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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, all institutions change, and, yes, Sidwell is a good, though not perfect, school (if you find the perfect one, please LMK :)).  But, how has the school changed?  I know when I talk to alums from the '60s they have very happy memories of a place that was less self-reverential with a culture of more humility and humor.  Is that your experience?  I wonder if there's any way for Sidwell to get that back, at least a little bit.     [/quote]

The country , and Washington in particular, has changed a lot since the 1960's ( far more self-reverential now) and the school of choice for the elite shows this in its full glory. For example, Sidwell would have never chosen to build that new gym the US has in the 60's. It is a gym that benefits an NFL team for one of the least athletci schools in the area. Perhaps then, people would have used an application and fund raising boom to keep tuition down or fund home mortages for teachers, FA for teacer's kids etc... These are old school values.[/quote]

Not a Sidwell parent here, but a few points.  First, nobody was building facilities like that in the 1960s in independent schools.  It is well documented that there's a bit of a facilities arms race going on.  With area schools like NCS, Georgetown Prep, Bullis, Episcopal, Holton, and Landon having impressive athletic facilities, it is not suprising that Sidwell, a city school that needs to maximize its field space, went underground and built a beautiful new facility.  Rightly or wrongly, they will probably get a few more student-athletes because a nice facility is seen as physical evidence of a solid commitment to athletics (and athletics at Sidwell are co-curricular, I believe, as opposed to being treated as just extra-curricular).  I was recently on Sidwell's campus for a function open to the wider community, and it looks like they also have a beautiful arts facility and they also have a wonderful Meeting House for Quaker Meeting.  So it's not like they are blowing off everything else for the sports.

By way of comparison, friends at St. Albans tell me that, now that the big academic building renovation is done, the school is undertaking a renovation of the fields to try to reclaim more land/organize their playing fields better to use the space.  Very pricey, I'm sure, but sports are co-curricular there as well and the reality is that a St. Albans doesn't want to lose kids to Bullis/Episcopal/Landon/Prep just because an athletically oriented kid sees the acres of suburban fields at the other IAC schools and thinks STA is not the place for him.[/quote]

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