Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School [Sidwell Friends]

www.theatlantic.com ^ | Jun 5, 2019 | Adam Harris

[Red Badger]

At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families.

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Updated at 2:47 p.m. ET on June 6, 2018.

The motto of Sidwell Friends School, the hyperselective “Harvard of Washington’s private schools,” is simple and lofty. “Eluceat omnibus lux”—Latin for “Let the light shine out from all.” But bright lights sometimes illuminate the worst in people. Last month, shocking behavior by parents may have led two of the school’s three college counselors to leave their jobs.

School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students.”

Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said.

[gaijin]

[Red Badger]

It ain’t over yet!.............

[Reily]

Trump said something to that effect during the 2016 campaign. Something like “we are governed by idiots”!

So true!

[Starboard]

Elitist students, namely govt. Worker kids.
Screw them all!

*****************

Some of them will wind up screwing themselves. Trust me; I’ve seen it.

[yesthatjallen]

I wonder how many parents have bribed their kids into this school over the years.

[Starboard]

We would be better served by government of the first 500 names in the phone book...

*************

The problem with the elites is that they are all self-serving.

[Red Badger]

All of them.....................

[Red Badger]

Hillary is the prime example, The Queen of the Self-Servers..................

[bk1000]

Hilarious! Leftists HATE being told no, but so love telling others what to do.

[grania]

I find it hard to believe that College administrators and HS guidance counselors at least in some of these situations weren't aware of the manipulations folks used to get their kids in favorite schools. School admissions are total hypocrisy anyway, with Affirmative Action, legacy admissions, "rounding out" the student body by favoring the rich and famous.

In the real world, schools would lose their accreditation for letting the scandals continue.

[yesthatjallen]

At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families.

Could this be fallout from the college bribery scandal? Maybe these counselors have all lost their connections or are afraid of scrutiny.

[grania]

this has become more and more obvious

It's been going on forever. What really brought it home, oddly, is the Kavanaugh nomination process. We got to see just how inbred and disgusting the behavior of the elite is, even in HS. It's probably a reason that "conservative" judges aren't really conservative. The culture of the elite means they write their own rules.

[Maine Mariner]

Some years ago, the sister-in-law and her husband of a close friend sent their kids to Sidwell. They and other parents were up in arms, anger, bitter-none of the students graduating that year were admitted to HARVARD. The students were accepted in to Brown and other Ivies as well as excellent liberal arts colleges-but none of them was HARVARD.

[Maine Mariner]

Some years ago, the sister-in-law and her husband of a close friend sent their kids to Sidwell. They and other parents were up in arms, anger, bitter-none of the students graduating that year were admitted to HARVARD. The students were accepted in to Brown and other Ivies as well as excellent liberal arts colleges-but none of them was HARVARD.

[Red Badger]

They got tired of the threats................

[PUGACHEV]

Graduating from a prestigious school certainly confers some advantage. It opens doors not always open to others, but that’s all it does. Once in, you sink or swim based on your ability. Those from less well-known schools have to work a harder to get noticed, but they will succeed if focus, hard work, and a modicum of talent is applied.

[jurroppi1]

Isn’t this where Sasha and Malia Obama went to school? The prevailing attitudes of their parents are probably right in the bell curve of the parents of all children going to Sidwell (dangerously out of touch, ignorant and arrogant).

[Grampa Dave]

“we might have the worst ruling class in human history.”

Nah, compared to the communists in Russia, China and Viet Nam, and Hitler’s Nazis our ruling class are petty tyrants

If we hadn’t elected President Trump and our second amendment, our ruling class would removing a lot of us from our homes because of what we believe in.

[yesthatjallen]

Last month, shocking behavior by parents may have led two of the school’s three college counselors to leave their jobs.

Parent: 'I GAVE YOU F'IN $20,000 TO GET MY KID INTO HARVARD!'

[SamAdams76]

I was being sort of sarcastic with my response because I never went to a prestigious school yet I turned out okay. More than just okay as I out-earn most people with a college degree. All I needed was public schools and the U.S. Marine Corps. Did have some college if you count the night courses I did after work in my earlier years. But for me it was basically public high school, the Marines and out into the work force where I eventually worked myself into an executive position at a large company.

I've hired a lot of people with college degrees that didn't work out and a lot more people without college degrees that have turned into superstars.

One thing I can say, corporations are starved for good people - self-starters who don't complain, come in every day with a positive attitude, and who are willing to work hard and go above and beyond what their job descriptions say.