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[quote=Anonymous]Sorry -- I was unclear and conflated a couple of different points.

My main point is that wrt Sidwell, if there's a multiplier, it's experience- rather than relationship-based.  And a public school could, based on experience, also have a multiplier that was an inflator.

A secondary point was that once a university has taken a lot of kids from a particular school (public, private, whatever), it has its own basis of comparison across classes.  So it may look at this years top tier at Sidwell and say this isn't what Sidwell's top tier usually looks like.  We'll pass.  In an environment that is really privileged, it may take more than success (top grades/scores) to wow admissions officers.

I interviewed a Sidwell kid last year who was one of those blow you away candidates.  So I can imagine a kid who did everything right but who wasn't otherwise exceptional suffering by comparison.

Harvard's pool of candidates has widened recently because of the free tuition policy for middle class families (I was the PP you alluded to) and there's an increasing desire and ability to decrease the bastion of privilege perception of the school.  Which doesn't bode well for the high performing elite private school kid who doesn't have some other hook.

I don't think that Sidwell kids (or kids at any local private) get a boost from their HS counselors' relationships with Harvard admissions (or Yale or Princeton or Stanford...).   What makes the college counselors at these schools so important is the wide breadth of knowledge re different colleges and what has worked for whom in the past and their sense of reality re what makes a good application.  I doubt you'll find any counselor at a local private that regularly sends kids to Harvard who claims that she or he gets those kids in.

Where a college counselor's input could make a difference in an admissions decision is turning an iffy candidate for a good but somewhat less selective school into an admit by (a) being well enough known and trusted that the admissions officer calls and lays out the concern in the first place and then (b) having a reasonable explanation as to why despite this concern, the applicant is likely to be a good fit for the school.

Truthfully, from a matriculation standpoint (vs. a stress/sanity standpoint), counselors probably do their best work for kids who aren't the stars of the class but who have a lot to offer and might be overlooked.  [/quote]

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