Anonymous wrote:It seems to be a school that tries to reduce the level of cutthroat competitiveness among students

Oh really?
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/legacy/posts/list/1142902.page

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think kids/schools prepare for the PSAT now that almost every college is test optional. And that also means the NMSF designation will become even less relevant.

It’s only helpful for attending off-the-run colleges on scholarship. They’ll start emailing you brochures asap.

Exactly. It’s becoming obsolete.

Not so much obsolete as déclassé.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022, the year with the asterisk.

How did the other DC private schools do in 2022?

Glad you asked. In the “year with the asterisk” GDS, Maret, NCS, and STA did not have 16 NMSF COMBINED. But I’m sure you have an excuse for that too.

Sidwell gets hated on everyday in this forum.

My kids are at one of the above schools (not Sidwell) and the college counselors do not really encourage or even mention trying it do well on the PSAT or any mention of the NSMF. Point being my child and others are not striving for it. In fact my child did better on SAT than two kids that received the award. My child’s score went up after PSAT as they were sick and I don’t even know if they submitted it.

Point being for whatever reason some of the top students are not focusing on this anymore. I don’t know why.

It sounds like your child attends GDS. It seems like GDS is having an identity crisis right now and it doesn’t know what to do—so the students are confused as well. That’s unfortunate.

Can’t be. GDS only had one this year, and that poster mentioned 2.

NCS does not emphasize the PSAT at all either. I was at a junior year college counseling meeting yesterday and parents were told about 4 times:
"your kids don't need to study for the PSAT" and "don't study for the PSAT"

I don’t see any benefit in private schools deemphasizing the PSAT, especially as a tool to prep for the SAT. Private schools that don’t rank (NCS and GDS), don’t offer any APs (GDS), and/or deflate grades (NCS) do their students a disservice by not helping them shine in this arena.

My children don’t attend Sidwell, but I like how the school seems to try to strike a balance. It doesn’t offer APs, but it still administers the exam for those students who want to do the work. It doesn’t rank, but it helps students (who are interested) prep for the PSAT/SAT/ACT. It seems to be a school that tries to reduce the level of cutthroat competitiveness among students, but it allows those who want to go above and beyond to do so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022, the year with the asterisk.

How did the other DC private schools do in 2022?

Glad you asked. In the “year with the asterisk” GDS, Maret, NCS, and STA did not have 16 NMSF COMBINED. But I’m sure you have an excuse for that too.

Sidwell gets hated on everyday in this forum.

My kids are at one of the above schools (not Sidwell) and the college counselors do not really encourage or even mention trying it do well on the PSAT or any mention of the NSMF. Point being my child and others are not striving for it. In fact my child did better on SAT than two kids that received the award. My child’s score went up after PSAT as they were sick and I don’t even know if they submitted it.

Point being for whatever reason some of the top students are not focusing on this anymore. I don’t know why.

It sounds like your child attends GDS. It seems like GDS is having an identity crisis right now and it doesn’t know what to do—so the students are confused as well. That’s unfortunate.

Can’t be. GDS only had one this year, and that poster mentioned 2.

NCS does not emphasize the PSAT at all either. I was at a junior year college counseling meeting yesterday and parents were told about 4 times:
"your kids don't need to study for the PSAT" and "don't study for the PSAT"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think kids/schools prepare for the PSAT now that almost every college is test optional. And that also means the NMSF designation will become even less relevant.

It’s only helpful for attending off-the-run colleges on scholarship. They’ll start emailing you brochures asap.

Exactly. It’s becoming obsolete.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022, the year with the asterisk.

How did the other DC private schools do in 2022?

Glad you asked. In the “year with the asterisk” GDS, Maret, NCS, and STA did not have 16 NMSF COMBINED. But I’m sure you have an excuse for that too.

Sidwell gets hated on everyday in this forum.

My kids are at one of the above schools (not Sidwell) and the college counselors do not really encourage or even mention trying it do well on the PSAT or any mention of the NSMF. Point being my child and others are not striving for it. In fact my child did better on SAT than two kids that received the award. My child’s score went up after PSAT as they were sick and I don’t even know if they submitted it.

Point being for whatever reason some of the top students are not focusing on this anymore. I don’t know why.

It sounds like your child attends GDS. It seems like GDS is having an identity crisis right now and it doesn’t know what to do—so the students are confused as well. That’s unfortunate.

Can’t be. GDS only had one this year, and that poster mentioned 2.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2022, the year with the asterisk.

How did the other DC private schools do in 2022?

Glad you asked. In the “year with the asterisk” GDS, Maret, NCS, and STA did not have 16 NMSF COMBINED. But I’m sure you have an excuse for that too.

Sidwell gets hated on everyday in this forum.

My kids are at one of the above schools (not Sidwell) and the college counselors do not really encourage or even mention trying it do well on the PSAT or any mention of the NSMF. Point being my child and others are not striving for it. In fact my child did better on SAT than two kids that received the award. My child’s score went up after PSAT as they were sick and I don’t even know if they submitted it.

Point being for whatever reason some of the top students are not focusing on this anymore. I don’t know why.

It sounds like your child attends GDS. It seems like GDS is having an identity crisis right now and it doesn’t know what to do—so the students are confused as well. That’s unfortunate.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think kids/schools prepare for the PSAT now that almost every college is test optional. And that also means the NMSF designation will become even less relevant.

It’s only helpful for attending off-the-run colleges on scholarship. They’ll start emailing you brochures asap.

Anonymous wrote:More kids are taking ACT nowadays.

Most kids that are NMSF prepped for the SAT long before the 'practice' test. My son's friend that is a NSMF was doing SAT test prep in MS, no joke.

A lot of very smart kids are no longer taking SAT and with the new digital SAT coming out this spring, even fewer will.

Agree about some kids prepping for PSAT! Same for CogAT - many kids prep for years for it so obviously will do better than kids that didn’t.

Anonymous wrote:MD is allotted ~300 NMSF, while DC is allotted only ~30. The MD schools will always have more by design.

I'm confused. DC's cutoff is set based on the highest individual state score nationally, not the top 0.5 percent of test takers. So how can it have a set alloted number of NMSFs?

For example, if all the top DC privates closed or decided to move to MD or VA, the number of NMSFs would plummet because although the 99.5 percentile score among DC students would drop, the cutoff score would still remain high.

It seems like DC's number of NMSFs could fluctuate quite a bit from year to year depending on strength of cohort and whatever the highest state cutoff score may be that year, and would not be as stable as the number in MD or VA.

Anonymous wrote:More kids are taking ACT nowadays.

Most kids that are NMSF prepped for the SAT long before the 'practice' test. My son's friend that is a NSMF was doing SAT test prep in MS, no joke.

A lot of very smart kids are no longer taking SAT and with the new digital SAT coming out this spring, even fewer will.

I don't mean more than take the SAT, I meant increased numbers than in the past are leaning towards the ACT.

More kids are taking ACT nowadays.

Most kids that are NMSF prepped for the SAT long before the 'practice' test. My son's friend that is a NSMF was doing SAT test prep in MS, no joke.

A lot of very smart kids are no longer taking SAT and with the new digital SAT coming out this spring, even fewer will.

Cut-offs are by school state, not home state. That is why DC is weird: most states do not have a large percentage of their attributed students from other states.

Anonymous wrote:Is it the state you live in or state you go to school in that counts? A lot of these schools have kids from DC, MD, VA. Seems unfair if kids have different cutoffs based on home address when they go to the same school.

State of your school.

Is it the state you live in or state you go to school in that counts? A lot of these schools have kids from DC, MD, VA. Seems unfair if kids have different cutoffs based on home address when they go to the same school.