Talk:Sidwell Friends School
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[edit] Robby Jenkins
User 69.245.49.140 added Robby Jenkins '03 to the list of children of famous alumni as the son of senator Rob Jenkins. I've checked and I don't think this is true. In fact, the only senator by the name of Rob or Robert Jenkins was Robert Jenkins, who helped suppress the Whiskey Rebellion and died in 1848. Accordingly, I'm removing Robby's name. Hallmark 00:11, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Exclusive vs. Prestigious
I agree that Sidwell is a highly exclusive school. Even Ann Brashares, the great author of the Sisterhood of the traveling pants series went there. Someone should get the numbers for applications and admissions, at least to the High School--that would be good for the article. However, "exclusive" is not synonymous with "prestigious," which Sidwell also is. One word should not be used for a replacement of the other. Perhaps both thoughts could be added into the lead paragraph in some way? ("...prestigious and exclusive..." might suffice?) Thoughts? --Vijay 02:55, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
- Neither should be used, actually. Wikipedia discourages the use of terminology like "one of the most prestigious..." and "among the top rated schools...". Are there actual statistics—rankings, news articles, etc.—that confirm this statement? For a university, you might say "School X is ranked 32nd in the U.S. News and World Report's 'America's Best Colleges.'" It would be great if something like that existed for high schools. Obviously the Sidwell Friends School is a very prestigious institution, but this article needs an outside source to confirm that. -Vontafeijos 03:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Good call. I remember seeing some list of Washington Area High Schools at some point last year...but it might've been only public schools--I forget. Time to poke about the internet, I guess. If nothing can be found to replace, when should the statement be removed as NNPOV? --Vijay 22:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
- I am removing the following: " It is considered to be one of the most prestigious private schools in the Washington, DC area and the US." for reasons cited above. — vijay 23:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Sidwell was ranked the 13st best private school in the nation in 2003. I have not seen another follow up list of private school rankings since. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.178.220.39 (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Campus names
The campuses are usually referred to as the Main campus and Bethesda campus, or the Upper School and Lower School campuses. The latter leaves out the Middle School, of course, so I feel it's not preferrable. However, "Main" and "Bethesda" aren't comperable to each other. I just poked around sidwell's website, and the school's website tends to say "Middle and Upper School" and "Lower School" more than anything else. So, I'm going to change the labels to those.
Also, I'm going to revert "Bethesda in Montgomery County, Maryland" back to "Bethesda, Maryland." There is only one Bethesda in Maryland. The Bethesda article, of course, says where in MD it is. It sounds awkward the way it is now, and I checked a bunch of other school articles; they all mention what city they're in, not what county. It's just odd to say what county you're in! ( : — vijay (Talk) 22:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] List vs 30% ivy leagues
If the "school never releases its college admission lists" then how do we know that 30% go to Ivy League schools? --Awiseman 14:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] factual errors in this article
Construction on the main campus has finished. Please correct this error. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.15.62.94 (talk) 03:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC).
"On the 2005 English Literature Advanced Placement Exam, Sidwell ranked number one in the World for its category."
Since I have never heard of a world ranking, and could find nothing remotely like that on te web I took tis sentence OUT. -- Jvv62 04:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
This ranking is taken from the average score of all the students taking the AP, and divided among the size of the school. In 2005, Sidwell was ranked number one in the world for this category.
[edit] Racially Exclusionary?
I have heard this about Sidwell before, but the information isn't sourced. If I don't find a source for that within the week, I will delete that part of the article. If you know where I might find a source, please tell me. Mmace91 21:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- Try Mr. Sidwell's School: A Centennial History 1883-1983 by William R. MacKaye and Mary Anne MacKaye. There's a whole chapter about integration. RogerLustig 04:52, 23 December 2006 (UTC) ('74)
Roger, if you have access to the book, perhaps you could add the information and cite it appropriately? Often times, when issues of citability come up for debate, a problem occurs when one side of the debate has the source and the other doesn't. It's not much of a debate any more once the party with the source adds the information and cites it correctly. After that is done, if anyone believes the information should be removed, it is their responsibility to argue why it should be. As of now, naming a book is not as strong as adding a citation, and the information could still be removed (in my opinion, anyway). Anyhow, Mmace91 did simply ask for the source, so maybe s/he's willing to head over to the library and look it up!
Beyond that issue, it seems to me that the sentence is rather vague. It would be nice to say when Sidwell first was racially desegregated (1920s? 50s? 90s?)—a specific decade, at least, would be good. It would also be nice to compare its past with its present: How did Sidwell's racial exclusion compare with other similar schools of the time? How does its "38%" figure compare with other schools now?
Also, how did Sidwell's segregation align with the Quaker movement? Though that is likely far too detailed for the intro paragraph for this article. Interesting research, perhaps? — gogobera (talk) 21:22, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a student from Sidwell, and we had a speaker, the husband of the Dean of Students, come in and talk to us. He is writing a book on Sidwell, and he was discussing the history of the school with us. He told us that Sidwell was first integrated in 1956, with only 8 black students.
As a general rule, it's not a good idea to publish information that's purely speculative. If you don't have the sources yet, ask on the discussion page but hold off on making that claim in the article.
[edit] Exclusion based on race
The thing about Sidwell being racist seems so unlike Sidwell to me. Unless Mmace91 can tell me that in that in the book mentioned it does say that Sidwell had racist board members, I believe that that part of the article should be deleted.
I believe that a kid from St. Albans (or some other rival school) who wanted to make Sidwell look bad wrote it.
The Sidwell article should have something in it about how the school stresses equality and diversity! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bobthebuilder4 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC).
I agree with Bobthebuilder4 -Qq68
- Just be bold and remove it. If anyone wants to re-add it, demand sources. -- intgr 08:32, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I tried to deleting it and I added some info about Sidwell's many clubs but it was reverted. WHAT I WROTE IS SERIOUS AND I AM TIRED OF PEOPLE RANDOMLY REVERTING MY CHANGES. I know a lot about the school and I can make many good additions to this article. -User:bobthebuilder4
- There is only one edit in the edit history with your user name, so I cannot tell why they were reverted. In any case, you should acquaint yourself with various Wikipedia policies and guidelines, in particular attribution. It does not matter if you go to this school or if you know much about it — information added to the article has to be attributed to a reliable source. If your edits were consistent with the Wikipedia policy, we can discuss it further. -- intgr 14:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for losing my temper. This was a while ago.
-bobthebuider4
- I did some research and it turns out that Sidwell went through much turmoil about race. Because the school is a Quaker institution, board meeting are run by consensus. Two or three board members did not want to accept African American students and therefore none were accepted. The school called up every family that went to the school to see what their opinion on the issue was. (This is all from the Sidwell Alumni magazine). It would be great if someone could read the magazine and add that to the article.
-User:bobthebuilder4
[edit] Professor Emily Plumb?
First of all, the section is "children of" not "relatives of." Secondly, who, again, is Prof. Plumb? Third, when using Undo to revert a something that is not vandalism, please change the default message to explain why you're doing so. Finally, I'm now going to remove Emily from the list. I think that covers it. Thanks. — gogobera (talk) 03:08, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Preference of Quakers and the children of alumni
The students of Sidwell know that these two groups (as well as the children of teachers and siblings of current or former students) receive preference in the admissions process. It's an unspoken truth, and it's unspoken because giving preference to any group conflicts with the idea that everyone is equal, which is one of the core Quaker beliefs. It's not like the admissions department at Sidwell would go around parading this information.
But, I guess this conflicts with Wikipedia's "no original research" policy, since there aren't any reliable sources that state this. Should we remove this from the article? -- DSS XIV 21:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm, I'm not sure how they would know it. It may certainly be a widely held belief. However, either claiming it to be true or to be widely believed would be unverifiable. Doing a survey, some type of study, or investigative journalism would be against the "no original research" policy. Therefore, yes, it should be removed from the article. — gogobera (talk) 01:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
The school's own website says that it does not discriminate on the basis of religion--EXCEPT FOR PREFERENCES THAT MAY BE GRANTED TO MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (caps my own, of course.) Is that definitive enough? The reference really needs to go back in. If the school doesn't mind, why should we? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.113.7.99 (talk) 17:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
- No need to shout. (The preferred method of emphasis in type is to italicize, either with wikiformatting or the "em" HTML tag, for emphasis, of course.) And, sorry, but the passage you've quoted doesn't support what the original poster was discussing. I agree that the site supports the claim that
Sidwell Friends School does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national or ethnic origin, disability, or sexual orientation in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, financial aid and loan programs, physical education program, or other School-sponsored programs and activities, or in the hiring and terms of employment of faculty and staff. Except for special consideration that may be given to members of The Religious Society of Friends, the School does not discriminate on the basis of religion in any of these respects.
- I happen to have been a student there, and I can attest to personally not "knowing" about any of this. I would suggest that very few students would know that Sidwell gives some sort of preference to Quaker children (and the children of Quakers) because there are so few of them at the school. Also, since, while Sidwell may provide them "special consideration", in my experience at least, no Quaker students academically underperformed their classmates at Sidwell. However, since the site does say it in plain English, feel free to add it back in, cited properly, of course. If you don't, I likely will. (Though sleeping is a higher priority at the moment.)
- The idea that children of alumni are given any "special consideration" continues to be unfounded, as far as I am aware. That behavior would be seriously out of line with what I interpret as "Quaker values", and I think also out of line with what the Board of Trustees and Sidwell Friends' admissions department considers to be their values. As such, that statement ought to be not included. Keep digging, though. Maybe it's on the website somewhere!
- Finally, there was a claim that children of faculty are given preference. I believe that children of faculty (and staff? I'm not sure.) are given some sort of financial support. However, I am unaware of any admissions preference, as alleged above. — gogobera (talk) 06:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't shouting, although I now recognize that I have violated a convention of which I was previously unaware. Caps were, as you surmised, meant for emphasis and not volume. Of course, my point in adding the reference was not to suggest that the preference was common knowledge among Sidwell students--which would be hard to verify and in any case of limited usefulness--but rather that it was genuine. The granting of preferences, of course, need not imply that Quaker students who are admitted are less qualified than non-Quakers who are rejected, much less that once in school they would systematically underperform relative to non-Quaker classmates. The school most likely has a much larger number of qualified applicants than it does places for them. In such a circumstance, there may be little difference between the students that are admitted and the most highly qualified of those that are not. If the preference were to take the form of a sort of "tie-breaker" among equally qualified students, one would not expect to see any sort of disparity in academic performance between those who receive the preference and those who don't. As far as children of alumni go, you're probably right that there's no preference. But I do wonder why they ask on the application if any family members went to the school. Maybe they're just curious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.113.7.99 (talk) 20:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
- Right. I agree, entirely. I can't say I know why they ask about the relations; though I know it's a common question on application forms for most schools. Perhaps it's used as a gauge of the success of alumni relations or as a tool in the never-ending drive to solicit funds from families. It could also be an indicator of how likely an acceptance is to be accepted — though I guess that goes towards suggesting a preference. It could be any number of things, or, maybe they are just curious! (: Sometimes I wish there weren't a ban on original research; it seems like it would be simple enough to just ask them.
- Also, and unrelated to Sidwell, if you put four tildes (that is: ~~~~) at the end of your post, it will sign it with your name (or, IP, in your case) and the time you left the comment. Though SineBot does a good job these days of catching our mistakes (I leave unsigned messages by accident not unfrequently), it's considered good form to sign your messages, even if you're editing from an IP without logging in.
- You can also sign by clicking the formatting button that looks like a squiggle. — gogobera (talk) 01:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
