Hello Everyone, my daughter is in the 8th grade and I am trying to determine her best high school option. Our local high school has about 3400 kids. I am aware that does offer more services. We have a local Catholic school we had been interested in with a school enrollment of about 450 girls.
This is my first experience with college prep as I didn’t attend college. I’m trying to understand this game on how I can give her better college options.
Is it essentially better to be a strong student in a small group of 120 kids or a high average student among 800 kids? Do colleges care about that or is every application considered individually no matter the high school?
Thanks in advance for any tips on what colleges consider.
IMO, you need to focus on available courses and the best opportunities for learning for high school. It’s way too early to worry about college.
When comparing schools, look at things like AP course offerings and criteria for enrollment. Some schools will limit pathways based on grades, test scores, and teacher recommendations. Other things to weigh: What percentage of students go on to college? Which colleges? Average ACT/SAT scores? What does the guidance department look like in terms of numbers and what type of college counseling do they offer? How big are the class sizes? Length of class periods? What kinds of EC offerings are available and how competitive are they?
Lastly, don’t automatically assume that the Catholic private is necessarily better just because its smaller or private.
We pulled our D out of our public district after budget cuts decimated the curriculum. Her private catholic college prep school was much more competitive. It was much more work to stay in the top 10% of the class so also don’t assume that smaller will mean that she’ll be a big fish in a small pond.
Look at where the graduates go. What are the ave SAT scores. AP scores. Ave class size. My D went to a very expensive local prep school. There is no way the local public could give her the level of quality education. The technology at her school was incredible, and the teachers knew how to use it. The facilities were outstanding. And then you have the contacts: alumina and parents. Out of 64 graduates, 39 went to Ivys or ivy equivalents, like MIT. Of course, the private prep school parents were more willing to pay for private college.
From another perspective… DD is in a public high school of 2,700 kids. We’re in a well-funded district, and that makes all the difference. There are loads of incredible opportunities available to these kids. The private and parochial schools in this area are much smaller, so they can’t offer the same course selection or the extra curricular variety that the public does. They also pull from a large geographic area, so many kids find themselves living 45 minutes away from any of their friends. Our faculty is fantastic and turnover is negligible, tutoring is available, each kid is issued their own iPad, and the technology and other support services are plentiful.
Like the other posters suggested, I would study the curriculum guides to both schools. You’ll also want to visit each web site and see what extra curriculars are offered. Those would highlight most of the similarities and differences. If you want to go a step further, read both student handbooks to get a sense of the policies and rules. You can get a lot of information from those sources too. Some schools, especially the privates, will even let your student “shadow” a current student for the day or half day.
Good luck in your decision. Regardless of what you choose, it is comforting to have an alternative in the event it becomes necessary.
The answer varies by college (basically, how important is class rank in their admissions criteria).
But note that a small school with academically weaker students may be more limited in advanced course offerings. Check what is actually offered at each school and compare.
IMO/IME catholic schools are not always (often?) primarily academically focused and 450 is tiny. You should be able to easily research on a local level, look at test scores, AP offerings, college placement, local chatter. Unless you are catholic, talk to your kid about a wasted academic slot every year, for 4 years to inflict dogma and story telling (that could be used for electives, APs, etc). As well as whatever extraneous catholic obligations might be thrown in LOL. In my kids HS area, private schools were academically inferior. You will be able to find out if there are academically desirable private schools in your area just by asking.
The first question should be: what is the best learning environment for your daughter? Kids learn differently and need different things. Small and nurturing is fantastic for some and stifling for others. All girls vs co-ed is an important consideration. How important are sports? Other extracurriculars? How much of a pressure cooker are the different schools? How hard will it be to find her people? How important is it to her that there be a lot of options in advanced classes? Does the high school reflect your family’s values?
This may be blasphemy here, but high school to me is more formative than college. Get high school right for its own sake, and worry about college once your daughter is older.
Just want to echo the wise comments above. Choose the best environment for your daughter for high school years, and include social and emotional well-being as major criteria. High school years are hard. (I will be honest, I chose a mediocre public for my kids because their real “passions” and pursuits were outside of school. If you have to think about college, know that academic accomplishments within school are not only thing to think about).
I don’t think 450 is tiny. If the Catholic School is high pressure, think about the experience for your daughter. If she is one who will get lost in the crowd at a larger public, think about that. Often kids at public schools find their “home” via an extracurricular.
I was a big advocate for public education but it wasn’t always easy leaving my kids at the door!
We looked at private school options for our older child. We were looking for a school where we felt the high school would be best for him…college didn’t enter into this decision…at all.
At the end of the hunt, we chose our public school because it checked off more boxes than any of the private schools we looked at.
We offered this to second child and she declined to even look at private schools…so we didn’t.
I will add…our public school sends very few kids to the Ivies and the like. We live in New England so you can guess that the prep schools we looked at did send plenty of kids in that direction. BUT we were looking for a good high school fit, not a college path. Both of our kids got accepted to their number one college choices.
D went to a middle-level public HS that offered a decent selection of AP classes. She was a valedictorian (one of a handful) and is now a senior at UC Berkeley (her number one choice). Another local public HS with about 50 valedictorians (neither school recognizes weighted GPA’s, so basically anyone with a 4.0) and they were not all getting into the schools of their choice. Granted, a lot of them (if not all) were shooting for Iveys, but still. I also know of private-school kids who wound up at mid-level private colleges (or OOS publics) because they didn’t particularly distinguish themselves academically and couldn’t get into the top tier privates or even state schools.
Did I sometimes pine for the resources and small school feel of a private HS for D? Yes. Do I think she would have flourished at a private enough to distinguish herself to be admitted to the schools she actually was admitted to plus more prestigious ones? Don’t know. Did I think she and we would be a good fit for a private HS environment? Not really. Did we have the money to send her to a private HS AND possibly a private college? No. We decided to save our $$ for higher education, and, due to her hard work, academic support, and a bit of luck, she got into a very good public school that didn’t require anyone taking out loans and will be graduating in 4 years.
My feeling is that a private HS (putting aside other reasons for wanting to send your kid there beside the pathway to top universities, of which there may be many) isn’t going to be much of an advantage if your kid is a middling student without a hook. If your child is strong academically (or is a recruited athlete or has a compelling story or is a legacy), a private HS can and will open many doors at top-tier schools. For a kid at an average public HS to hit those top schools, he/she really does need to be a superstar (corner cases excepted).
When selecting a HS, make sure you can check off several tick boxes for what you feel your child’s experience should be, because there is no guarantee that a pricey private education will get your kid into their dream college.
I just want to reiterate the advice above about primarily looking the right environment for them NOW completely separate from college aspirations. We kind of mucked this up in middle school as a school offered a unique academic fit, but socially was just not right. Small schools can be brutal when the student doesn’t fit in. I wish I could give those years back to my kid. We made sure that in high school we found the right learning/social environment.
Presumably you mean “elite private HS” rather than “private HS” above, since many private high schools confer no special college prep advantage (seems like private high school that the OP is looking at has a lower performing student cohort than the public high school, based on the OP’s estimate of where the student would rank at each school). Of course, non-elite private high schools may be chosen for other reasons.
We have similar choices in our town. There’s quite a good Catholic girls school and a couple of boys schools along with a very large public high school. The girl’s school has 16 APs while the high school has 27. The public school has more students at top ranked colleges, but many fewer as a percentage of the class. Classes are much smaller at the girls school. You have to take religion every year at the girl’s school. Parents are generally happy with their choices. I think people often get frightened by the average SAT scores of kids at our public high school and don’t realize there’s a really large cohort of kids who are very capable. And our public high school offers some really amazing arts programs, 3 orchestras, 2 bands, several chorus, lively arts, several theater productions, dance etc.
No, I don’t think colleges care which high school if one takes college prep or AP classes at either.
Agree must consider high school fit for values, social, ecs, learning environment, help with learning differences, whether outweighs public hs.
Would she be candidate for top academics, based on current academics and projected HSPT (if used there)? If not, where do kids in regular track end up being accepted? Probably similar to your public school.
What extracurriculars would she do? Often small high schools allow a kid to shine in sports and be recruited athletically.
Or there may be music or fine arts tracks.
Then parents may also have legacy hook at private colleges.
You could inquire with guidance offices /see where last year’s grads were admitted.
A small school may have unique social culture, expect lots of homework, expect families to be partners for fund raising, promoting school, cooperating with administration, etc. Often boosters & volunteers needed for ecs. There may be less social distractions /more discipline/ more enforcement rules for uniform, no cell phone, no cheating, etc. at smaller school.