<p>@GMTplus7: Sure. Whatever works for you, my old friend. And that’s my point - everyone has different circumstances, preferences and priorities. It’s perfectly OK to care or not care about something someone else holds a contrary idea about.</p>
<p>@YoHoYoHo,</p>
<p>If DS’s large public high school had 13% rate, there would be 78 students who would get into H and S. This will never happen. (I think 78 may be the number of students per senior class who are admitted into either of our two flagship public colleges! The top-ranked student from some slightly-below-average high school in our city may even go to the community college . It is depressing to know where the top students from such a high school go to college, if they go to college at all. The population of high schoolers here seem to be very segregated by their families SESs and as a consequence, the students’ academic readiness - potential exceptions are some, but not all, new immigrants.)</p>
<p>I can understand that, if (this is a big if) the family can afford it and the student can possibly pull it off in the competitive environment at a high powered private high school, the family and/or the student may be tempted to try out the 13% chance at a high powered private high school, rather than try out the pitiful 1% or even less chance at a large public school - and potentially needs to deal with a higher percentage of unmotivated peers or even teachers. (In the college round, DS wanted to try, say, the 13% chances at a private college, rather than, the 1% chances at a large public college. I also remember that one non-hooked kid from a directional college was on a interview trip at a well-known mid-west med school and even with a stellar GPA and the standardized test score, he said he felt like a used car salesman when he was trying to sell himself. Call them “shallow” as you may, some students who have “other ways” to achieve the same just do not want to risk himself to be in this situation - so attending at least a flagship state college may be a better choice for most students IMHO.)</p>
<p>I remember that a CCer once said that he believes coming from an elite college with a good GPA may give such a student some slack in his/her EC. I agree with him.</p>
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We chose our town and neighborhood because of its diversity. And had to laugh about this comment. I was with a construction lawyer yesterday and he was going on and on about his cases and I was soooo bored. I’m putting on an addition and enjoy talking to my contractors so much more! </p>
<p>It would be interesting to know what % if students / families even devote any thought to anything other than their local public option. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of people don’t think about any other option other than their local public and that the prime motivator for a private hs is simply religious instruction, not superior academics. And of course the % of kids going to boardng schools or exclusive privates is vanishingly small. </p>
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That’s true. And these schools only have the capacity to serve a small population anyway. In boarding school world, Andover and Exeter are about the largest, with a student body of around 1100, which is only the size of Caltech and Haverford College, which are among the smallest ones of colleges. Most of other very selective private schools are smaller. I’d like to say that the supply and demand is tested since they have been around for many, many years although the admission stats have looked more unforgiving in recent years, which seem to be happening across the board including with selective colleges. Of course, that’s not the theme of this particular thread or what OP is asking about.</p>
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<p>That is certainly true for my relatives who live in states with strong K-12 systems. Living in a state with sub-par public K-12 schools, many more people opt for privates for academic reasons or they choose from the increasing numbers of charter schools and early colleges now popping up as public alternatives to locally zoned schools.</p>
<p>I’m interested in numbers, and wonder if anyone has access to these.</p>
<p>What % of parents / families put any serious thought to considering ANY option other than their local public schools?
(whether that is “because our public schools are very good and I chose to live here specifically for that,” or “it just wouldn’t occur to me to send my kid to a private school”)</p>
<p>And for those who do, for what % is the primary motivation “want my child to have religious instruction in the faith of our choice”?</p>
<p>Been away for a while, but here are some quick comments on responses to my posts and on recent posts:</p>
<p>-- Someone mentioned that elite private schools only admit kids they think will ultimately be competitive for elite colleges. That may be a little overstated, but not much. Yes, there is a lot of cream-skimming.</p>
<p>-- ucbalumnus accurately noted that many of the advantages I identified for private schools had nothing to do with the quality of the schools. Absolutely correct. Except that most of those factors (high SES, etc., and especially families that value broad education for its own sake) help facilitate high quality education to a huge extent, and so the schools tend to have high quality.</p>
<p>-- Someone asked about comparing the actual courses offered at my kids’ schools. The public school had a much greater variation in the quality of its courses (and also a fair amount of sub rosa tracking). It offered a wider variety of science courses that the private school, and the best of those were better than those at the private school. The private school had somewhat better math classes, but fewer really good math students, so it’s hard to compare quality there. Humanities at the private school were far superior to those at the public school, although the public school had a handful of very gifted teachers whose offerings were on the same level as the private school. The public school teachers were handcuffed by the AP curriculum; the private school refused to offer AP-branded courses.</p>
<p>-- Diversity. My kids benefited tremendously from the diversity at their public school, but in part that was because the school was a very special place where diversity did not fragment the student body. I think in lots of diverse school, students form cliques around their own kind. But in terms of talking to plumbers . . . At the public school, many of the “smart kids” talked to no one but other smart kids. At the private school, that would have been totally unacceptable, and everyone had to talk to everyone. Plus there was a strong public service requirement that really forced kids out into the community (and not the cute, high-SES parts of the community). In my youth, I thought smart kids coming out of public schools often had a Manichean view of the world – good, smart people vs. evil, dumb people – compared to the prep school ideal that everyone should be respected for his particular gifts.</p>
<p>-- Who cares. Sure, in the larger world, fancy private schools with an academic focus barely exist. But in Lower Merion township (part of the Philly suburbs, including several very ritzy towns), they have one of the best, highest quality public school systems in the country, and as many as half of the resident kids go to private schools, and those are overwhelmingly secular (or mostly secular), academically focused private schools. My kids went to the city’s largest academic magnet, and while they were there the school never had more than 6 kids from our zip code. They were the only kids on our block (out of about 20) to go to any public school. So there are communities where people care a lot </p>
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Ask Periwinkle. She has all sorts of statistics about private schools. Except I don’t think you could ever find % parents/families “considering”… One thing to note is that even with the religion affiliated schools, people don’t necessarily attend them for region purpose or for religion purpose only (they are inclusive enough nowadays to accept families/students with different religious belief). Many families in my neighborhood send their kids to the local Catholic schools for supposedly better academics. These schools are also big on sports, and send alarming number of recruited athletes to elite colleges each year.</p>
<p>Around here many people consider private schools because our high school is so big. There are several catholic single sex schools not too far away that offer not too expensive options and of course there are some fabulous secular private schools that make the top schools in the country lists every year. I’ve known a handful of parents who have sent kids to one or the other option. One parent who had one kid at Horace Mann and one at the local high school, said HM did a much better job at the writing intensive courses (history, English), had fewer options in art, music and dance than the local high school. Math and science were excellent at both places. Both her kids ended up at U of Chicago, while only a data point of one, does show that it may not make that much difference where you go to high school.</p>
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<p>What parents and students are thinking is harder to measure than where students actually enroll. Private K-12 enrollment is only about 10% of the total in the US. Only about 23% of the private K-12 enrollment is in nonsectarian schools, meaning that 77% of enrollment is in either religiously affiliated schools or unaffiliated schools with a general religious orientation.</p>
<p><a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp</a>
<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_01.asp”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_01.asp</a>
<a href=“Percentage distribution of students enrolled in private elementary and secondary schools, by school orientation and selected characteristics: Fall 2009 and fall 2011”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_205.30.asp</a></p>
<p>So out of 100 households in the US, 90 send their kids to public school; 7 to religiously-affiliated schools, and 3 to what is meant on CC by private, academically-oriented (but not religiously-oriented school). Thanks. </p>
<p>But those 7 sending their kids to religious-affiliated schools might be doing it for more than the religion. I know of many fundamentalist schools where religion is a higher priority than academics, but Catholic and Quaker affiliated schools are often known as much or more for their academics, and attract significant numbers of students outside of those faith systems. Catholic schools are also often less expensive (for us, it was the difference between 9K/year for Catholic vs. 16K/year for non-religious day school).</p>
<p>@mcat2, there are more schools out there than HYPSM, I hope you know.</p>
<p>Also, don’t confuse causation with correlation. Just because the private sends 13% of its class to H/S doesn’t mean your kid has a 13% chance at H/S if he/she goes there. It may mean that that school draws in top students.</p>
<p>In any case, the benefits of a HS with many smart kids who will go on to do great things will (other than the admissions counseling) likely be outside the realm of college admissions. Think friendships/network as well as the type of education.</p>
<p>PG, what’s your point? Isn’t it why this is one of the rare threads about private schools on Parents Forum? You are not suggesting that because it’s “affecting” only 10% of the population we shouldn’t take about it at all, are you?</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting anything of the sort. After all, the vast majority of people don’t apply or care about selective schools but that doesn’t mean that CC shouldn’t exist. I was just curious, that’s all.</p>
<p>"The top-ranked student from some slightly-below-average high school in our city may even go to the community college . It is depressing to know where the top students from such a high school go to college, if they go to college at all. "</p>
<p>I’m not sure why this is so surprising. There are 30,000 high schools in the country; let’s say you plucked the top 10 students from each school for the sake of argument, that’s 300,000 kids – there are only 150,000 or so spots in the top 20 universities in the country. </p>
<p>And certainly you didn’t think that ALL top kids in every school in the country applied to a top 20, much less got in; I’m assuming it’s no surprise to you that the majority of the high schools in this country never have ANY applicants to top schools, or if they do, it’s once in a blue moon. </p>
<p>I’ve never heard that sending a child to a religiously affiliated school means the parent’s not interested in college placement.</p>
<p>As far as I can (quickly) figure out, in 2013 about 8% of high school seniors were enrolled in private schools.
<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013316.pdf[/url]”>http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013316.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_02CT.asp?referrer=list[/url]”>http://nces.ed.gov/programs/projections/projections2021/tables/table_02CT.asp?referrer=list</a></p>
<p>As the OP referred to the Ivy League, it’s interesting that it’s not so easy to find the breakdown online for public/private this year. The best I could find (quickly), the Center for Public Education gives a range from 55% to 70% for public school graduate enrollment for the four Ivy institutions for which it could find online info. <a href=“http://blog.centerforpubliceducation.org/2014/04/04/public-high-schools-are-prominent-in-ivy-league-rosters/[/url]”>http://blog.centerforpubliceducation.org/2014/04/04/public-high-schools-are-prominent-in-ivy-league-rosters/</a></p>
<p>So there’s a range from 30% to 45% for private high school graduates in the Ivy League. Which means the private school graduates comprise from 4 to 5 times as many students in the Ivy League as one would expect from their basis in the population.</p>
<p>Of course, we don’t know how many private school seniors apply to the Ivy League, nor how many public school seniors apply. </p>
<p>Students in private schools are a self-selected population. I suspect students who might have a chance of admission are more likely to apply to the Ivy League from private schools, and less likely to apply from public schools, due to differences in college counseling.</p>
<p>“I’ve never heard that sending a child to a religiously affiliated school means the parent’s not interested in college placement.”</p>
<p>I didn’t think anyone said that?</p>
<p>“Students in private schools are a self-selected population”</p>
<p>Honestly, I think it’s more that students in private schools are a parent-selected population. NTTAWWT. </p>
<p>@periwinkle I’d agree with Pizzagirl that its parent-selected population… after all it’s they who urge the kid to go to a private school and pay all the costs for admittance (test prep materials, etc).</p>