We did not enjoy the admissions process at Maret at all. The upper school admissions director is a young man who graduated from Maret. He is inexperienced and it felt like he was just going through the motions with us and with my high schooler. He did not take the time to get to know us or my child. He was very impersonal and we did not have a good impression of the school because of him. Our experience at GDS was the total opposite. The high school admissions director is very warm and personable. She really took the time to get to know my husband and I and my daughter. We went well over an hour talking to her during our interview. Even the two applications were different: Maret just asked my child to submit a graded essay for high school, GDS asked a series of questions that gave my child an opportunity to express herself in a variety of ways. She was accepted at GDS and rejected at Maret. We were not surprised.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Disliked our experience last year with Potomac so much so that we quit the process. Impersonal and arrogant, which is not how we roll. The teacher who gave DS and his group the tour was great, but Charlotte was a piece of work.

Ditto. We quit the process as well and never looked back.

That is silly. Once your kid actually attends a school, you have zero contact with the admissions office. Your kid will never even know these people, so whether the admissions officers are wonderful or terrible, it has absolutely no impact on your kid.

Anonymous wrote:SJC- entire process cold, and paper based. For a school with so much money you'd think they'd upgrade their admissions department.

Their admissions process is terrible - impersonal and cold as you say. One of the admissions officers was not only cold she was actively snotty to people.
Wickedly unprofessional.

We were out of the country for their one open house and tried to get a shadow day for DC - she refused.
We even had another child from the school who was more than willing to escort DC at the school for a day and we were told no.
DC was admitted but we had no idea what the school was about at all.

Craxy unprofessional over there.

^^ Possibly exhausted by a very hectic Admissions season.

Anonymous wrote:We ended up not applying to Maret (great school, but not quite the right fit for our older DC), but will still second Annie Farquhar as a class act. We appreciated her advice and encouragement.

I read this a lot on DCUM. We must have caught her on an off day. She seemed disinterested, like she was just going through the motions. We didn't apply.

We ended up not applying to Maret (great school, but not quite the right fit for our older DC), but will still second Annie Farquhar as a class act. We appreciated her advice and encouragement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GDS: admissions office actually looked my profile up on LinkedIn during the admissions process (the Net is not anonymous, you know). Total turnoff and DC is not going there now...

What?!! Are you serious??? Not cool!

Why is this not cool? I don't get it. I will definetely check it out if I was part of the admissions office. For sure.

m

It's not cool because I told you what you needed to know about ME on the application. The process should be about my DC and not whatever information you think you can dig up on my professional page. I can only assume they want to see who else you are connected to for elbow rubbing purposes. Beyond ridiculous. Google my child if you want, but font Google me!

You are ridicolous. Its a community, totally normal to check your PUBLIC profile. How absurd.

Anonymous wrote:We really liked the Maret process. Annie Farquhar was warm when we met with her, and totally honest about chances about getting in in terms of numbers. We felt like they knew our child, as opposed to other highly regarded places where they had not even reviewed our files enough to know if they had had their admission visit or not, scores, etc.

I will second this! She's upfront and a great ambassador for the school. Makes you feel good even when you get the inevitable (w/l) for k!

We really liked the Maret process. Annie Farquhar was warm when we met with her, and totally honest about chances about getting in in terms of numbers. We felt like they knew our child, as opposed to other highly regarded places where they had not even reviewed our files enough to know if they had had their admission visit or not, scores, etc.

<< Do you really think an undesirable or a riff-raf would have a LinkedIn profile? >>

ADs are googling more than Linked-In.

^ Really. I save all my crazy drunken pictures for Facebook, not LinkedIn.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Not always. You can set your preferences to view profiles anonymously. If you have a LinkdIn page, you should expect people are going to view it. Could be just to put a face to a name, could be donor research, could just be curiosity. In any case, if you're putting it out there on the net, expect people to view it. Otherwise, what's the point.

yes, I know that it doesn't always. Clearly, in this case, that is how the OP knew, though.

I agree that you don't have much of an expectation of privacy with your LinkdIn profile, however, I also agree with the person that was taken aback by it. I think it just speaks to the school that they are "investigating" (for lack of a better word) the parent, when it's the child who is applying for admission. It just doesn't sit right - especially given the mentality of a lot of these schools.

But you and OP are ascribing a nefarious purpose, as if somehow the school knowing more about you is a bad thing. If there's something that the school would consider about you that would prevent them from admitting your child, then I say you dodged a bullet. If the school is learning more about parents from a development perspective then that just comes with the territory of independent schools. Before LinkdIn you can be sure schools used other methods to help scout potential donors. It is the job of the people in advancement to learn about their potential donors - it is all about building relationships. One would be naive to believe that such research doesn't happen at bigger (and sometimes smaller) schools.

But I would guess that during the admissions season, this was more just curiosity from someone in admissions (or maybe someone recognized the name from another arena and wanted to confirm a connection) or it was to place a face to a name.

But if you go through life ascribing evil intent in everything other people do in relationship to your online presence, then maybe you shouldn't have such a presence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GDS: admissions office actually looked my profile up on LinkedIn during the admissions process (the Net is not anonymous, you know). Total turnoff and DC is not going there now...

What?!! Are you serious??? Not cool!

Why is this not cool? I don't get it. I will definetely check it out if I was part of the admissions office. For sure.

m

It's not cool because I told you what you needed to know about ME on the application. The process should be about my DC and not whatever information you think you can dig up on my professional page. I can only assume they want to see who else you are connected to for elbow rubbing purposes. Beyond ridiculous. Google my child if you want, but font Google me!

You do all you can to learn about the school. The school’s doing what it can to learn about the families they admit. Look at as a means of protecting your child from undesirables and riff-raff.

Do you really think an undesirable or a riff-raf would have a LinkedIn profile?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GDS: admissions office actually looked my profile up on LinkedIn during the admissions process (the Net is not anonymous, you know). Total turnoff and DC is not going there now...

What?!! Are you serious??? Not cool!

Why is this not cool? I don't get it. I will definetely check it out if I was part of the admissions office. For sure.

m

It's not cool because I told you what you needed to know about ME on the application. The process should be about my DC and not whatever information you think you can dig up on my professional page. I can only assume they want to see who else you are connected to for elbow rubbing purposes. Beyond ridiculous. Google my child if you want, but font Google me!

You do all you can to learn about the school. The school’s doing what it can to learn about the families they admit. Look at as a means of protecting your child from undesirables and riff-raff.

Anonymous wrote:

Not always. You can set your preferences to view profiles anonymously. If you have a LinkdIn page, you should expect people are going to view it. Could be just to put a face to a name, could be donor research, could just be curiosity. In any case, if you're putting it out there on the net, expect people to view it. Otherwise, what's the point.

yes, I know that it doesn't always. Clearly, in this case, that is how the OP knew, though.

I agree that you don't have much of an expectation of privacy with your LinkdIn profile, however, I also agree with the person that was taken aback by it. I think it just speaks to the school that they are "investigating" (for lack of a better word) the parent, when it's the child who is applying for admission. It just doesn't sit right - especially given the mentality of a lot of these schools.