Anonymous wrote:My husband and I are considering various top DC private schools for our DD next year (assuming admissions success) and we would like to get an honest assessment from current parents about college exmissions coming out of these schools. We have heard troubling reports about how DC privates struggle to get students into top (broadly defined) schools. Can anyone comment on how the early admission season has gone this year and on the quality of college counseling at your school? We are most interested in Sidwell, NCS, and GDS.

You might also want to post on the College Discussion forum for another point of view.

Anonymous wrote:
Heard that NCS got three girls in ED to Dartmouth.


They must not read DCUM - isn't Dartmouth misogynistic?

Isn't everything? By the way your post is misogynistic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heard that NCS got three girls in ED to Dartmouth.

They must not read DCUM - isn't Dartmouth misogynistic?

Perhaps that was the attraction . . . different strokes . . . Trust that I picked up on the sarcasm. Dartmouth has a problem with misogyny like Harvard has a problem with academic integrity and Yale has a problem with campus security.

Anonymous wrote:I would wager that 9 out of every 10 students from the elite private schools that are admitted to HYPSM would have been admitted even if they attended a top public school. In other words, it’s the student (and the hooks they have) not the school. The main reason well to do parents send their children to private school is to put them in an environment where their peers are socially adept and well connected. Another benefit is the small class size and personal attention. But long time private school families know that the schools themselves are not responsible for admission to elite colleges – those admissions are destined (or not) before the DC enters high school.

Ask a silly question, get a . . . .

I would wager that 9 out of every 10 students from the elite private schools that are admitted to HYPSM would have been admitted even if they attended a top public school. In other words, it’s the student (and the hooks they have) not the school. The main reason well to do parents send their children to private school is to put them in an environment where their peers are socially adept and well connected. Another benefit is the small class size and personal attention. But long time private school families know that the schools themselves are not responsible for admission to elite colleges – those admissions are destined (or not) before the DC enters high school.

Anonymous wrote:OMG why can;t parents jsut let their kids be who they are and let them develop into who they are going to be. Maybe they are community college material and that is it. Maybe harvard but don't stress your kids out by doing this old we need to send you to the top schools so you get into the top college so you can .... then what? work at the same places the kids who went to avg schools go to?

there there dear, no reason for you to worry.

Anonymous wrote:Heard that NCS got three girls in ED to Dartmouth.

They must not read DCUM - isn't Dartmouth misogynistic?

Anonymous wrote:OMG why can;t parents jsut let their kids be who they are and let them develop into who they are going to be. Maybe they are community college material and that is it. Maybe harvard but don't stress your kids out by doing this old we need to send you to the top schools so you get into the top college so you can .... then what? work at the same places the kids who went to avg schools go to?

Well, gee, I don't know... maybe because OP and her DH are about to invest $200,000 + in their DD's education, before she even sets foot on a college campus? If my child is community college material, that is fine, but Im sure as hell not going to pay for an independent school education and then find that out.

Basically, many kids at the "top" DC independent schools are going to get into "top" colleges b/c either they are legacy at the college, family donates to the college or the kid has some special skill (athletics, etc.) that will get him/her into the college. It happens that these connections also help the kid get into the DC independent. So, for the random kid at a DC school (the type of kid who is a good kid, parents scrape to pay the tuition and don't have connections), the school isn't going to do much (if anything) to help in college admissions.
In fact, in recent years plenty of parents at DC independents have openly worried that having a child at these schools hurts college admission. If there are going to be, say, 2 kids from a top DC private who get spots at, say, Harvard, and there are 2 kids who parents donate and who are very connected at that school (high flyer DC types), there simply won't be another spot from that school for the typical middle class, great, hardworking kids. Choose high school carefully.

We have had recent experience with two of the schools you list. We found the college counseling excellent and realistic. Every parent at those schools at some level thinks their kid has a chance for HYPS, so there are always going to be disappointed people who in part blame the school and college counseling. But particularly with lifers at these schools, where admission was based on testing as a 4 or 8 year old, or siblings or alumni preferences for admissions to the independent school means that there are kids by HS who are not necessarily absolutely top academically in terms of testing, or who end up not having ideal study habits/motivation, and end up perhaps not at top 10 or 20 schools. But if you are even considering these schools for a kid that is just entering high school, if she gets into one of those three schools, she is probably already a top tester and academically very strong, and it seems very unlikely that choosing one school over the other will make or break the college process in terms of college counseling per se. More important is how your child fits into the school, whether she is happy and productive and stimulated, and finds peers and extracurriculars that help her achieve her potential, which will then be reflected in a strong application. But no matter what, at least for another few years, it is really tough out there for admissions to the very very top colleges, and it is at some level a crap shoot when the admit rate is 6-10%, no matter what. There are some patterns between which privates tend to send kids to the very top schools more frequently (Sidwell=Yale, NCS=Stanford, GDS=Harvard, and Princeton not as frequently for any) but unlikely you can figure out which school a current 8th grader will want to be at and whether there is any chance she will be academically strong enough to have any chance of getting in. What we have been most pleased by is how well prepared our kids have been for college, in terms of the academic preparation they received at these schools, writing in particular. They have done extremely well at the very top schools, and believe they came in much better prepared than many of their new classmates.

If the main reason you want your kid to go to a big 3 school is college admissions I'd think twice. They have a good record but it is MUCH harder to get into highly selective schools than it used to be. Most Ivy schools have a 7 or 8 percent admittance rate. So there is some luck involved. Also, the "old boys" network of colleges being cozy with prep schools isn't like it used to be. Colleges want the best qualified and they want diversity of all kinds. You don't know how your child will be their junior/senior year. They may burn out, they may react poorly to stress, they may start drinking or get depressed. The schools can't get kids into schools if they don't have the grades and the scores. If your kid has the grades and the scores and really interesting extra curiculars, there is a good chance they will get into a good college from a public school. The big 3 schools will provide your kid with a really good education and I think college admissions counseling is really strong, but there is only so much they can do. Also, most diplomatic people don't talk about where they got in this early in the year.

OMG why can;t parents jsut let their kids be who they are and let them develop into who they are going to be. Maybe they are community college material and that is it. Maybe harvard but don't stress your kids out by doing this old we need to send you to the top schools so you get into the top college so you can .... then what? work at the same places the kids who went to avg schools go to?

No school can get your DC into a good college. Maybe they will or maybe they wont but you are really setting your child up for serious stress if this is your criteria.

Heard that NCS got three girls in ED to Dartmouth.

My husband and I are considering various top DC private schools for our DD next year (assuming admissions success) and we would like to get an honest assessment from current parents about college exmissions coming out of these schools. We have heard troubling reports about how DC privates struggle to get students into top (broadly defined) schools. Can anyone comment on how the early admission season has gone this year and on the quality of college counseling at your school? We are most interested in Sidwell, NCS, and GDS.