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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is a hard message to deliver and I apologize in advance. [b] A 3.7 just isn’t all that compelling and neither is a 34 ACT relatively speaking for top 15 universities even coming from a great school like Sidwell.   If your kid isn’t a NMF and/or Presidential Scholar candidate and done some substantive internships or academic research outside of school, and hit &gt; 3.9 overall GPA having taken the Math I — Math IV sequence plus all the accelerated 1A sciences plus four years of language, plus a &gt;1560 SAT or 35/36 ACT, you really don’t get on the radar screen of the top 15 schools.  [/b]Exception is the hooked kids — namely athletes, legacies and URM, but a couple of those hooked kids have the former qualifications, too, making them spectacularly attractive applicants.  These schools really know Sidwell and for example understand that a solid A from Math III is a pretty powerful academic signal.  I just cannot sit by and continue to watch the Sidwell CCO get trashed the way it is by some folks on this forum. In the aggregate, they are doing a good job in a very challenging and competitive environment.  The reality is, putting aside the “branding” element, the top 30 - 50 schools offer a great education.  Sidwell parent of senior.[/quote]

To the extent the above is at least partially true, it illustrates what has gone wrong with Sidwell over the years:

Offer a few very difficult (advanced) which are pretty harshly graded. Students who don't take these can't claim to have taken the most difficult classes. Those that do face harsh grading distributions and lower GPAs. Bad outcomes either way.

By contrast many other schools offer advanced courses that are perhaps slightly less tough than Sidwell's toughest classes, but are also graded much better (look at the course grading profiles from Westlake etc posted upthread). This allows the students at these schools to take the more advanced classes (and claim to have done so) and do well on them. Hard courses plus grade deflation favors the very very top (perhaps 5 students each grade) and hurts the top 10-25 percent of the class. If the objective is to provide the opportunity for a super high level education, that works. For better admissions outcomes it is a total fail.

--Senior Parent

[/quote]

Not everyone gets bad grades in the most rigorous math and science classes.[/quote]

Thanks, STEM mom, good to see you again. Nothing that pp said suggests otherwise.[/quote]
Huh?   Answering a complaint about grading in the most rigorous math class does not make a person a stem mom.   There is a reason for different levels of coursework.  Not everyone is at the same place or ability in math or science or history or whatever.     It is fine for there to be very challenging coursework in different diciplines and also less challenging options [/quote]

Not everyone is at the same place in reading comprehension either, apparently.[/quote]

Just because I think challenging courses and challenging grading is advantageous instead of disadvantageous does not mean I can't read.  I just have a different opinion.[/quote]

No one wrote or suggested that everyone gets bad grades in the most rigorous math and science classes.[/quote]

There is a poster that would like less rigorous grading in the most challenging courses so more students can receive higher grades.   I don't agree with this strategy.[/quote]

Then calculate weighted GPA that is fair for every student [/quote]

There is a GPA bump for taking advanced sciences and Maths.[/quote]

No.  All Sidwell GPA is unweighted.  [/quote]

Not true. When your kid is in one of these classes, they are given specifics about the weighted bump.[/quote]

Very clearly you are not Sidwell parent.  Or you DC get special treatment?[/quote]

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