<p>Straight A’s at a “Very Good” suburban public HS does not automatically provide a good academic background for college. My niece was near the top of her class and had lots of APs. But she really struggled in college, taking six years to graduate in a STEM area. DD had lower grades at her competitive academic private HS, but breezed through a double-major (both STEM) in just four years. I guess it really depends on what you value.</p>
<p>You may want to check the various (public and private) high schools on UC Statfinder and other places like the API reports.</p>
<p>I spoke with an educational consultant once about he cost of Los Angeles private schools and the response was ‘that you pay a lot for a circle of friends and small class sizes, as well as course choices…’</p>
<p>Prestigious high schools are only work as much as you get out of it, and that value changes for everyone.</p>
<p>$35k/year is a lot of money. If he’s not doing well in comparison to his classmates then maybe an easier private or public school would be better.</p>
<p>I had to choose between going off to a private school and going to a public school. I chose public and have never regretted it. Save money, more “real world” environment, and most of all more people meant more activities and groups offered. I got the opportunity to immerse myself in an amazing music program which ultimately was probably the main reason for acceptance to my dream school. I wouldn’t have had this chance in our local privates. My parents did move so that I could go to the top public school in the state. If your public schools arent up to par then it seems like moving to be able to attend a better one would still be worth it, especially if you save 35k/year.</p>
<p>There are a couple things going on, let’s look at them.
Family income that supports spending $35,000 per year per child for K-12, will be taken into consideration when determining EFC. Not needing as much aid as another family who makes national median income will be an advantage at the many schools that are need aware.</p>
<p>Coming from a family with socio-economic resources, a student will be expected to perform at a higher level than one who does not.
This won’t be changed by changing schools.</p>
<p>The best preparation for college is a strong K -12 education. If the school supplies that, I don’t think it counts against them if a student isn’t able to be " a star". Education is not a competition but a lifelong pursuit.</p>
<p>My oldest attended private schools K-12. She was accepted to all the colleges she applied, including one that met 100% of need. She was well prepared academically for a very rigorous college.
Her sister attended a good public school, in an uneven district ( that albeit has a good national perception I’ve been told). While she had some excellent instructors and experiences that would have been more difficult to recieve in a private school, her academic preparation was not as strong, indeed it left much to be desired, but the foundation for that was laid in late elementary, and four years in high school wasn’t enough to completely make amends.</p>
<p>If you really have your child’s best interests in mind,enroll him in the school that best fits his learning style and needs now, and as he gets closer to junior year, help identify what colleges will fit his needs and interests that also fit your budget, without regard to name.
It’s fine to identify a few schools with extremely low admission rates for him to apply to ** as long as the characteristics of the school fit his criteria **, and the parents desire for an impressive bumper sticker should not be a top criteria. 
Students should also have more choices that are good fits with higher admission rates than reach schools in their application list.</p>
<p>It’s true that if he attends another school he may likely be able to have a higher class ranking, but his preparation may not be the same.
It’s hard to transfer in the middle of high school, unless your financial situation has changed, and unless he is really advocating for a change, I wouldn’t consider it.</p>
<p>Good point about the socio-economic bias.</p>
<p>I guess I am starting to ‘feel the pain’ because we added his brother to this school last year in 7th grade. So overall we spend about $70,000 for two kids (one in middle school and the one in high school).</p>
<p>I guess that why I am starting to quess the worth… and if it really helps, etc…</p>
<p>Your biggest mistake is being too hung up on whether your son gets into one of the top 5 schools in the country. He probably won’t- no matter WHERE he goes to high school! That’s just the reality of the acceptance rates these days. And, guess what? Life will go on and there are many, many excellent schools that will be wonderful for your son. By the time he starts senior year of high school he may have NO interest in going to HYS! Carlton might be his dream school- or Arizona State!</p>
<p>Sorry if someone said this and I missed it, but I’d be asking these questions:</p>
<p>Is this a good social fit for my child?
What types of activities is my child interested in? Can he/she participate in them at both schools?
Does the public offer an honors or accelerated curriculum that would challenge my child? Is there a group of motivated kids at the public school?</p>
<p>Had a similar dilemma for my rising high school sophomore. We asked ourselves these questions and more, spoke to parents at both schools, visited both, etc. and decided what was best for my child - with input from the child. I don’t think that there is any easy answer, and we agonized over it, but it has worked out for her so far. Don’t know yet what it means vis-a-vis college admissions, but her high school experience thus far has been very good.</p>
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<p>DAD- Take a look at what the ed consultant said, between the lines. " a circle of friends" to me means kids that also value education, are interested in learning, work hard, and also push themselves and explore a wide range of extra curriculars. You can bet that a boy would not have lasted in my kids’ private, which probably isn’t as competitive as yours, if his favorite activity were nothing but video games on the weekends. Both of my kids still- years after college graduation- are eager to visit and do things with their friends from high school. It’s not just the common experience that bonds them, but their shared values.</p>
<p>“Smaller class sizes,” yes, and YES! This is huge. More individual attention, but also more interaction with the teacher and often a personal relationship with various faculty members. And because teaching loads are lighter, the homework is actually corrected and given helpful comments. You would be surprised at how little attention was paid to my kids’ writing assignments in public middle school. Class room activities can be varied and engaging with students actively participating, with small numbers. And with better teacher/student relationships comes a fostering of respect between them. Students and faculty really get to know each other, which goes a long way when the kids get to college and have to be comfortable speaking up and finding mentors. I could go on, but you get the idea.</p>
<p>And “course choices.” Maybe. It depends on the schools here, but you can be sure that your boy graduating from your private will have all of the background courses he needs to succeed in any college curriculum, and then some. In public schools, funding is a big consideration in offering any course, as well as having enough high achieving students to make certain courses economically feasible.</p>
<p>I wonder if the ed consultant was being flip and maybe reading your skeptical tone and wanting to gain your trust with her agreement.</p>
<p>You might want to take a look at the college profile/matriculation list for students at the high schools you’re considering. For University High, there is a 2010 matriculation list. 75 students attended a California public 4-year school, 231 attended a community college, and 9 attended other public/private 4-year schools. I swear that I’m not a prestige snob, but this list is remarkably uninspiring. If your goal is to get your child into an absolutely tippy-top school, going to a public high school which isn’t sending any students to super selective colleges isn’t going to help. </p>
<p>Palisades is a charter school, so it’s unlikely that your son could be admitted for next year. </p>
<p>My suggestion is that you retool your expectations. Many California families with high-achieving students have college lists consisting of super-selective lottery schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, and UCs. There are many, many, MANY more schools out there! Start learning about them. Get your son excited about them, and about the wide variety of possibilities. Find out which might offer your son significant merit money. Consult with your son’s high school counselors to find out what other colleges would love to have a bright kid from California attending their college. </p>
<p>The PSAT this October will determine your son’s eligibility for National Merit, which can be an excellent source of merit aid. Did your son take the PSAT last October for “practice”? If so, compare that score with what’s needed for making NM semi-finalist for California to see if he could reasonably raise his score enough to make cutoff. If it looks out of range, please don’t stress him by insisting that he do practice test after practice test.</p>
<p>Finally, if you think you will need to have a budget for what your kids can afford for college, please please please tell them NOW. Much better for them to get this news earlier rather than later.</p>
<p>What MomofWildChild said. I don’t think you should consider this a tactic in a long-range strategy to get your kid into a particular school or caliber of school. As others have suggested, it makes sense to evaluate the school in terms of its academic and developmental fitness for your child, now. If he’s happy, thriving, challenged but not overly stressed … Sounds “worth it” to me! If he’s not, then the school is not worth it for any price.</p>
<p>Good points.</p>
<p>I guess the bottom line is the my son seems to love his school and overall he does excel there. It’s just the relativity that concerned me and my wife…</p>
<p>It’s a tough call overall. We even thought about sending our kids to top East Coast Boarding schools but ruled them out when we realized that we had kids to enjoy them and not send them away when they were 13yo.</p>
<p>In a perfect world I guess it would be nice for our son to achieve the UW 4.0 and a 2400 SAT but then again… is that what life is about anyways… I guess we are lucky to be able to afford to send 2 kids to a good private school. It just that is it worth it. In the end I guess I am starting this think it is… at least in Los Angeles anyways.</p>
<p>Thanks for the insights. Wow… this is a great resource…</p>
<p>I think it ends up being close to a wash. At least in our area - for our pretty good high public high school mostly only the top 2% get into HYPMS, but the top 10% will get into the CC list of top LACs and Universities. At the best private schools it’s a much bigger percent of the top of the class. </p>
<p>The advantages of going to our public high school:
Huge music program (3 orchestras, 3 jazz bands, multiple chorus, thriving rock band scene)
Lots of other arts
Extremely diverse (35% Afr Am, 35% white, 20% Hispanic, 10% Asian and international as well as students from every income class and religion)
Strong AP program (24 offered most students do very well)
Strong sports
Science research program
Winning Science Olympiad team despite having no budget (We beat the rich schools regularly)</p>
<p>Disadvantages:
Larger class sizes
Less writing intensive than some private schools</p>
<p>Both my kids (at the public school) did very well in college placement and both had no trouble with the college curriculum with one exception that had nothing to do with high school prep. My older son benefited from having a lot of free time in high school to explore his area of interest. My younger son has thanked me several times this summer for exposing him to such a diverse group of kids. He feels kids at his college (Tufts) are very sheltered and naive. If the school had had less to offer we might have made a different choice.</p>
<p>I think the main reason for going private is if you think the curriculum is significantly better than what you can get in the local public school. If it is - it’s probably the best choice. If your kid gets into the wrong crowd in a public school or isn’t sufficiently motivated to be near the top of the class private may be better.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have a happy kid who is doing well and you can afford the tuition. I don’t see a problem.</p>
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<p>Do you realize how many families would love to be able to make that statement?</p>
<p>It is hard to foretell the future, and I always consider…is it worth it?</p>
<p>Our youngest just graduated from high school, and we have spent 500K on the 2 of their schools before they even stepped onto a college campus. Most people would think that is crazy. Had we known that at the beginning, we wouldn’t have even considered private school. But in retrospect, my kids have gone to school with motivated, compassionate kids, gotten the best teachers possible in small classes, been challenged and are very happy. They have been able to do any sport or activity they wanted, without fear of being cut. They will always have the foundation of a fantastic lower school education. I don’t know if their lives would have been the same without these schools, but I can’t regret who they have become and where they are for a minute.</p>
<p>Though my retirement account would have looked far better.</p>
<p>Moonchild,</p>
<p>That’s true. Perhaps we are over analyzing this? We love are kids and want what’s best for them. It does hurt when we pay the $70K tuition for the two each year, especially when the cars in the driveway could certainly be ‘upgraded’ 
I guess we made the decision to sacrifice a while back, but it is still good to re-evaluate periodically.</p>
<p>I know it’s a lot of money.On top of our four years each of private HS, (although more like high 20ks, not 35k) for both kids, we also were full pay at two private colleges for four years. So you still have a long haul, I will say.</p>
<p>I drive a 2001 Toyota. It runs like a top, so who cares. We are just now getting around to putting much needed new floors in and painting our home, which we have been in for the last 19 years. Our vacations have been hiking and camping in the National Parks, not flights to Greece and Prague, like many of our friends. (although we did take a budget trip to Europe when the kids were small- before we knew about private schools, lol!!)</p>
<p>Many people on this discussion board have sacrificed for their kids’ educations, either by moving to an area with suitable public schools or finding ways to make a private possible. This generation of parents is unique, in that way, I think, which is one of the things that makes all of these colleges so dang hard to get into!</p>
<p>Why are you so attached to the idea of Ivies or Stanford? Is your son also intent on this? is this a product of the private school or family environment?</p>
<p>I am concerned that there is so much focus on your part, and perhaps both you and your wife, on college admissions for a 10th grader. I think kids should be able to enjoy their high school years. It might help you to know that many of the students who DO get into,say, Harvard, have been spending their entire lives getting in, with a lot of stress for years, and find they are faced with an emptiness and depression once actually there. The percentage of students seeking counseling there is above 50%.</p>
<p>I think you should encourage whatever works best for your son in the present, academically and emotionally, and even perhaps financially, and let the future go for another year or so.</p>
<p>I will PM you about our experience.</p>
<p>Although we don’t live in the same state, mathmom and I could be neighbors. I could have written her post, which I completely agree with.</p>
<p>One thing to consider is that no two kids, even within the same family, will have the same experience at any given school. It’s really hard to say whether any decision (in this very first world thread discussing the value of extremely expensive private high schools)would be better than another, except in retrospect. </p>
<p>However, the strangest things can make a huge difference in any given child’s high school experience. The existence of a hard core of queen bees can cause misery beyond imagining. Good, solid friends and a secure place (band? An art program? A math team? A sports team?) to grow can make the difference between four years of misery and four years of wonderful growth.</p>
<p>If you can happily afford that tuition, and the academics are excellent, and your child is successful and happy there, I wouldn’t mess with what is working.</p>
<p>Cross posted with comp mom, who made an excellent point. Of my kids’ friends who went to the more competitive neighborhood high school of the two that our middle school feeds into, the PARENTS are hap, hap, happy with the more competitive school, but their KIDS are mis, mis, miserable there. Why? Because ONE “B” in four years at the more competitive school will drop a kid out of the top 10%. The pressure just kills kids there, and they don’t do any better in college results than at the lower ranked high school. I say this only now that I have two in college and a third still in high school, and have watched this little soap opera play out for a number of years.</p>
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<p>As a parent of an only child at an east coast boarding school, I can say that we did not send him away–he chose to go and is thriving there. We miss him, but it’s not about us; it’s about him. Ultimately, the choice is about giving your child the very best education you can and not projecting where you’d like your child to go to college or end up in life. That is your child’s journey, not yours.</p>
<p>You will find a lot of lively discussion on this topic on the prep school parents forum. One link you might find interesting is [thread=1271302]Are you better off attending a slightly less competitive school? [/thread], but you can search for others there and learn a lot from parents (many of whom are spending much more than you are) whose children are getting amazing educations for education’s sake, not as a means to a short-sighted end.</p>