Reply to Don't understand the crazy about sidwell friend

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]9:41, I like most of your post.  You offer good advice.  I do wish you hadn't included the third paragraph, which is really just thinly veiled snark, and is unnecessary to the rest of your points.  Not sure why you chose to go that route.[/quote]

I apologize as I intended it as a rather matter-of-fact explanation of what seemingly has launched Sidwell into its own class over the past decade.  Many of our native Washingtonian friends tell us that even fifteen to twenty years ago Georgetown Day School, National Cathedral School/St. Albans School, and Sidwell Friends School were all considered virtual equals, with NCS/STA having a slight advantage as the school of choice of DC power brokers and moneyed families, and thus with slightly better college matriculation state at that time.

It is a fact, not a snark, that children of the wealthy, or connected, or powerful enjoy a disproportionate (i.e., greater than their 1% numbers) percentage of admissions to the H/P/S/Ys.  In the past, NCS/STA enjoyed the benefits of that advantage, and now we have cycled into Sidwell being the primary benficiary of those advantages.

Please note that I used the word "earned" to say how these students gain their admissions.  Again, I meant no offense to Sidwell, to you as a Sidwell parent, or to your Sidwell students.  I apologize.[/quote]

I appreciate the apology and clarification.  With full respect to you, I am not sure your description of the history of DC schools as learned from your friends is an accurate one, so I don't see it as quite so "matter-of-fact."  I also think some of your language choices (e.g., "won the lottery" and "generation of strivers") are loaded ones you would not appreciate being applied to your children or their schools.  Moreover, since you do not have personal experience with the school, perhaps your second-hand impression of the parent community is incomplete.  I do appreciate your emphasis on how the students "earned" their college placements, regardless of what upbringing or advantages they might've enjoyed, just as I'm sure you would want people to agree that your own children "earned" their successes regardless of the advantages they might've had.  Even if I disagree with them, I take your word that your comments were meant in good faith and not intended as jabs.  Coming in the middle of a thread that is light on substance and heavy on attacks, perhaps I saw your description of school where you don't have any experience as just more of the same.  Again, I appreciate you apology for your comments; such apologies are even rarer on DCUM than in real life so it speaks well of you that you'd offer one.[/quote]

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