Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You won't know where your kid stands vis a vis others at GDS, except wrt rigor of schedule and maybe some individual course grades. And you generally don't know who's applying where.

Also, the grading scale is sufficiently compressed that it's not clear how much of a point spread there is among the most academically-oriented students. My guess is that letters of rec from teachers sort those kids out more than the second decimal place in their GPAs. And that once schools are comparing kids whose SATs are over 2200, things like essays, academic interests, and extracurriculars make more difference than standardized test scores. So, in the EA round, kids with NMSF or Presidential Scholar nominations are in some cases passed over in favor of kids (including unhooked white kids who aren't athletes) whose scores were just under those thresholds but who looked more appealing to admissions officers.

At any rate, in a situation with limited info and where there are lots of well-qualified candidates, the net result, from what I've seen, has been for kids to focus on what they really want rather than to try to play the odds or game the system. The other result is a certain amount of catty commentary (see above). My take is Naviance would make things worse -- it models admissions decisionmaking badly and seems likely to feed a tyranny of small differences mentality.

Our child is going into GDS next year as a 9th grader. Like the OP, we have other kids who've gone through the college admissions process at public schools with Naviance - the trade off being that the school's college counseling was not so helpful. One reason we liked GDS is because the college counseling would be better, but it sounds like the counselors are like gatekeepers who limit the students' choices. Is that true? How does the process work if we have no information as to how our kid stands vis-a-vis the admission statistics? With SCEA, EA and ED options and limitations in college admission, in some ways it is a game as you're forced to make choices about when and where you'll apply. Say, hypothetically, our kid wants to apply SCEA to Yale - will the counselor say, "I don't think Larla should do that" because she knows that Larla's numbers won't cut it? How does it work?

Just noticed a typo in my earlier post -- now corrected in boldface.

We didn't experience any gate-keeping at GDS. My kid had a tough (SC)EA choice to make among two legacy schools and another comparably selective university where DC had no hook. Our GDS counselor's approach was very kid-centered, helping DC think through what was appealing about each school and why. Premise was it's always a crapshoot with these schools, so follow your heart. DC ultimately went with the unhooked school and got in. No pressure from the GDS to accept and withdraw apps elsewhere. DC did that anyway, though a couple of similarly-situated friends did not and everyone seemed fine with that approach. I hate the whole two-stage process, even though it worked out well for DC (done before Xmas and got first choice). But the pressure to designate "the one" by Nov 1 isn't the GDS counselors' fault and I thought they handled the situation very well. Counselor also indicated, early on, that it was a legit strategy for high stats kids to apply to more "lottery" schools (since their matches are inherently reaches) as long as they applied to safeties as well. That didn't end up being DC's approach, but DH and I were reassured to hear upfront that apps wouldn't be strictly rationed according to some one-size-fits-all formula.

All that said, I've heard different stories involving other GDS counselors and kids, so YMMV.

Sidwell let's the kids and parents, if they are interested see the scatter grams. But we were not very interested because the dots don't mean much. Top colleges look at the whole kid, not just grades and scores. One college admission officer from a highly ranked SLAC told my DC that he was admitted from a group of students with similar grades and scores because of his recommendations that emphasized how much he loved a certain subject matter. So as usual it goes back to fit. does your child as a whole person, fit what a college is looking for? The college counselor's advice was helpful in understanding this.

Anonymous wrote:You won't know where your kid stands vis a vis others at GDS, except wrt rigor of schedule and maybe some individual course grades. And you generally don't know who's applying where.

Also, the grading scale is sufficiently compressed that it's not clear how much of a point spread there is among the most academically-oriented students. My guess is that letters of rec from teachers sort those kids out more than the second decimal place in their GPAs. And that once schools are comparing kids whose SATs are over 2200, things like essays, academic interests, and extracurriculars make more difference than standardized test scores. So, in the EA round, kids without NMSF or Presidential Scholar nominations are in some cases passed over in favor of kids (including unhooked white kids who aren't athletes) whose scores were just under those thresholds but who looked more appealing to admissions officers.

At any rate, in a situation with limited info and where there are lots of well-qualified candidates, the net result, from what I've seen, has been for kids to focus on what they really want rather than to try to play the odds or game the system. The other result is a certain amount of catty commentary (see above). My take is Naviance would make things worse -- it models admissions decisionmaking badly and seems likely to feed a tyranny of small differences mentality.

Our child is going into GDS next year as a 9th grader. Like the OP, we have other kids who've gone through the college admissions process at public schools with Naviance - the trade off being that the school's college counseling was not so helpful. One reason we liked GDS is because the college counseling would be better, but it sounds like the counselors are like gatekeepers who limit the students' choices. Is that true? How does the process work if we have no information as to how our kid stands vis-a-vis the admission statistics? With SCEA, EA and ED options and limitations in college admission, in some ways it is a game as you're forced to make choices about when and where you'll apply. Say, hypothetically, our kid wants to apply SCEA to Yale - will the counselor say, "I don't think Larla should do that" because she knows that Larla's numbers won't cut it? How does it work?

You won't know where your kid stands vis a vis others at GDS, except wrt rigor of schedule and maybe some individual course grades. And you generally don't know who's applying where.

Also, the grading scale is sufficiently compressed that it's not clear how much of a point spread there is among the most academically-oriented students. My guess is that letters of rec from teachers sort those kids out more than the second decimal place in their GPAs. And that once schools are comparing kids whose SATs are over 2200, things like essays, academic interests, and extracurriculars make more difference than standardized test scores. So, in the EA round, kids without NMSF or Presidential Scholar nominations are in some cases passed over in favor of kids (including unhooked white kids who aren't athletes) whose scores were just under those thresholds but who looked more appealing to admissions officers.

At any rate, in a situation with limited info and where there are lots of well-qualified candidates, the net result, from what I've seen, has been for kids to focus on what they really want rather than to try to play the odds or game the system. The other result is a certain amount of catty commentary (see above). My take is Naviance would make things worse -- it models admissions decisionmaking badly and seems likely to feed a tyranny of small differences mentality.

I would really have liked access to Naviance anyway myself but I can understand why it's more predictive in a large, public school setting vs. these independent schools filled with preselected kids. It alone can't really help you strategize through the EA vs. RD decision when it's a small pool of kids who all fall in a relatively narrow qualification band. What would really help is if you're assigned to a school counselor who's willing to provides body language signals when you're reviewing the list together.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing regarding weighted/unweighted GPA is built into Naviance. What you see on the Scattergrams is what your school's registrar/college counselor entered.

If your school chooses to enter weighted GPA, then that is what you will see. If, like my child's, they enter unweighted, then that is what you will see.

One of my DCs goes to MCPS and naviance includes both weighted and unweighted which is actually quite useful because it shows an element of rigor in coursework which is important in the public school environment. That's not so important in private schools. My DDs private school shared only very limited naviance data - no scattergrams, just averages of applied and accepted students for the specific schools on your list.

Don't disagree with you that seeing the data is helpful to level set ourselves but some schools do not provide access.

OP here. I was just interested in finding out whether all the top independent schools around here have this hide-the-ball philosophy such that it is near impossible to find out how your kid is doing vis-a-vis classmates, which, for better of worse, is a huge part of what it comes down to in college admissions. We had Naviance accounts when our oldest child went through all this at a different school and found it invaluable. We're smart enough to understand that most of the extreme highs and lows on Naviance scattergrams may be due to URMs, legacies, athletic recruits, and have no interest in starting a brouhaha over that. Since we are new to the area and this particular independent school, it would just be very helpful to have an account so that we could get the lay of the land. There was a lot of information on Naviance last time we looked -- more than could be shared verbally by a counselor during a brief appointment. Not sure that this would really add to the stress level -- seems this kids are stressed all the time anyway. Perhaps seeing some of the info earlier on and thereby setting more reasonable expectations would actually alleviate some of the stress of junior/senior year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the parent that has a legacy, non white you got a twofer... But for you to suggest that legacy is on average smarter than these kids, that's rather narrow of you.

I never said legacy students are smarter. I said they have higher SATs. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09legacies.html) For reasons other posters have pointed out, I don't think SAT and GPAs are good measures of merit so I would never claim that someone with higher SAT scores is smarter. Trying to judge applicants using numbers alone is what is really narrow minded.

This is hysterical. I clicked on the link this PP provided which was all about legacy advantages.

"On average, Mr. Hurwitz’s study found, legacy applicants had slightly higher SAT scores than others. Education researchers point out that students whose parents attended elite colleges are also more likely to have advantages like family wealth and private school education."

You're right legacy applicants are way more privileged than others. I think how far a student has come is an important factor in figuring out how far they will go. But on the measures you're focused on like SATs, legacy applicants do better.

Legacy status applies to one or two schools per kid (parents' undergrad institution(s)). So legacy status doesn't enable a URM kid write a ticket to any SLAC or highly competitive university.

If you want to argue that a (likely full pay) URM applicant with HYPS alumn parents, very good test scores and a 3.5+ GPA from a highly competitive private school in DC is likely to get into excellent colleges, then no shit, Sherlock. And what's so outrageous about that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And, of course, the school would get grief from parents wondering why their higher stats kid got passed over when a lower stats kid got admitted and/or when other kids with those stats always seem to get in.

From experience, wondering is just a short-lived intermediate stage. You soon realize that the kids that get in with lower stats fit a pattern that does not apply to unhooked white kids. However, in many private schools there a lot of preferential-access kids, compared to say a suburban public school.

From experience, comments like this are frequent when parents believe that GPA and standardized test scores are objective indicators of merit and everything else is unfair advantage. Since Naviance's way of representing admissions decisions reinforces this mindset.

From experience, usually parents with legacy to bequeath say this. No one is saying that these DCs aren't competitive candidates. It is a reality that schedule rigor, GPA and test scores don't speak louder than institutional priorities. Certainly an advantage, fair or unfair, to those who meet the criteria and that's life.

To the parent that has a legacy, non white you got a twofer. There are kids out there more qualified than yours because there always are. I don't know that parents are so much bitter as naturally upset that they tell their kids all their lives to work hard for what they want, only for their kids to become disillusioned. That's life too and we know it, our kids will learn from their skinned knee. But for you to suggest that legacy is on average smarter than these kids, that's rather narrow of you.

Schedule rigor isn't reflected in Naviance, nor are teacher recommendations, or extracurriculars. The truth is that, beyond a certain threshold, scores aren't driving these decisions and GPAs per se (vs transcripts/recs) almost never are. FWIW, my kid didn't apply to the schools where she would qualify as a legacy. In part, that's because DC got so tired of listening to these knee-jerk dismissals of the accomplishments of other kids who got admitted to the same (HYP) school as one of their parents did.

And your "twofer" comment is so effed up I don't know where to begin.... If there's always someone more qualified, why is it the non-white kid's admission that you resent most?

It is true in this area that if a medium-achieving kid is a legacy and a so-called URM he or she can write their ticket to a SLAC or highly competitive university. It's just reality, and sadly Justice Scalia died too soon to end race-based affirmative action.

Anonymous wrote:What is the philosophy behind GDS not offering Naviance?

It's not that useful because so many kids go to Harvard.

Nothing regarding weighted/unweighted GPA is built into Naviance. What you see on the Scattergrams is what your school's registrar/college counselor entered.

If your school chooses to enter weighted GPA, then that is what you will see. If, like my child's, they enter unweighted, then that is what you will see.

In our experience, the GPA shown and plotted on Naviance charts is DC's actual unweighted GPA, despite some advanced courses. I don't see how Naviance could choose to weight certain classes if the schools themselves don 't do it. Seems too arbitrary.

* does not