<p>College aside, will he get a better secondary education at the private school or the public school. That should be primary. My son goes to a private school in NYC. We put him there because it was better than the public schools. He is a bright kid but would have fallen through the cracks in public school. Private schools usually have a much better ratio of guidance counselor staff to students and better relationships with colleges. Colleges will know what your school is about. It always recommended to take the most rigorous schedule you can handle. Adcoms will want to see that you took advantage of all the school has to offer. There is no guarantee that the prep school will get your child into a better college. Your child, by his actions/activities in high school, will get himself into a good college. At the prep school, he will get more assistance in exploring those activities. Hopefully this lead to a better college. The school, by itself, will not get him there.</p>
<p>So they expect a little more from private school kids.
When you look at all the EC's people have posted that they need to get into big schools, it seems there are not enough hours in the day to do all this stuff.
Now being in private school does that mean that they have to do even more than public school kids? I am thinking it is more quality than quantity.
How important is community service projects started in middle school?Can you write stuff you did then on apps or is it a stretch?</p>
<p>All public and private school offers excellent education. A person who wants to succeed can shine from any place. It is not necesssary to go the eilte prep school. However if some can attend as they can afford or go on financail aid like our kid, they should explore prep schools. More than 50% prep school kids do not go to super elite colleges</p>
<p>However, I would say schools like Andover, Exeter, Deerfield, Groton, Milton, Choate, teach you things which are from outside of the classroom. Those connections are lifelong useful. The school teaches kids how to present themselves in public. These outside things give a kid poise and confidence. This is the place many public school do not have resources.</p>
<p>I still think this is the biggest reason between an elite college and rest of the colleges. They offer probably similar education and but outside the classroom where the real differnce is.</p>
<p>Still people would be doing great from all parts of life no matter where they attend college. One last thing elite coleges can pay like no other college so parents looking for financail aid apply to these schools (that includes fulll room, board, summer research etc.. etc,) which you can not afford even in your dreams provided you have desire to work hard and make a difference.</p>
<p>I think you should read "School of Dreams" as a start.</p>
<p>bandit:</p>
<p>"School of Dreams" is it related with college or private high schools.</p>
<p>AlanArch has it right. If the public schools cannot provide the right kind of secondary education for the child, then private schools are a better option. But the focus should be on the quality of the secondary education as applied to the specific child at hand, and not what name college one can attend. First things first. </p>
<p>I am averse to private schools in general but realize that this is an unrealistic position. In some areas the public schools are so bad there is little other choice for parents who care about their kids. And even in areas where public schools are good, kids on the unmotivated side can fall through the cracks. In any event, I would suggest focusing on the quality of secondary education at hand. College will take care of itself.</p>
<p>southasianmom: Best advice - don't try to manipulate the system. Let your kids do what they want to do and do it with passion. If they do stuff on their own, it will come out in their application.</p>
<p>Our son went to a so-so public school. He had only 3 ECs, and one elected leadership position. Two of them he loved and one he had to participate - it does not look good when you say you love math and you don't participate in math club and don't become its president ! He was admitted to all schools (in top 20) he applied to, except one.</p>
<p>I have some real experience with this:</p>
<p>Three years ago, we took our kids (D a rising 11th grader, S rising 9th) out of a very famous private day school and sent them to the also-famous large public academic magnet high school here. (There were a variety of reasons for this, but economic ones were very significant.) Educationally, the move was a mixed bag. Overall, I think the private school provides a better education (and a MUCH better education for students who are not highly self-motivated), but there are areas where the public school is much stronger. Outside of the classroom, the incredible diversity of the public school was a huge plus for both kids; their friends at the old school seem much more parochial (despite having a lot of superficial sophistication) than they and their newer friends. Formal extra-curriculars at the private school at the private school are much better quality, but the size of the public school means that there is a critical mass for a lot of stuff (e.g., robotics) that could never get off the ground at the private school. The public school is MUCH more overtly competitive (a consequence of its diversity -- with no common culture among its students and their families, the school has to be brutal and simple with its core values), something that somewhat oppressed one kid and helped the other blossom.</p>
<p>In terms of college admissions, the older child is at exactly the same college I think she would have gone to had she stayed at the old school. On balance, she was probably hurt a little by the 11th grade switch (her class rank at the new school, based on their translation of the old school's grades, was not impressive, and she didn't have the benefit of the old school's often-effective push), but neither she nor I think there was any difference in where she got accepted or rejected because of it. The younger child will be applying to college in the fall, so it's too early to say for sure with him. He (and everyone else) thinks he is in a somewhat stronger position than he would have been at the old school, but I doubt there will be any real difference in outcome.</p>
<p>That said, there are enormous differences between the two schools in the college process. The private school has excellent college counselling, extensive relationships with adcomms, and a really admirable track record of having kids get into elite colleges. It also tends to "slot" students, subtly or not, so that not too many kids are competing at the same schools. It doesn't rank its students, and I strongly suspect that every year four or five kids have recommendations (to different colleges) that say they are the top student in the school that year. It is also comparatively very LAC oriented. If you compare the top 50 or so kids at each school, at the private school 30 will wind up at LACs, and at the public school it will be 3-4. At the public school almost half of those kids will go to home-state public universities; at the private school none of them will. (And if you look at the next tier of kids, the ratio will be 90% for the public school and 5-10% for the private school.)</p>
<p>At the public school, the counselors have huge caseloads, and their main job is to make certain that everyone has applied to some college to which he or she will be admitted, that the school gets its transcripts and recommendations out in time to the right addresses, and that scholarship and financial aid information is well disseminated. There isn't a whole lot of time to do more than that. The counselors all sent their kids to LACs, and try to some extent to interest other students in them, but not with a lot of success. Kids who want to go outside the state are largely on their own for making decisions. (In my daughter's class one kid with a high class rank actually failed to get into any college at all because she and her parents were spectacularly clueless. They had to buck lots of peer pressure, and some school pressure, to achieve that result, but the private school would have locked them all in a room, slapped them around, and not let them out without a completed application to a realistic safety.) </p>
<p>Both schools have a "feeder" relationship with the local Ivy, but the public school's relationship is probably the stronger one (because a much larger percentage of its very top students choose to go there, and it is a uniquely rich source of highly-qualified URMs for the university).</p>
<p>Bottom line, the very top candidates (academic and otherwise) at both schools generally attend colleges of equivalent prestige, but the farther down into the class you go the more impressive the private school's results are. We took a calculated risk that we could save $125,000+ without meaningful harm to our kids' education or college prospects, and it paid off, but we were lucky to have a really good public option, and if our kids had been slightly different the calculations could have been very different.</p>
<p>Very informative JHS
And that is what I have been contemplating----how worse would they be if they attended the private school vs a good public school</p>
<p>One problem I faced was the whole lack of academic,goal oriented motivation on the part of my kids peers in our small town. It was a small private school, mind you----but the setting was suburban bordering on rural. Hence the decision to attend a school in a large city. I was scared to consider a public school there. I think some kids drown or disappear in a massive school. It is hard to make an impact and I was afraid of what the motivation level was like on the part of the students. I am a strong believer that some kids need a little competition to really take the next step and push themselves. If a child is in an environment that is not motivated to achieve then I think a majority will be stuck in that same place (being seen as different from their peers, standing out as being the geek, etc). Not all kids mind you but I think a majority. SO that social environment also predicts how well SOME kids do. A private school setting may be the best place for them, where the environment is conducive to growth b/c basically the parents are payig a truckload of money to attend these places and will be more on top of these kids to achieve. This is my reasoning behind choosing a private school vs public. So, after spending alot of time and effort and money to send our kids to a private school and they end up in a comparable place had they attended the public school do you think they may have some unseen, intangible attributes that will help them succeed in the end?</p>
<p>JHS-- your results mirror what I have observed locally except in the case of a kid (frequently a boy) who would absolutely fall off the radar screen at a large public. A lazy, smart kid who doesn't bring guns to school or otherwise attract the attention of our over-worked GC's ends up taking the easy way out in terms of class choices, college apps, EC's, etc. At any of the privates around here (including the religious HS's) that kid will be cajoled, encouraged, and otherwise worked over by the teachers and GC's who in general, don't let the smart slackers fall through the cracks.</p>
<p>We had one of those.... he was told by his math teacher that he'd be excused from homework for a week if he took the AIME's; his foreign language teacher met with him regularly after school to help him struggle through newspaper articles in that language; his GC made phone calls to help him find a volunteer job when the schools service clubs seemed "lame", his gym teacher made sure he made the JV team at a sport he loved but would never have been good enough to play at our large, sports obsessed HS; etc. We really couldn't find a positive way to motivate him-- he was a nice, happy kid who was quite capable but lazy, but the faculty at a private school is usually determined to get these kids working at their potential, not just getting by and not causing trouble.</p>
<p>For people who are philosophically opposed to private schools.... when you're living with a kid who never did his homework in middle school starts reading Dostoyevsky for pleasure during the summer.....your philosophy starts to change pretty quickly.</p>
<p>Dear Blossom,
(Re: your post #13)
True, but that could be predicted by both the size and quality of the competition, across the board for all schools. (i.e., lowered expectations apply in such a market). Thus, from the private non-elites in our area:</p>
<p>-those who thought they were destined for HYP ended up at BU, Berkeley, or sometimes an LAC.
-those who were sure they would end up at Berkeley were admitted only to Davis, Santa Cruz, etc.</p>
<p>Whereas from the elites:
-those who thought they were destined for HYP mostly ended up at one of those three, or at Chicago. Any who didn't (in my acquaintance) had too small a list of choices but were picked for top LAC's when those were on the list as well. I do not know anyone from D's "elite" who was disappointed in their admissions.</p>
<p>However, what applies to elites can apply to non-elites, too; thus,
--from my D's elite over the last several years -- those with no particular outstanding or consistent accomplishments beyond their on-campus high school academic program, have never been admitted to elite colleges over the last 4 yrs minimum.
--similarly, neighboring elite private had to meet same bar as all other h.s. graduates. For example, one of those graduates with great grades & scores, "involvement" in sports but no stand-out accomplishments, got admitted ONLY to a mid-level U.C. (Not to Berkeley, UCLA, SD; not to East Coast privates.) The "name" of this school was no ticket.</p>
<p>From my observation JHS is spot on in his assessment. My daughter also attended an "elite" day school and as she approached high school we realized that as a self starter she would be just fine at our high regarded public school. Also - the prospect of thirteen years at one little school seemed a bit stifling. The D was amenable to a little exploration so my husband and I spoke with parents of students at the public school and researched carefully. She eventually chose to stay at her private school but IMO JHS covered the differences between the two environments very well. My only comment would be to say that college choices at my daughter's private high school are becoming more influenced by financial considerations than they have been in the past.</p>
<p>Im not a parent but i attended a waldorf school(which is highly regarded) for nursery school..but they told me due to my disability(ADHD) it was either take me out or i would have to be held back and parents didnt want that..at all i ended up going to a private elementary for pre school and prek(they had a special program..) I ended up fitting right in at my public school k-8th grade dispite for most of that time i made few friends i did well 9th grade i did bad and i felt not right there ne more now im at special ed private school and ive never did better and it was the right choice</p>
<p>i agree that for our money he should be put in a higher achieving class, especially since he really wanted it. i should also mention i spend2K for a kumon math class and also more $ for an egpy cty class. i guess this particular school is just a bad fit for him but i am so disappointed since he has been there since age 3 and all his friends are there... it is really into music and theater which he doesn't have much interest in. i wish i could have him go to the private schools other posters speak of with support for the B+ child . i figure he will get the same attention( little) at the public school for free as i'm getting from the 17K private. also the private has just added a high school. i don't know if colleges care about a new private school grad as much as a well-established private. i have suffered horribly (it's not cancer or anything really horrible- i know, i know!) this year because i just want a school that cares the tiniest bit about his progress or at least doesn't put obstacles in his way. sigh... any posters here know about the baltimore schools (private)??</p>
<p>It is extremely difficult to predict what is going to happen for a specific kid from a specific school with college admissions. That said, my kids have attended a private school which was dedicated from the get-go to preparing them for college admissions, and around a third of the students will be attending an Ivy, Stanford, or MIT in the fall, not to mention a large percentage of students going to a wide array of other excellent universities and LAC's that I would consider first tier. Would these kids have had the same results had they attended local public schools? Who know. Sometimes parents wonder if their kids might even be at a disadvantage college-wise because the school is so competitive. But when you look at the statistics, and at the very good schools that kids in the bottom half of the class are attending, it's difficult to discount the influence of attending this high school. With specific kids within the pool, though, it is harder to predict. A couple of very top kids did not end up in their schools of choice, and several kids with top scores/EC's etc. were waitlisted at schools that seemed like matches or even safeties. </p>
<p>I think that the first question for the OP has to be whether the private school is the best fit for her kids. If it is, take a look at their college statistics and scattergrams, making sure that they note which students have a hook (such as athletes, legacies, URM's, etc.) Be sure that the statistics include the number of students who applied to various schools and the number of students accepted and rejected, along with their GPA's and SAT/ACT score ranges. See if you think that attending this school really does give students a boost in college admissions. But ultimately, I think that the question has to be whether you think this school is truly the best school for your children on a day to day basis, irrespective of where they end up in college.</p>
<p>"School of Dreams" is the story (2001-2002) of the top ranked public HS in California (and the country). It ranks evenly with Boston Latin and Andover. SAT average was 1 point off of Exeter. In AP scores it was above everybody. It gives a very good "year in the life" of tier 1 students in a tier 1 high school, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think it does a pretty fair job of telling what the kids go through to pursue this level of schooling.</p>
<p>samom, in my view, you make a mistake when you focus your attention on the college ticket the private school will buy. </p>
<p>It's a mistake on all levels. It will not endear you to the private school administration. Nothing is worse than high school parents who are blind to four to six years of education. </p>
<p>It will pressure your children to focus on the wrong priorities. Unless your children are highly motivated, independent scholar athletes with Verbal AND Math test scores in the +98% percentile, you are likely to be disappointed with the college ticket they are going to get--regardless of the high school they attend. </p>
<p>Now for some realities:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>American private schools select the best students possible--with an eye to their future success. In the best schools, +50% of the seniors will get some sort of National Merit recognition. Yes, they received an excellent education at the private school but in fact, the likely reason for those stellar stats is the initial selection. The students were very smart and motivated BEFORE they entered the school.</p></li>
<li><p>One of the main reasons private school education is so heady is this concentration of intellect. Students are surrounded by brilliant peers. That atmosphere and those relationships can be worth the price of admission.</p></li>
<li><p>The downside of being surrounded by brilliant peers is that it is difficult to stand out in college admissions. Classmates will apply to colleges and be compared to the best students in the class. Private school students apply to the exact same group of schools--all the top ones. They can well afford to apply to 12 schools and they do.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The top 10 students often apply to the top univerisities and LACs. They often get multiple acceptances--which count in the total acceptances offered. Thus, the numbers are deceptive. Harvard might offer five places to the senior class--but only two will accept. The other three will go to Stanford or Yale. The top 10 students get the lion's share of the top offers.</p>
<p>Also, colleges seem to have set quotas (more or less) for each private school. In all probability, Harvard and the Ivies and the elite LACs will accept nearly the same number of seniors from your Indiana school, year in and year out. That number will be lower than the number accepted by Exeter or Groton--but higher than the public school you are considering.</p>
<ol>
<li> College admissions is biased toward private schools. Given all that privilege, college admission staff expect the student to make the very very best of the experience. A middling performance at a top private school looks arrogant--and is a poor indicator of potential at an elite private university.</li>
</ol>
<p>Unless your children are nationally or internationally recognized athletes, the fierce competition at elite private schools means that your children will be straight-jacketed into high school course selections in order to appear to have taken all the 'toughest' courses at the school. This can be very confining if the student has other creative interests.</p>
<p>I have seen kids near the bottom of the class at elite privates, who would be top 20% in a solid pubic high school. They are bright average kids, hard workers, but are in a sea of exceptional kids, and thus look rather dull in comparison. </p>
<p>Their college choices, as a result, are signigicantly more limited, because they are graduating with C+ averages in elite school, as opposed to B+ in public school. The reality is that there is an elite, even in the elite school.</p>
<p>samom:<br>
As many others have rightly stated, you should not choose private over public with the expectation that there is a guarantee of admittance to certain colleges. The benefits of private school are definitely in the smaller class sizes, the more attentive teachers, the more personal counseling, the hand-picked and motivated peer group. And I say this as a parent who is going the public school route for my kids --- not a public academic magnet either like Whitney High (School of Dreams) but a fairly decent 3,000-student CA public high in a middle- to upper-middle class community. </p>
<p>One of my son's best friends choose to attend a private school in Newport Beach (yes, the OC) so I have had a good comparison. The education my son's friend received, at $20,000 per year, was indeed superior to the one my son received in the depth and challenge and field-trip type opportunities in the curriculum, but the outcome if you look at college acceptances was similar. Both were accepted at most of the schools they applied to, including UCB and UCLA and several top 20 private colleges; both were rejected at the HYP reaches-for-everyone schools. </p>
<pre><code>The tricky thing is really finances. If a family spends $80,000 on high school, will the money be there for private college if the financial aid offers or merit aid turn out to be disappointing?
</code></pre>
<p>Totally anecdotal, but here goes:</p>
<p>I attended my completely-average-yet-well-regarded local school, and did well. I took advantage of the opportunities offered me, and I worked hard. I got into a good university. </p>
<p>My best friend at said university comes from a completely different background. He attended one of the UK's (and the world's) very very very best single-sex boarding schools (I won't name it, but you will have heard of it). He had chances and opportunities to do things I never even dreamed of, and to take part in sports, internships, travel and volunteering that my school could never have afforded. </p>
<p>Although we both loved our respective schools, and both attend the same university, I would say that his education gave him advantages I will never have - he is very confident, very 'polished'. </p>
<p>I would say your decision has to be based on the needs of your child. Forget college. That is years away, and any number of things could happen between now and then. Focus instead on where your child can get the best education - for him.</p>