Features - Page 20

Kate Vidano '21 reports on Instagram's experiment of removing likes from the app.

Lena Levey '21 reports on how students reacted to the House impeachment inquiry.

The College Board, the nonprofit organization that administers the SAT exam, has scuttled its controversial plan to include an “adversity score” on student test results after facing criticism from students, parents and educators. The adversity score, originally announced last spring, aimed to quantify the level of hardship a student faced growing up by averaging two scores: one for the student’s school environment and the other for the student’s neighborhood environment. The official announcement was met with a wave of criticism, calling it an overreach by the College Board and an effort to score adversity the same way it does academic

In the wake of the national college admission scandal and the departure of their entire college counseling staff, Sidwell Friends School again finds itself in the midst of a college admission controversy. A former student sued the school, alleging discrimination that undermined her chances for college admission. The DC Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, however, have rejected her appeal. Dayo Adetu and her parents, Titilayo and Nike Adetu, said the private school breached a settlement with the family after it allegedly discriminated against Adetu by purposefully grading her more harshly than her peers. Adetu claimed Sidwell breached the

 In March, federal prosecutors issued a blockbuster criminal indictment, charging 50 people with engaging in a series of fraudulent college admission schemes. The charges have embarrassed prestigious universities, led to new scrutiny of the college admissions system and sparked a broader debate about the pressures and fairness of the admissions process.  The Justice Department’s investigation exposed a vast network in which well-off parents allegedly paid an admissions consultant, who then fabricated academic and athletic credentials and arranged bribes to help get their children into prestigious universities. Parents allegedly paid the consultant, William Rick Singer, to have a proctor correct their

“History is complicated because people are complicated. What makes GDS special is that people have always appreciated those complexities,” said History Department Chair Lisa Rauschart. But GDS is complicated too, and, like at any other institution, change often brings with it controversy. At GDS, this change is coming in the form of a history lab made from a collection of influential American women’s autographs. A former GDS parent and current GDS grandparent, Michael Horowitz, has a collection of autographs from eighty female American activists and reformers who lived between the late 18th century and the early 20th century. According to

Last spring, GDS announced that the school was planning on phasing out Advanced Placement (AP) classes in coordination with several other independent schools in the area. The move would eliminate all AP courses in participating schools by 2022. Many students are excited about the new development, but as course registration quickly approaches, others are worried about how the change might affect them. “One of the goals,” Dean of Academic Life, Chris Levy said, “is to have students explore topics in new and exciting ways,  through courses that are equally challenging, if not more rigorous.” Freshman Maddie Feldman wasn’t aware of