Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We applied for high school and were interviewed by alumni as well. No personal contact with the administrative team. Fingers crossed they will google my husband.

What does he do?

Sidwell headmaster

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, Sidwell dropped to the bottom of our list after the admissions process.

But it's still on the list lol

Our parent interview was with a member of the admissions team. The tours are given by parents because having the admissions team do all the tours would not scale. Also, the tour is a time to ask questions and see the community - not a time to name drop and try to impress the admissions office.

I think people don't understand the sheer volume of applicants these schools get. Perhaps my expectations were different but I didn't have issues with the process. And my kids both love the school.

Anonymous wrote:The process left a bad impression. Interview by alum, and no contact in person with any administrators. Just parent tours, a huge uninspiring meeting in the library, and a few online tests. Anyone else has in-person contact with admint? How would they ever assess if they don't meet in person with the applicant?

So weird. They never met your child?

I love that someone revived an old thread on this. But we agree. We still applied, but I’m not sure why. It’s at the bottom of our list now, thanks to an unenthusiastic admissions process.

We did not apply to Sidwell, but similarly, formed strong opinions on schools based on the admissions process and the effort or lack thereof that schools put into getting to know us and our child. $45-50k in tuition is not insignificant (to us, anyway), at least pretend that you need to convince families why they should select you over all of the other excellent schools in the region!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We applied for high school and were interviewed by alumni as well. No personal contact with the administrative team. Fingers crossed they will google my husband.

Why do you want them to do that? I thought you said this was for high school?

He must be fancy!

Oh yeah. It’s only the fancy people who say don’t you know who I am?

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, Sidwell dropped to the bottom of our list after the admissions process.

DP. Dropped OFF of our list.

Anonymous wrote:The process left a bad impression. Interview by alum, and no contact in person with any administrators. Just parent tours, a huge uninspiring meeting in the library, and a few online tests. Anyone else has in-person contact with admint? How would they ever assess if they don't meet in person with the applicant?

Ours was years ago now, but definitely the Sidwell admissions experience was by far our worst. Extremely unfriendly and alienating.

[quote=Anonymous]We also had interviews with Staff not alumn. Obviously you are on the B list if you had one with the Alum. Best look elsewhere because everyone else we know (the cool kids, with connections) also got interview spots with staff & teachers. Actually, there may be a C list. You are on that one. Oh well, they'll never know they lost a potential Bill Gates.[/quote]

No Alumni gave interviews this season. Alumni were asked last year to conduct interviews to help with the number of applicants. This year alumni were not asked and a large amount of families, especially those that wait until the last minute to apply, did not receive any interviews.

Anonymous wrote:They are already know which athletic and famous parent (or famous kid) recruits they are taking, and the classes are already decided upon. The tours and such are meaningless.

This is 100% false.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if this has more to do with when you scheduled your interview. If you got in early, more likely to get an admissions offer. If mid-fall, could also get staff (thats what we got). If you waited until December or January when they were flooded with requests then far more likely to be assigned with an alum?

It was very apparent from their messages that Sidwell gets a ton of applicants so they need to triage.

If you waited until the deadline to submit application, you didn't get an interview at all.

Anonymous wrote:My son is an athlete and has received an invite to go to a game and talk to the coach. And we spoke to the admissions directly for the interview.
GDS interview was with admin but they asked NO questions fwiw

This invite was before or after submitting your application?

My son is an athlete and has received an invite to go to a game and talk to the coach. And we spoke to the admissions directly for the interview.
GDS interview was with admin but they asked NO questions fwiw

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are already know which athletic and famous parent (or famous kid) recruits they are taking, and the classes are already decided upon. The tours and such are meaningless.

No, not entirely. They are probably 50-75% pre-determined and pre-filled. But there are some genuinely open spots. my son got one for 9th and we are nobodies and he was not a recruited athlete. .

I just have my own observations but I think people overestimate how much intentional recruitment there is for athletes.