<p>Of course people value differen’t things but personally I believe that one’s choice of high school (if you have the luxury of a choice!), should not based not on where you can obtain the best numbers on paper for the college resume. To me, the priority should be on which is the best environment for your child to <em>get an education</em>: where will they best intellectually and emotionally grow and flourish? I have no clue about how the schools differ among your choices. </p>
<p>I think hard for anyone to answer for other people because clearly people have VERY different values on this. I will venture to guess that those that choose a highschool on the basis of strategic ranking and GPA, are also probably more inclined to push their kid to extra-curriculars that look good regardless of passion; and to choose colleges based almost entirely on USNWR ranking rather than fit; and pressure their kids to careers based on pay and prestige, regardless of the kids’ actual interests. Just like discussions around politics, totally not resolvable because it boils down to different values (and of course mine here are obvious so I’m not doing a good job of presenting both sides of these issues in a balanced light).</p>
<p>Not sure if you have considered this. If your son were to move junior year, his grades will need to be “normalized” to the public school’s scale - mapping honors, APs, etc. Your son maybe top 10% at his private school with 3.6, but he may be 50% at the public school. Your son’s regular English class maybe of AP level, but he wouldn’t get credit for it without the official AP designation. Many public schools offer APs starting 9th grade and private schools do not, your kid’s WGPA maybe a lot lower than other kids at the public school.</p>
<p>Which school’s teachers could give your son better recommendations? Where do you think you could get better college counseling? One GC for hundreds of kids, or one GC for 20-40 kids.</p>
<p>D2 moved to a new school junior year and we had a lot problem in getting her transcript right, we moved from one private school to another.</p>
<p>I also do not think you put your kid in a private school in order to get into a top college. What top private school could do for your kid is to give him/her a great education. In my mind, I think great secondary school education is probably more important than college. D1 was very well prepared when she entered college.</p>
<p>My parents sent me and my siblings to public school. They both went to privates and thought the entitlement attitude of private school kids was unhealthy. Although I think I got a good education ( lots of AP/honors classes)and had the motivated “circle of friends”, the less focused (putting it politely) students were annoying. Although they weren’t in any of my classes (except maybe freshman health) they were in the halls. Always making out or talking about low life stuff ( sorry, couldn’t think of a nicer way to put it). The top students did get into top colleges ( I agree with the poster who said those kind of kids would still be top at a competitive private) so I don’t think a decent public will hold you back academically.</p>
<p>That being said, if I can afford it, I will send my kids to a private school!</p>
<p>mowc and I had sons at the same all boy private in Texas for a while just a few years apart. Most years the class of approximately 80 has over half NM finalists and commended, so the environment and student ability is close to that of many colleges.</p>
<p>I suggest that the “value” of a really excellent private education is that breath and depth of the education and development of the child into a fully functional and able young adult.</p>
<p>There aren’t any guarantees that your child will want or need an Ivy. The only “guarantee” that I see is that with a truly great primary, secondary and college prepatory education the child/student is better prepared for making his (or her) choices after HS.</p>
<p>If your son loves where he is and is benefitting now, I would leave him be.</p>
<p>There is more to college than the admissions game. I think that you have to look at how public school kids do in the admissions game AND you have to look at how they do once they get to college. I am sure that there must be some people that you know who have had kids go through the public school system and then gone on to college. Why not talk to those people about their experiences to decide whether you want to keep your child in private school.</p>
<p>One thing you might want to consider is whether your child will actually do better in a public school setting. My kids attend a private school in Florida and I find that their friends in public school have to do a lot more “busywork” to get good grades. My kids have very little busywork and their grades are mostly derived from more substantial, but less frequent assignments. If you have a child who does not do well jumping through hoops public school may be a worse environment for him… I think it is important to figure out what the differences are and then see if the differences will be good for your child.</p>
<p>My D just graduated from a very selective residential public math and science magnet school, and although it’s public not private, the issues are exactly the same (except that the cost is a lot less).</p>
<p>The major benefits to most of the kids at her school are not really better shots at college admissions. They are (1) learning how to do science, instead of just learning about science, (2) learning how to deal with very high academic expectations, and (3) learning how to manage themselves in a residential setting. (There are more, and other parents would choose others for their own top 3, but those are mine.) These set them up to be very successful when they get to college; and a number of alumni have told me they were head and shoulders above their equally bright and motivated standard-public-schooled peers when they got to college.</p>
<p>How does it affect so-called “top college” admissions? It depends on the colleges. Some top colleges really, really, love our kids, in spite of the fact that very few graduate with 4.0 averages; they understand that these kids are well prepared for challenging college-level course work. Others don’t seem to look much below the surface. At our school, for example, we have admission rates far above the expected percentages at schools like Yale, Penn, CalTech, Rochester, Case, Vanderbilt, USC; but very disappointing rates at schools like Harvard, Brown, and Northwestern.</p>
<p>I suspect the same is true for many exclusive private high schools; colleges that know your kids will not be turned off by less than perfect GPAs, but others will. If you have Naviance, use that to gauge your kid’s admission chances and develop an application strategy.</p>
<p>Dad, I agree with others that you need to stop focusing about HYPS, or any top college for that matter, because those hopes and wishes will be “felt” by your kids and can result in them feeling like they are a “failure” if they aren’t accepted. The chances of a non hooked kid getting into HYPS these days, even from a great HS, are in the single digits, simply because of the huge numbers of academically qualified students applying there from around the world. So stop with the “I’ll be so disappointed if my kid doesn’t get into HYPS” thinking- right now! No good will come of that kind of obsession.
A rigorous education at a private school will help prepare your kids immeasurably at ANY college. Colleges know how hard your kids H school really is, and students are not compared “apples” to “apples” with kids from much less rigorous HS’s. </p>
<p>I also second the suggestion that you review your sons PSAT score, and if his numbers are close to 219, [ which I think is the Calif NMSF cutoff number?] then that could potentially open the possibility for lots of Merit $ from many colleges. We paid for 12 years of private school education for DS, and although he was qualified for and accepted at a few Ivys and other top colleges, he chose to go to USC, in part because of the great merit scholarship he was awarded, but also because, as a Calif Kid, he decided he did NOT want to be thousands of miles from home and at a place where he knew few other students. Surprised the hell out of us, but hey, we saved hundreds of thousands of college tuition $$ cause he wasn’t star struck with the idea of going to an “Ivy”. He got a great education there, met lots of incredibly smart students, and is now in a PhD program at the top university in the country for his field. </p>
<p>I suggest you open your eyes to the reality that there ARE other great colleges out there for your kids beyond HYPS…</p>
<p>I agree that there that there are other options to the HYPS schools. The question I was raising was - is the private school tuition (in West Los Angles $35K) really worth it? In the real world, at least at the beginning of a career, HYPS helps alot…</p>
<p>“We pay over $35,000/yr for high school tuition,”</p>
<p>That statement is insane (to me). Very hard for me to comprehend someone paying that much money. And if you have to ask “is it worth it?” I tend to jump to the conclusion that it’s probably not. </p>
<p>And to whomever in a earlier post said that it may be a shock to transfer to a public school, because then (s)he’d have classmates who dont get to eat enough is a little out of touch IMO. I went to public school my whole life and never had to deal with “starving” classmates making me uncomfortable lol.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no high school anywhere that can guarantee that your child will be admitted to a super-selective college. In that sense, paying $35k a year isn’t “worth” it. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that getting into college is only a first step. You’d want to have your kid flourish there. Students who come in with a strong work ethic and academic background, who’ve been exposed to more rigorous academics are going to have an easier time acclimating to college work. Some kids can step up their game coming from a less-rigorous high school. Others flounder. Only you know what kind of kid you have. </p>
<p>There’s also an overall budgeting issue. Paying for private high school might mean that there’s less money available for paying for college. That might mean that your child must either find good merit money options or go to an in-state public. But you could save money, send your child to a public high school, and still find that they are going to attend lower-cost schools. No right answer here–the magic 8 ball is cloudy on what’s the best option. :)</p>
<p>Speaking as a teacher of 33 years, I was plenty rigorous in my instruction. No starving kids at our school either. Sons went to another rigorous high school in our southern state and both went to tier 1 schools.</p>
<p>Check out the public close to you. You might just be surprised and then you can save the $35k per year for college.</p>
<p>I understand where you’re coming from, but I think that what school helps depends a lot on the field you may be going into, as well as where you live. Imo, in Southern California, the alumni networking of USC, and even some of the UCs is much stronger than Havard’s or Yale’s. Claremont and Pomona have very strong California connections as well. If your son wants to live and work in the east coast, an east coast school will have more weight. But having a degree from HYP doesn’t open more doors than the top California schools–in California. Stanford, well sure.</p>
<p>You boy is only in 10th grade and you have time now to visit schools, do some more research, talk to parents who have graduates of various colleges and get their impressions. And, you also have a great reference in you college counselors. Don’t dismiss their recommendations out of hand. And keep reading and contributing to this site. There’s a wealth of information going back years.</p>
<p>I think some of you might be surprised to know how many public high school and middle school children go to school without breakfast. </p>
<p>I think some of you might be shocked to find out how many do not have resources for lunch, I don’t know how the free or reduced lunch programs work, but if what I hear from other parents and my own kids is true, a lot more kids than you think “may or may not eat 10 meals a week” which is exactly what I said in my earlier post about the environmen tin public schools. </p>
<p>I am not discounting anyone else’s first person information. I could be wrong, but I have heard repeatedly from other parents and my own kids how lucky we are (my kids) that they do not have to scramble for something to eat at breakfast and dinner. Either me or my wife makes sure they eat 3 and usually 4 times a day. We aren’t rich enough to go to $35K per year schools but we do eat. </p>
<p>Just as anecdote about this, on my son’s football team one of the other parents actually collected money because so many kids on the team were hungry. Scary but true. They used the money to buy meals before each game. I have also heard something like 50% of the kids at my son’s middle school are on some kind of reduced fee (government sponsored) lunch program. It is more common than you think at least down here.</p>
<p>DADforExcellence, absolutely nobody can tell you whether $35,000 a year is worth it.</p>
<p>If your child would be able to attend an excellent public school, where he would have friends and a chance to continue any special interests he may have, then NO, $35,000 isn’t worth it.
If paying that much tuition for high school makes you uncomfortable, or makes you worry about paying for your other children’s high school and college tuitions, then NO, it isn’t worth it. If you are sending your child to that particular high school because you believe that $35,000 per year will assure your child ANYTHING in terms of college admissions, then NO, it isn’t worth it.</p>
<p>^^^I know, ACCecil. I taught elementary school 30 years ago, and we had kids on lunch programs even then, in districts that you would think were immune from poverty.</p>
<p>My dad was a football coach in a SoCal high school ages ago. We were never all that well off ourselves back then (teachers made peanuts), but he used to buy football cleats out of his own pocket so that the players who couldn’t afford them would have them. </p>
<p>Those of us who are sending our kids to private schools do know that we are not the norm. It’s an amazing privilege, and my kids know it.</p>
<p>I think in general, the CC crowd really does not understand how the other half lives. Insensitive comments like “I went to public school my whole life and never had to deal with ‘starving’ classmates making me uncomfortable lol” demonstrate an astounding degree of misconnection with reality.</p>
<p>Our local food pantry recently put out an appeal for extra food donations. Why? Because the children from many of the families they serve are not getting their free lunches over the summer. And that means those kids are going hungry.</p>
<p>No, those of you in the wealthy suburbs may never have been “made to feel uncomfortable” by sitting next to a hungry classmate, “lol” indeed, but I can assure you, if you lived in rural America or in the inner cities, you would know kids who regularly did not get enough to eat. Who knows, you might even be in that predicament yourself. And then perhaps it wouldn’t be a lol-ing matter.</p>
<p>Frankly, if your kid isn’t destined to get into Harvard from a top private, he’s not destined to get into Harvard at a good public either. Harvard evaluates their applicants in the context of their applicant pool. The fact that a kid “stands out” academically at any given high school is really meaningless. Harvard isn’t taking the best of each school, it’s taking the best of the best.</p>
<p>My kid went to a private school We got excellent college counseling and letters of recommendation from teachers who really knew our daughter. Yes, her GPA suffered, and she may not have done as well at the UCs, but we have no regret. She’s deliriously happy at her LAC, and she had a fabulous high school experience, which we could never have replicated at our public school.</p>