unhinged. Sometimes, speedy replies take precedence over a second reading. Maybe it's just a generational thing as proper spelling and punctuation in text messages are signs of digital incompetence.

2) "missed self-imposed deadlines"-- There are many well-established important deadlines for the college admissions process that begin with meeting 1-on-1 with each student, helping them create lists of potential reach/match/safeties, identifying teachers to write recs, etc. Almost all of the responsibility for getting these done rests with the student, not the counselor. In our experience, none of the counselor self-imposed deadlines are crucial to the process.

3) "failed even to provide suggestions for reach schools" - You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Are there any top colleges that you've never heard of? Among the single digit admission rate schools, there are no strategic suggestions besides ED, just student preferences/dreams/wishes. These college counselors should be spending most of their time suggesting match and safety schools.

4) "eager to suggest schools with profiles way below our kid’s SAT scores" - What about grades and teacher recommendations? All the top colleges look askance at private school kids with high SATs but mediocre grades and recs. They are the poster children for over-privileged toffs.

5) "DS and I paid more than $160,000 these past four years" --  You can lead a horse to water...Did Sidwell offer your child good teachers and curricula? If you weren't satisfied, why did you keep paying? Is college admissions the only metric you use to measure the value of high school? Did you not believe the SFS when they told you that college admissions are not their measure of success?

6) "SFS even made the f!cking pottery class a graded course" -- I think art courses are graded everywhere. So are drama and music classes. Some students at SFS are exceptional artists and they deserve to be held to rigorous academic standards too. Would you just prefer a grading system that only include your DC's As on the transcript?

I think the only failure at SFS is in the admissions office for not providing enough counseling to parents like this that it is a really bad fit. Keep out these kinds of parents and you avoid the really over-the-top behaviors. [/quote]

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