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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My friend applied to Maret 2 years ago and they said they had 125 applications or 6th.  They take about 10 kids as well.  I would imagine that GDS and Sidwell application numbers are similar but there is some overlap in applicants.

When my kid was applying to schools in 6th from DCPS (3 years ago) his friends (about 5 kids) who applied to GDS and Sidwell did not get in.  They were great kids from full-pay families.  A few applied again for 7th and got in then.  [/quote]

I admittedly don’t know maret’s precise numbers, but I really want to address what are perpetual myths on this board about admissions. They will never tell you this, but at the most selective privates in the country (not dc, the country), the admit rate is never much lower than 25-30%. Ever. I have read so much speculation on this board that frequently suggests or explicitly states that admission rates to top privates is 7%. 10%. And other completely incorrect numbers that freak people out. Those numbers are not right. They never have been.

I wish I could post this on every thread when parents are asking about admissions and getting bad information here. To be fair, the schools do not tell you this. They occasionally tell select board members for planning, but only some, and never in writing.

Anyway. Sidwell and gds are not guaranteed, but they are not nearly as competitive as dcum mythology strokes its collective ego with. 
[/quote]
Thank you for the post. You said it much more eloquently than I ever could. It’s just not as competitive as people think. [/quote]
 I'm sorry but I beg to differ. Things have gotten much more competitive in the past two years. It's been a huge change since last admission's season, especially at the schools you are mentioning. Things are not like before. Especially if you are unhooked and bring nothing the school is actively looking for to the table. (Such as a particular sport, instrument, diversity, gender,etc) If there are 25 spots and 250 applicants that's ten percent. Those ratios were easily met last year at some schools. No idea of what the status is for this current season. I am referring to HS admissions last year, but numbers were up across all grades at many schools.[/quote]

This is still just impressionistic. Private school applications were up, but I find it hard to believe that there has been some massive sea change that makes sidwell, gds, sta, etc. on par with Harvard and MIT in terms of competitiveness of admissions. After decades of not being so. Decades that included years in which private school applications went up. All you’re saying is apps were up. By how many? What information were you provided? Or are you just feeding off the emotion and frenzy that has surrounded school frustration in the pandemic? Frustration that, by the way, was felt by many gds and sidwell parents, given that those schools weren’t exactly fully open last year either.

The reality is, here in dc, parents whose kids were admitted want to think that admissions was insanely competitive, because it makes them feel like they are special. And it causes so much unnecessary and falsely-grounded anxiety for prospective applicants, and it feeds the false sense of superiority that so many here use to look down on others.

Unless you were at the year-end meeting of the HOS and board director and given that information, along with precise information on college matriculation, and in that meeting you were given information that indicates an absolutely massive deviation from where things have been for decades for schools far more competitive than dc schools, then you are just feeding the scare mongering. [/quote]
You miss the point. The numbers are not impressions. For STA they had about 10 percent admissions rate. Sidwell had record breaking numbers of applications, as did NCS and GDS. Potomac had the most applications they have ever received for high school. The number of spaces doesn’t change. The same number of spots, and a huge increase in numbers of applications results is a factual reduction of likelihood of admission. The numbers were that way last year. I’m sure it was vastly different even in 2019 or 2020. But since last year things have changed. This info was given to me by a head of school to speaks with admissions officers in candid ways every year. 
What you are missing is that these are just numbers. Just because one school STA, let’s say, had the same admitting percentage last year as an Ivy League school does not mean all kids there are headed to an Ivy League university. It simply means that you have very little knowledge as an unhooked applicant whether you have a shot or not, even less than with college admissions in many cases because things can be so arbitrary in DC private school admissions. [/quote]

I wonder whether a huge increase in application numbers really makes that much of a substantive difference (it obviously changes the acceptance rate). If these "Big 3" or whatever schools are only admitting the most exceptional of the exceptional students, there's only so many of those around. For every 100 new applicants, how many straight A, D1 prospect, elite debater, working on a cure for cancer type kids would there be in that additional 100? 10? 5? Can't be THAT many.[/quote]

then there are hooked applicants, including legacy, older sibling, etc. And you don't need to be a D1 prospect but play a position now vacant on team, etc. [/quote]

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