Suggest you download the high school profile off the web for the public school your child would be attending. Take a critical look at average test scores and matriculation. You can tell by looking quickly just how strong a public high school is. We’ve gone the public high school route and it’s worked out well. As noted above by others, a good private high school is probably going to cost $30K - $40K per year or $120K - $160K over the course of four years. The biggest difference between a good public and a private high school is going to be the quality and face-time available for college counseling. The average public high school counselor has a 480 student case load today. This would mean your child might have 1-2 hours / year of your counselor’s time. I don’t know the ratio of students to counselors in a good private high school but it’s considerably lower. You could easily afford the very best Test Prep and Independent Admissions consulting. We used Study Point for ACT and I think it cost $3500. Someone like Michelle Rodriquez or Kat Cohen is going to cost $20K - $30K if you buy the full range of their services starting very early. Now if your child would not succeed in the public high school setting due to needing small class sizes or individual attention beyond what they woudl get in a public school’s AP or IB program, then maybe private high school has some merit. It is true that some of the more selective private high schools have good success matriculating to Ivy League and top LAC’s. There is something to be said for a student who climbs to the top of a HS class of 1,000 or more students