Well, for example, let me say that I have a student applying to college in a few years, and that they are also well-qualified and deserving, and in a class where twelve or thirteen of their classmates want to apply to the same competitive college or university.

Based on this year's success, I might think that my qualified student had a good chance of being admitted to a very competitive college in a large pool of candidates, even if they rank-ordered somewhere near the lower part of that particularly qualified pool.

There is no shame in answering the legacy question, by the way. One of the years that my children applied to college, a record number of applicants were admitted to one particularly selective college, including my daughter. Several people asked me, "how many are legacies?", because it did/does help them evaluate their own child's future chances in some way - every bit of information helps.

I had no problem stating, and this was in fact the case, that all but two of the admitted students had some sort of legacy connection (defined, in that particular case, as having had either a parent or sibling attend the same school for either college or graduate school).

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Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Nope, a mixed group of campus leaders: from debate, the newspaper, chorus, musicals, math team...

I have no doubt that the students are well-deserving, obviously, or they would not have been admitted. I am curious how many legacies are in the admitted group?

I posted this question and, by the way, I do not mean it as a snarky question or a putdown - and I hope that no one interprets it as such.

It is probably the case that most colleges and universities will welcome the chance to admit a very well-qualified, accomplished student who has some family connection to the school, if only because they know that student is likely to be excited and informed about the college, and want to attend.

But I am nevertheless curious how many of the ten deserving and qualified Sidwell students admitted to Yale were also some sort of legacy? I do not expect an answer but perhaps I will receive one. Thank you.

No matter how sweetly you ask the question, your motives are suspicious. Past responses to questions like yours have been uniformly met with slanderous assertions about the merits of the candidates themselves and the unfairness of the system. See Yale provided public data and be satisfied.

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Anonymous wrote:20:26 again. I agree with you it's better just to sit quietly and refuse to respond to the slings and arrows. But it's still a no win situation for them. Everyone likes to push the princess off her pedestal, so I guess it's unavoidable. Hard to shed too many tears for the princess though.

This thread was actually started to have parents post results for ED of their children. Not sure who the OP is or from what school, but since that is the title and point of this thread, please feel free to go to another one if you don't want to read what parents are posting.

Dense.

Well, that was a useful comment. So for any other SFS parents still on this thread, 7 kids so far got into Yale today and 6 or 7 into Penn yesterday, plus so many other great schools. Obviously the counselors and the school is doing its job, and the mix of kids who got in is reflective of the mix at Sidwell, which is great!

Blech. Amazing that adults are doing what their children are mature enough NOT to do. #MoreEmbarrassingSidwellParentPosts

I have no dog in this fight for a lot of reasons, but I don't understand the disdain for anon posts that give vague information about college acceptances. why can't parents be proud of theik kids' accomplishments?

I really wish we would spend more time teaching kids to be proud of their successes and happy for others, instead of trying to prevent people from sharing news because it might hurt someone's feelings. One kid's success (or even luck) is not an indictment of any other kid.

Celebrating is taking your child out with the family for a festive dinner to honor the milestone achievement of getting into a great college. What you're talking about is bragging, and I'm sure people around you roll their eyes at your mode of "teaching your kids to be proud of their successes."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Nope, a mixed group of campus leaders: from debate, the newspaper, chorus, musicals, math team...

I have no doubt that the students are well-deserving, obviously, or they would not have been admitted. I am curious how many legacies are in the admitted group?

http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet

See Statistics on Current 2013-14 Freshmen Class. I doubt that it has changed much in a few years. How are you helped by knowing this number for one group of kids from a single school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Nope, a mixed group of campus leaders: from debate, the newspaper, chorus, musicals, math team...

I have no doubt that the students are well-deserving, obviously, or they would not have been admitted. I am curious how many legacies are in the admitted group?

I posted this question and, by the way, I do not mean it as a snarky question or a putdown - and I hope that no one interprets it as such.

It is probably the case that most colleges and universities will welcome the chance to admit a very well-qualified, accomplished student who has some family connection to the school, if only because they know that student is likely to be excited and informed about the college, and want to attend.

But I am nevertheless curious how many of the ten deserving and qualified Sidwell students admitted to Yale were also some sort of legacy? I do not expect an answer but perhaps I will receive one. Thank you.

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Paging GDS Mom....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Nope, a mixed group of campus leaders: from debate, the newspaper, chorus, musicals, math team...

I have no doubt that the students are well-deserving, obviously, or they would not have been admitted. I am curious how many legacies are in the admitted group?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Nope, a mixed group of campus leaders: from debate, the newspaper, chorus, musicals, math team...

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Probably the kids of movers and shakers.

Anonymous wrote:I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Numbers are confirmed.

I do not have children at any of these private schools, but are you - previous poster - telling us that Sidwell Friends School had eight students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania, and ten (!) students admitted to Yale in the early applicant pool?

If so, well I have to admit, that is impressive, particularly the number of students admitted to Yale as early applicants - especially for a small class.

Just a quick note about our positive experience with college counseling.

First, I think there is not a family who has gone through the process that does not respect the very difficult work of our college advisors. Our children are very grateful for the help the college advisors gave them over the years, and I know many other students and families are as well. Thank you for doing that job.

The students and the college advisors confer independently - without parents - about their essays, completing the common app, requesting and securing teacher recommendations, and preparing any supplementary materials. Literally, as a parent at our school, you are expected to trust that your student - with the gentle guidance of their college advisor - is not only capable of doing all of that independently, but will get it right. We, as parents, had little to no involvement with any of that.

The students draft and write their own essays, and common app responses, and the college advisors read them over and make suggestions for improvement. The students also independently decide, sometimes with the advisor's help, who their teacher recommenders will be, and go about the process of securing those recommendations themselves.

There are two meetings that involve the parents, student, and college advisors. One is to go over the student's college choices, which the school prefers that you limit to eight total; and to get a sense of what the student's top choices would be.

The other meeting is closer to the application deadline, for both early and regular admission. By this second meeting, in the early application round, the student must have already informed the college counselors of which one school they will apply to in the early round.

At this meeting, then, the college advisor is able to say "there are X number of your classmates who also intend to apply to W college early." They are also able to tell you where, numerically, your standardized test scores and gpa rank compared to those other applicants. The college advisors will not tell you who the other applicants are, or obviously, what their specific standardized test scores or gpa are.

This exercise is very helpful in letting you know, for example, that your gpa is last among the students applying to X college, and your test scores fall somewhere in the middle. The college advisors will also be able to tell you how many students are applying to other colleges on your list, and where your scores and gpa rank in that subset. Again, this is very helpful in conveying to a student that 15 classmates are applying to Z early, but only 1 is applying to A.

What you cannot know, and the school is very good about confidentiality, is what other accomplishments or attributes the students in a particular applicant subset bring to their applications.

The students are also discrete, and I think they rarely, if ever, discuss gpa or test scores with one another. They are also discrete about their applications and admissions, although the good and bad news still eventually gets out about particular decisions.

Oops, meant 8 kids to Upenn

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Sidwell does NOT show families Naviance. Anyway, any word on Princeton or Yale admits? Stanford?

Why don't they share this data? Seems it would remove a lot of the criticism of their college counselors.

I think the school's rationale is that, given the size of the senior class, it would be too easy for parents and students to identify applicants from past years. As a Sidwell parent who has gone through the college application process with more than one child, I've never found this persuasive, but I'll also say that I don't think Naviance data is all that helpful. It just leaves out too many variables.

That said, you might be right, PP, that giving parents and students access to Naviance might have a beneficial effect on the relationship between families and counselors. Many of the complaints about Sidwell's college counseling have more to do with process than outcomes. I think many parents understand that admissions decisions can be incomprehensible, but it's harder for parents to accept the extent to which they feel shut out of the process -- and with some justification. As a parent of 2 grads and a current student, I am grateful for the school's emphasis on teaching students to advocates for themselves. This is appropriate with respect to academics, but the college application process is very different in many ways, and, in my view, parent involvement is justified. If SFS had an exit interview for parents of graduating seniors, my advice would be to consider how the college counselors might bring parents into the process in a way that would create a feeling of teamwork among students, parents and counselors, and perhaps improve outcome, as well as process.

I would just want to know how realistic my chances are. If 30 applied to two schools and fifty percent were rejected or deferred, I would find that incredibly useful without having to keep calling the counseling office. I know there are many other factors, but it's still a useful data point to take into consideration.

+1. But 8 kids to apenn and 10 kids to Yale just on early admits from one school is huge, and I think I might have discouraged my DS from being one of those kids if I knew the numbers ahead of time. I would never have guessed that 2 schools would take so many kids from one high school, famous or not. Guess not weighting grades isn't as big of a detriment as we thought.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sidwell does NOT show families Naviance. Anyway, any word on Princeton or Yale admits? Stanford?

Why don't they share this data? Seems it would remove a lot of the criticism of their college counselors.

I think the school's rationale is that, given the size of the senior class, it would be too easy for parents and students to identify applicants from past years. As a Sidwell parent who has gone through the college application process with more than one child, I've never found this persuasive, but I'll also say that I don't think Naviance data is all that helpful. It just leaves out too many variables.

That said, you might be right, PP, that giving parents and students access to Naviance might have a beneficial effect on the relationship between families and counselors. Many of the complaints about Sidwell's college counseling have more to do with process than outcomes. I think many parents understand that admissions decisions can be incomprehensible, but it's harder for parents to accept the extent to which they feel shut out of the process -- and with some justification. As a parent of 2 grads and a current student, I am grateful for the school's emphasis on teaching students to advocates for themselves. This is appropriate with respect to academics, but the college application process is very different in many ways, and, in my view, parent involvement is justified. If SFS had an exit interview for parents of graduating seniors, my advice would be to consider how the college counselors might bring parents into the process in a way that would create a feeling of teamwork among students, parents and counselors, and perhaps improve outcome, as well as process.

I would just want to know how realistic my chances are. If 30 applied to two schools and fifty percent were rejected or deferred, I would find that incredibly useful without having to keep calling the counseling office. I know there are many other factors, but it's still a useful data point to take into consideration.