Is private school worth it?

Parents Forum
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<p>Moonchild said: “I’m always struck by how the cross country runners of our local private greet me when I’m walking my dog on the trails around our neighborhood, and they’re doing their weekend practice runs. They don’t know me from Adam, as it’s been years since my kids attended, but I still get a “Hi”, or “Morning!” when they swiftly run past me. Every kid. When the public school kids pass (and they are mostly great kids, don’t get me wrong) I might as well be invisible. It’s just a little thing, but it’s indicative of a certain comfort level and confidence that comes from a lot of interaction with many caring grownups.”</p>

<p>I’m curious. How can you know what high school a runner attends when meeting them on a trail on a weekend? Especially when it has been years since your own chikdren attended. Do all high school runners in your area run in uniform when they practice? </p>

<p>Around here, runners from both private and public schools wear whatever running gear they want during practice runs. </p>

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<p>Colors. They wear their school colors, in some form or another. The kids also have school T-shirts that some of them wear for practice, but the colors are distinctive. </p>

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<p>Interesting assumptions. Our high schoolers are friends with kids from other high schools. My own runner has swapped shirts and pinneys and gear with friends over the years. He has shirts, shorts, jackets, warm ups, etc. from at least four local high schools and several out of state high schools.</p>

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<p>I can assure you I’m not making assumptions. When 50 kids run by in black and yellow clothing, some with the school letters, they’re from the public that my Dh and I attended ourselves 45 years ago, a school dear to my heart. When 25 kids run by in blue and white, many with the school name on their shirts, they’re from the private my kids attended eight years ago, also a school dear to my heart. If a particular runner doesn’t “conform” that day, it doesn’t change the overall impression.</p>

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<p>^^^It’s a pretty safe assumption that the kids are wearing their own high school’s colors in their own neighborhood though. Particularly while training. My kids might wear an exotic school’s gear - My son enjoys wearing a shirt that says “Dallas Jesuit” though he plays for a school in Philadelphia. He also sometimes (read if nothing else is clean) wears a shirt he got from a tour he took at a nearby high school, but that school doesn’t even have his particular sport and in no way competes with his school . However, it would be over my kids’ dead bodies that they’d put on one of their nearby rivals, particularly while training. And my son’s two best friends in the world play for rival teams. And if there is the odd kid who likes wearing Rival School Track Team apparel while training, that kid has to be the exception. It’s a pretty safe bet that the kids wearing the private and public school colors, are, by and large, from those schools. </p>

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<p>Every school is different, and I don’t think being public or private is the main difference. Having a good fit for your child is the important thing. Some kids do well in a large school, others are much more comfortable in a small school. Some kids need a challenging curriculum, some crave great arts programming, some need small classes and nurturing teachers. Some kids would do fine in most environments, other kids will flourish in the right environment and flounder in the wrong environment. Spend some time really thinking about your child and which aspects are most important for her.
If you are considering changing schools, do a lot of research. People are suggesting that you move to an area with better schools, but “better” isn’t just about funding and test scores. Ask for tours, meet principals, examine websites, find out what clubs and activities are offered, check out the parent organization, if possible speak to parents at the school.<br>
Also remember that you aren’t really making a 9-year decision – you can always change schools if you aren’t getting what you need from whatever school you pick.</p>

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<p>My kids from K-3 had to eat at assigned table family style with a teacher or visiting parents. They had to mind their table manners while eating - please, thank-you when passing food/salt pepper around. Every week a kid from each table was responsible for clearing the table. Kids were encouraged to carry on conversation while having lunch. I used to volunteer to go in for lunch. It was always a lot of fun. After 4th grade, they were allowed to sit with friends.</p>

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<p>While prep students may well develop habits of politeness to adults, many arrive at college with strange attitudes towards dating. They do not have the opportunity to go on dates off campus, but do get away with secret, random hookups in boarding school. My Ds definitely noticed a lack or respect towards women from the young men who had not had parental influence in h.s. years.</p>

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<p>OP is considering day school for her child. I don’t know much about BS. My kids wen to day school also.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t know about boarding schools. My two went to a non-boarding private, three miles from our home. The comment I remember most clearly from my son’s first day as a Freshman was something along the lines of, “Everyone respects everyone, Mom.” The politeness carried over to students as well as adults.<br>
Public schools are at a disadvantage in trying to create that kind of atmosphere because they can’t turn kids away who don’t adhere to the standards. Having been a teacher, I know how challenging it is to try to instill respect when there may be some basic nurturing missing at home. </p>

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<p>Irrespective of how the term is used on CC, “prep school” is shorthand for “college (or university) preparatory school,” the vast majority of which are day schools. </p>

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<p>OP, I think you have received many good inputs from CCers who have had experiences with this. Since my own child went through the public school system from K to 12, I could not give you much inputs on this front. But I think I could give you some perspective from somebody who have a different experience out of necessity, but whose child attended a “brand name” private college/grad school.</p>

<p>With probably 25-30% of your family’s income in almost all years when my child was growing up, we really could not afford pricy private secondary education for our child, even with only one child in my family. Like compmom, I wish I had had the money for private though, honestly.</p>

<p>We noticed that in the foreign language area, many private secondary schools do have a huge leg up over the public school. At one of the top private schools in our city, many elementary/middle school kids were sent to a foreign country where that language is spoken natively. (So be prepared to shell out this extra cost every summer.) They claimed that almost all of their middle schoolers are more advanced in foreign language than a typical high school graduate from a public high school. (Well…when my child was at a private college, the students from private secondary school were even better!)</p>

<p>We also think that most teachers at a private school could be better in general. But this may be an experience of some kid who was not able to attend a school in the wealthiest school district in my city - he went to a school in the second most wealthiest school district in my city; the parents for the kids in this school are mostly engineers, or even technicians, etc. (Many kids at such a public school are therefore very good at math/physics/computers and many of them become engineering majors in college mostly due to their family’s background.) Honestly, I even heard that the families with a background like this were even not “welcomed” in the neighborhood in the wealthiest school district in my city. (I guess this won’t happen in NE area or in the California?) There was an incident of the house of some family not in that SES in that neighborhood got egged overnight. I heard the teachers in that wealthiest school district are generally better. Most teachers there have at least MS.</p>

<p>At the college admission time, we started to notice that while our public school sends lower single digit of the students to, say, HYPMS, the elite private high school may send several times more of their students to such colleges, even though the class size of our public school is likely 5-10 times larger than that of the private high school. An explanation may be that there is less concentration of high achieving students (and their parents as well) in our public school and quite a many high achieving students do not go through the public school system at all! In our public school, if you are not graduated with the top few (say 4) ranks at graduation, your chance to get into the tippy top college is extremely slim. BTW, even though this public school is in the second wealthiest area, we essentially have zero hooked students in almost all years. When a HYPS admission officer came to our city to have a recruiting/information session, the location will be as far away from our neighborhood as possible because their interests to come to our area is to recruit minority students. It was funny that when we went to such an event in such a poor area, there was zero student from that neighborhood who attended that event. All attendees were from the other side of the town (the admission officer asked every students which high school they went to so we knew.)</p>

<p>I have side-tracked. But my main point was that there could be some advantage by going to a good private school if the student is high achieving.</p>

<p>Another interesting phenomenon is: After my child was in a top private college, he noticed that the students on some track like premed at his school were mostly from public high schools; very few were graduated from the private high school. Many hooked students from public high school do not fare well initially though due to their (relatively speaking) insufficient academic background. So the atmosphere in that class is almost like being in a competitive public high school again - only difference is that there are much more such students this round. Most of his classmates/friends who were from the private high/middle school background chose to start their career immediately after college (a very high percentage of then in finance/i-banking.) What is commonly said here in this CC community: “attending a full ride or cheap state college and then attending a top graduate school” does not apply to them. They got the needed education credential as fast as they can and then never look back. It appears the majority of them may think an UG degree (in any major, but the new fad seems to be the economics major) is good enough for them to jumpstart their career.</p>

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<p>Some posters here mentioned dinner table manners.</p>

<p>Likely DS had to take some “crash course” from his roommates/suitemates for the manners at an official freshman holiday dinner (likely called a Parade of Comestibles?) We even did not provide him with proper dresses by that time. His roommates lent him proper dresses at both freshman assembly and that freshman holiday dinner event. (Luckily, their sizes are similar.)</p>

<p>It must be quite a “shock” for him as he had never had such a formal sit-down dinner and being served like that before. (BTW, he was a full pay student in that freshman year and the year after that - not because of the income, but because of assets like 529.) However, he mentioned something slightly on the negative side afterwards: It is like plantation all over again! I think he referred to the very different compositions between the dinning hall staff and the students who sit down and were served.</p>

<p>Did somebody mention Swarthmore? One of the possibilities for DS was to attend that school back then. He occasionally wondered what it would be like if he attended that school in the suburb of Philadelphia.</p>

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<p>@mcat2 Maybe elite school admissions is higher for private schools because of the relationships that counselors have with admissions officers. When my daughter was applying to school, I read The Gatekeepers by Jaques Steinberg. One student was set to be rejected by Wesleyan (9/10 members of the committee voted to reject her) but she got wait listed because that one guy was friends with her admissions counselor. Really unfair because the girl genuinely didn’t deserve that spot, but she got it because she went to a feeder school. My biggest fair is that having that advantage over public school students will make my kids feel entitled and become pretentious. Do private school kids really have more manners, or are they just raised to think they are better and naturally act differently because of what has been engrained into their heads from a young age?</p>

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<p>" At our particular school kids are expected to do well in school AND to participate in some other activity at the same time. It is rare to come across a kid who only does well in school. My sons peers win national math/science competitions, win recognition at statewide academic competitions, compete for state titles in athletics, etc. Private school in general are full of student who are very accomplished in and outside of the classroom.</p>

<p>In my opinion, this is the real benefit of private school. The benefit of private schools is that the community seeks excellence in many different areas. This is what your children will take away from private schools IF YOU PICK THE RIGHT ONE."</p>

<p>This is exactly how I would describe the public school my children attend. I suggest you explore the local public offerings and consider a move and/or pursue magnet registration if private tuition is beyond your comfort zone. We have students that return from or decide not to attend local highly regarded privates once it is understood that our math curriculum goes further, music programs are more varied, more APs are offered, ECs are easier to participate in, etc. It sounds like your issue is more with the atmosphere of the school than whether it is public or private. </p>

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<p>

For high achieving students in competitive high school in a suburbab area, the family of these students help them to seek excellence in areas that are not best served by the schools. That is, they go out of school (some even go out of state) to seek an opportunity to demonstrate their excellence in one or two areas outside of their school, after they have achieved whatever they can within their own school.</p>

<p>In my child’s case, he really did not excel in many areas. From his school, he scored two things mainly: a top rank and close to a perfect SAT, and perfect SAT 2 and all AP 5 scores. Outside of the school, it was a music lesson on two instruments since 5 yo till the end of high school. He only got to the state level, unlike some of his friends/classmates at college who got to the national level. So his ECs were likely slightly below what it should be. But the top rank at a relatively competitive public high school remedies it a little bit so he got in during the EA cycle. This points to the importance of attending a competitive high school, public or private, if your child is not particularly good at beefing up ECs. Some said that a very top rank at a competitive public or private high school carries the weight of, say, 50-60% of an excellent EC. But in the end, the EC is more important than everything else, I think.</p>

<p>One kid who got into M in HYPSM was due to her math competition outside of school/state. I think her family flied her everywhere to participate this kind of competition. She also secured what she could at the school.</p>

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<p>I’d be curious how you found out these details. That said, “courtesy waitlists” are a fact of life, If she had admitted and wasn’t qualified, that might be unfair, but waitlisting her–that doesn’t bother me that much.</p>

<p>My kids both attended private high schools because our local public schools are not great. IMO, it’s not the school that makes a kid feel entitled and pretentious, it’s the parents and their values. Not all wealthy, high status parents raise their kids to feel entitled. Again, IME, privates, much like LACs, admit not just based on academics but based on kids and families who share its values. Which is not to say entitlement doesn’t exist at our private, but there is far less of that going on than there is in the wealthy suburban HS nearby. </p>

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<p>@qialah, I believe OP found that detail by reading the book: The Gatekeepers by Jaques Steinberg.</p>

<p>Just like the author of the book: “A is for admission”, these authors were ex-admission-officer. They used their prior positions as admission officers to obtain and then to disclose these details, arguably to benefit themselves. However, the hands of those “gatekeepers” are likely not totally clean. I have no problem with someone to reveal what they have been doing.</p>

<p>I remember there is another more serious book published by a sociology professor/ researcher (likely a Harvard educated scholar but now a professor at Cal.) The title of the book is called “the blue blood”, I think.</p>

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<p>Correction: the book is not the blue blood.
It is:</p>

<p>The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, …
A brief book review by David Brooks:</p>

<p><a href=“'The Chosen': Getting In - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06brooks.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I do not read it in details. I just skimming it at a local bookstore. But this kind of book usually covers the “history” up to the point when the author thinks it is “convenient” to stop, as if that part of the history stopped there.</p>

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<p>@AnnieBeats‌
I see entitled kids at both private and public. I feel that an entitled feeling is based upon how a parent raises their kid and the greater component to entitlement is family as opposed to school, although school can contribute to it.
Definitely a negative to going to private elite HS is the pressure for the kids to go to private college. The pressure stems from peer pressure and faculty pressure as well. Also, at some very expensive private schools, some kids might feel bad if they are not going on exotic vacations or throwing expensive parties. But in general, entitlement starts at home.</p>

<p>“Maybe elite school admissions is higher for private schools because of the relationships that counselors have with admissions officers.” This is true. Some HSs are “feeder schools” to certain colleges because there is a relationship between the two. Both private and public schools can be a feeder to a particular college.</p>

<p>To address your question about manners, I said upstream that all of the public school kids that attended cotillion were well mannered also. It’s just a matter of teaching and modeling the manners. This does not make the kids pretentious…it just means that they have good manners.</p>