Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

Do you even know what FARMS means? Guessing not, because then you would not use this term in the same sentence as Sidwell. Swing and a miss, PP

Free and Reduced Meals. You proved my point. There are zero kids at Sidwell who would qualify for FARMS if they were in public.

False. Period.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

Do you even know what FARMS means? Guessing not, because then you would not use this term in the same sentence as Sidwell. Swing and a miss, PP

Free and Reduced Meals. You proved my point. There are zero kids at Sidwell who would qualify for FARMS if they were in public.

I thought all DCPS students receive free meals now anyway, so isn't this a moot point?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

What's FARMS?

Exactly.

It’s the wrong kind of diversity for Sidwell and comparable privates.

Actually I personally know multiple families at Sidwell who would qualify for FARMs, or whose families received FARM (or siblings still do) in public school. And as for this false public/private divide, do you really think there aren’t a huge number of families with kids at local publications whose kids are legacies at top colleges, whose families are current or potential large donors, etc.? Wealthy families, parents with degrees from top ranked schools, and families who are major donors to charitable and educational institutions make a wide range of educational choices for their kids. Our kids are currently at Sidwell, Which we decided based on their individual interests and needs. Had they had different academic areas of interest, and for one child a different extracurricular interest, we definitely would’ve gone public. Among my pretty large group of friends through our jobs, about half of our kids are in public and private. Sometimes split with an a family based on the kids needs and interests. We are generally socioeconomically about the same, with some differences, tend to take similar approaches to philanthropy, And went to similarly competitive colleges and professional schools. Not identical, of course. We are not public school families or private school families, we are parents making the best decisions for our individual kids, open to changes along the way. And in this group there are just as many Kids who will have a top-ranked school legacy connection in public as on private. All to say this great divide does not seem to exist as described or assumed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

What's FARMS?

Exactly.

It’s the wrong kind of diversity for Sidwell and comparable privates.

+1

This thread was troll-y from the start because it was posted defensively. The OP went out of their way to frame this as a rebuttal to an argument (that no one made) that Sidwell somehow did not have impressive college acceptances. Of course it does, for all of the many reasons people have outlined on the thread. Sidwell is a rigorous school that turns out students very prepared for elite colleges, so of course many of their students have been accepted at such colleges. And yes, Sidwell students are largely very privileged, with well connected and wealthy parents, which everyone understands is very beneficial in terms of getting into college. Does anyone dispute either of these things?

Is there actually anyone saying Sidwell students aren't good enough to attend excellent universities? That's laughable -- every Sidwell grad I've ever met is exceptional.

And is there anyone actually arguing that wealth and privilege play a major role in where Sidwell students go to college and where they end up in life? That too is laughable. Sidwell students tend to be smart and hardworking, but there are smart and hardworking students everywhere and Sidwell students will likely still succeed at much higher rates because of their privilege.

Is there anything new in this thread? Congratulations all high school seniors who are excited about where they are going next year.

Y'all are arguing about whether or not water is wet and it's tiresome.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

What's FARMS?

Exactly.

It’s the wrong kind of diversity for Sidwell and comparable privates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

Do you even know what FARMS means? Guessing not, because then you would not use this term in the same sentence as Sidwell. Swing and a miss, PP

Free and Reduced Meals. You proved my point. There are zero kids at Sidwell who would qualify for FARMS if they were in public.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you a SFS parent?

Nope. Public school parent.

Yes, that part is obvious

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

Do you even know what FARMS means? Guessing not, because then you would not use this term in the same sentence as Sidwell. Swing and a miss, PP

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. I'm not particularly impressed by what I've seen.

Agree. Similar results at our local publics.

Same reaction. I've looked at similar instagrams for a few MCPS HS (including several non-W ones) and Sidwell seems fine but not better by any measure. A few of the other privates are more eye-popping. Maybe the Sidwell kids are still deciding, maybe the high flyers are too cool to post (my MCPS kid is very happy about his enrollment plans but flat out refuses to post to his HS instagram site.) Or maybe despite the White House kids who go there, Sidwell is just a good private school with normal kids at a wide range of levels.

The bethesda mag annual compilation of college destinations says you’re wrong, however. Plus that annual data dump is broken down by school, so you can’t even claim that thing that Moco parents do when 1/2 the school goes to UMD, sputtering that it’s about financial aid. Not in Potomac, it isn’t.

PP here. You're absolutely right that tons of MCPS kids go to UMD (a great and competitive school) as well as other local publics like Towson & St. Marys. But at least some of those publics currently show more admits to very very top schools than Sidwell. Obviously that's drawing from a much bigger class size, but my point is that there's nothing particularly impressive about the Sidwell list. Which btw is completely fine! There are tons of great schools beyond the T-whatever and like I said above, maybe some kids aren't into the boast post. But the list posted doesn't live up to the OP's hype.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacies, athletes in $$$$$ sports, and development kids. Zero FARMS kids.

Congrats?

What's FARMS?

Exactly.

Not a Sidwell parent. Amazed at the posts’ bitter jealousy leaking all over these pages. Why can’t you applaud the kids or just move on and say nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP, you can't waltz in here and use words like "extremely impressive" when you're talking about schools. It's just not done and makes you look stupid. People have strong feelings about certain schools and colleges, and if you wish point out praiseworthy achievements, you've got to be convincingly factual and more specific. What kind of academic are you that you can't make that effort to look objective? The words you use are way too subjective - you look like the moronic realtors on the Real Estate forum that post about their listings in first-degree, glowing terms, while pretending to be buyers.

Again, you need numbers and match-school comparisons in order to conclude what you did. Otherwise it's just hot air and people are going to tear you apart.

OP here. You're right. How DARE I congratulate a bunch of 18-year olds on getting into "great" schools after a bunch of people tried to tear down their achievements. As an academic, I should know that I am not allowed to be "impressed" or use any subjective qualifiers when describing anything. I'll make sure I don't tell my kids they did a "great job" making dinner unless I compare it to a Michelin star restaurant or without sampling other kids' cooking first. My daughter is in a play next week and I'll hold back on any comments about her performance until I go to other high schools to see how good she is relative to other teenagers...I wouldn't want my praise to look "stupid."

I'm not sure why you are triggered so easily but you might want to reread the things you write before you post.

.

Nope. I've been here a long time, and I'm just giving you a friendly warning: don't look like a troll. People here are educated (don't advertise you're an "academic", poor naive one, most of us have terminal degrees and are very knowledgeable about education) and operate on a hair-trigger, so you're going to get blasted if you write posts like this one again.

Of course, if you're looking for the fight, go ahead

But if you want a reasoned discussion, I'm telling you there are better ways to get one.

to be fair, your posts just make you look like an asshole.

+1000 . A person who commends kids on getting into "impressive" colleges--however they define "impressive"--is not a troll. Someone who goes apeshit and demands metrics to justify said praise? That's a troll (and, to PP's point, an asshole).

DP. If you are going to say something is impressive and provide no proof, someone is going to ask for how you define impressive.

Just looked at the Instagram list, where 29 kids had posted their college destinations. A very nice list of schools. That said, it’s not much different than the corresponding pages for other schools…

Washington internation school is far more impressive.