Anonymous wrote:My colleague told me that Georgetown Day School consistently beats its rivals in Ivy League admissions. Is this correct?
GDS had 9 National Merit Semifinalists in this current senior class -- that's about 7% of this senior class -- compared to Sidwell (approximately 14%), NCS (approximately 10%), St. Albans (approximately 10%).
http://georgetown.patch.com/articles/area-schools-students-national-merit-semifinalists
They're in the mix from year to year but not head or shoulders above these peer schools in DC, nor could you make the argument that somehow the GDS parent body is so much more connected that they will pad out their admissions with more Ivy legacies than Sidwell/STA/NCS, or that GDS is so much more athletic that they will pad out their Ivy admissions with more athletic recruits. On diversity, Sidwell equally diverse by percentage and more diverse socioeconomically if measured by extent of financial aid, and STA is more diverse socio-economically when measured by financial aid, so you can't assume GDS is lapping the field with admissions of URMs either.
The original post was probably a troll, but, to answer the question if sincerely posed? No, that is not correct. I would say it is fair to say that GDS college admissions are on par with its peer DC schools -- and that all of these numbers are small enough that there are big changes from year to year (for example, a year or two ago GDS had 15 National Merit Semifinalists), so that any one of the top academic independent schools in DC could have a better year in this extremely narrow metric of Ivy admissions in any given year.