Reply to Big 3 (or thereabouts) College Results

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is great deflation at private schools.  The defenders of the practice say that it is intellectually honest and ultimately college admissions recognize and even reward such rigor.  If you are talking about an Ivy or school that can actually spend quality time to absorb an application and engage in a "holistic" process (e.g., SLACs), I agree.  The problem arises for students who desire to attend large state universities.  The OOS slots are limited in the first place.  They are flooded by a sea of applicants.  Admissions needs some way to stem the tide, and they take a very black and white approach to culling the herd -- based on GPA and class rank.  In normal times, a Big 3 kid who was not in the top ten percent and with a GPA of 3.5 (i.e., the vast majority of the class) had a fighting chance because he/she often had a high standardized test score to balance out the picture.  Without these scores now, most 3.5 applicants are quickly tossed aside.

It will be a brutal year for Big 3 college admissions.[/quote]

Parents at big 3 schools definitely don’t realize how important it is to stick to colleges and universities that have developed a relationship with the high school counselor. Only those schools will give these applications the attention to overcome the disparities in gpa between public and private. [b]True grade deflation is not a rigor practice. Depressing grades is as manipulative and deceptive as grade inflation.[/quote][/b]

Please speak to the manipulative and deceptive nature of depressing grades...[/quote]

Bumping this. Just what do you mean by that, PP ?[/quote]

It is unrealistic to expect college admissions offices to pay attention to strange, atypical grade distributions from private schools. No college admissions officer cares about Big 3 schools enough to prioritize their grads over other area privates. They will get overlooked for scholarships and admissions if their grading practices vary widely from other comparable schools. Colleges do not recognize “big 3”. They treat all our area privates the same.[/quote]

I don't have a kid at NCS/Sidwell/St. Albans, but you're kidding yourself if you think that a 4.0 at Edmund Burke or Maret is the same as a 4.0 from St. Albans--or frankly, as even the same as a 3.5. I mean, any college, at all. They all know those three schools and know how rigorous the standards at those schools are compared to other area privates. I would say Potomac and Holton come in close 2nds, then the rest (and let's just say I have kids at what I would consider the "coming in 2nd). [/quote]

You're kidding yourself if you think your average kid at STA could be a star at Maret. You don't know what you're talking about. Plenty of kids at Maret were accepted at STA/NCS, but chose Maret.

The question is where your kid is compared to his/her peers. It doesn't matter if his GPA is a 4.4 or 3.5 if that GPA puts him in the top of the class, then he will be competitive for top colleges. As for big state schools, that's not what most private school kids are aiming for. That said, plenty still get into UVA, UMich, UCLA, etc from our private. So stop complaining about grade deflation. Your kid is average... just accept that. The good news is that he or she will be well prepared to succeed in college with that STA/Did well education! [/quote]

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