<p>How about a public prep school ? Is that still ok just in case if the kid gets in ?
@Dragon mom - I live in the Midwest but might have to move to either of those locations.</p>
<p>From what I have observed in college, I would prefer my kids to go to a public school and I would never want them to them to go to an elite prep school. Too many of the super fancy prep schools kids I meet (not all of them) have an insane sense unfounded entitlement and elitism. In general, kids who went to public school are just more down to earth than kids who went to places like Horace Mann, Riverdale, or Harvard WestLake. I would make an effort to move to a place with a good public school system so my kids can go there.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’ve obviously never seen the inside of one of the elite prep schools. 40% of the kids are on FA, with many receiving a full ride.</p>
<p>It is definitely a sheltered environment, regardless of how many students are on scholarships, And it’s not necessarily comfortable if you are not one of the wealthier kids. </p>
<p>Not necessary. Mine went to a barely adequate local public. they ended up at a top LAC and an Ivy. Colleges admit the kid, not the high school.</p>
<p>My kids go to a prep school, and I know first hand how many local people assume all sorts of elitist, entitlement kinds of things about the students, but as far as I can see, it’s either a matter of ignorance or jealousy. </p>
<p>At this day school about 1/3 of the kids are on scholarship, it’s more diverse than almost any other school in the county, and the culture is one of service to the community. I am grateful to its teachers for guiding my children intellectually and ethically and when I see what goes on in our “good” high school, I am very happy for the prep school’s policies which do not tolerate bullying, racism, etc. Yes, my senior did get into a HYPS, but that is not why she went there. </p>
<p>They are protected there, but I do not see this as a bad thing. As teens, they need a certain amount of protection so that they can develop in healthy ways. If there was value in being exposed to drugs, sex, rock and roll, we would be fighting to send our kids to schools in poor neighborhoods.</p>
<p>@Mantras: there are many reasons to send a kid to a private prep school. Assuming that it’s a magical pathway to an uber-selective college is, IMHO, a gross generalization of what HS can do for a kid. If your kid is mature and you have the excess finances for such a thing, explore it. But to hold it as a “pre-requisite” for future collegiate success is a crude conclusion.</p>
<p>I’m fortunate that my local school district boasts three of the top HS in my state and my kid will graduate from a nationally ranked, supposed top-ten HS (according to USNWR, FWIW). This might be a cheaper route for you.</p>
<p>If someone lives in a high SEC school district than a BS that admits kids from ABC etc can be much more diverse than the local P.S.</p>
<p>The fact is that no matter where kid goes, there is NO k - 12 school in the USA that “offer a breathtakingly rich academic experience”. NONE, not any close to many avergae schools abroad in many countries, including some in Africa.<br>
Something to keep in mind…</p>
<p>"You’ve obviously never seen the inside of one of the elite prep schools. 40% of the kids are on FA, with many receiving a full ride. "</p>
<p>Forgive my ignorance here. Yeah, I get that a large % of the kids at these elite prep schools are on FA. But they had to have had highly involved parents in the first place in order to even have an elite prep school on their radar screens as something to aspire to and seek out. The idea of sending a kid to a boarding school just isn’t on the radar screen for probably 98% of families in this country. It’s a little hard for me to swallow that these schools are all that “diverse” from a socioeconomic standpoint. Not that they need to be - they can structure their classes as they see fit, and don’t need to answer to anyone. </p>
<p>Why the prep school hate? No one is forcing anyone to send their kids to these these places.</p>
<p>The music offerings at our public school are superior to most of the area private schools. And the private schools that I would consider worth it, are a significant commute away. I went to private school myself and spent plenty of time on the bus (and thought it was fun), but in the end the public school seemed more than good enough. There were many, many teachers who were better than any either I or my husband had in top prep schools in the DC area. In fact, I recently sat in on a couple of my AP classes at my old prep school during a reunion and I was not that impressed. The teachers were much younger and inexperienced compared to the ones at our public school and the students did not seem that engaged or that smart. The classes were much, much smaller though, and I know that’s a huge advantage. (Though my older son had an AP Latin class of 6 and an AP Chem class of less than 10 in his public school.) My younger son feels he has a much more realistic view of the world than the kids who went to prep schools at his college. I understand that there are scholarship kids at prep schools, but they are a carefully selected bunch.</p>
<p>GMT – ??? What “prep school hate” are you talking about? It’s just kind of hard not to make the argument that they are pretty rarified atmospheres - and 40% FA is rather disingenuous. Which is FINE. Nothing wrong with that. That was quite a big leap you took there. </p>
<p>Although we are a public school family, it certainly seems that graduates of elite Prep Schools (day or boarding) have a distinct advantage in admission to the most selective colleges. However, kids from mediocre prep schools have no real advantage. We have a very good local public high school, but the local girls prep school gets a much higher percentage of kids into Ivys and Ivy-equivalents than our high school does. The prep school counselors have a smaller load of students and more time to devote to the relationship with the colleges. They also seem to manage the applications so that only a few kids apply to each of the top schools. </p>
<p>That being said, there is no guarantee. I know kids who went to such schools that get rejected by every top 20 they applied to. As others have said, plenty of kids from public high schools get into great colleges. </p>
<p>As to the financial aid question, I wonder how much aid those 40% are getting. A few thousand a year? I don’t believe that a high percentage of prep school students are getting a substantial level of financial aid. </p>
<p>Some prep schools do have a fairly high percentage of students getting substantial financial aid. So what? It’s still a rarefied, privileged atmosphere that produces rarefied, privileged graduates. That’s not the end of the world, or even a lifelong affliction, and depending on the alternatives it can be a perfectly acceptable cost for some huge benefits.</p>
<p>An anecdote: A couple of weeks ago, I had a long talk with a high school friend I hadn’t seen in over 30 years. He was a scholarship kid, an athletic recruit, at the private day school I attended, that was the elite school in our community. He chose that path, at 14, over going to a decent Jesuit high school, which is what the other smart, sportsy boys from his neighborhood did, including his older brother. (That high school occasionally sent kids to Harvard or Yale.) His sisters went to neighborhood schools and never went to college.</p>
<p>He says now, in his late 50s, that getting that scholarship was the defining moment in his life, and changed everything. He went to college at a prestigious New England college no one in his neighborhood had ever heard of. He majored in Spanish Literature, and got involved in community service in Hispanic neighborhoods. He has a social science PhD from a top university, and an ultra-successful career as a researcher and consultant with a brand-name firm, married to a college professor, living in an academic community thousands of miles from where we grew up. Both of his kids went to one of HYPS. He thinks none of that would have happened if he hadn’t gone to the elite private school in 9th grade; his whole perspective on what he could do with his life changed. But he struggles to maintain any kind of relationship with his siblings; his frame of reference is so different from theirs.</p>
<p>That’s sort of an extreme story, and I think it’s not necessarily representative of the experience of other kids like him, but it illustrates the potential and some of the costs of the prep school route.</p>
<p>Look at the “school profile” of the public high school you are considering. That will summarize stats about the school, list advanced coursework offered, and college acceptance or attendance info. Also, talk to parents of top students at the high school. </p>
<p>@mom2and, For the most elite, well-endowed schools, “tens of thousands” would be more accurate. <a href=“Lawrenceville School (2023 Profile) - Lawrenceville, NJ”>Lawrenceville School (2023 Profile) - Lawrenceville, NJ;
<p>34% of Lawrenceville students receive financial aid. The average financial aid grant is $38,900. As tuition for boarding students is $53,320, we can assume some of the awards are larger, and some are smaller. (You’ll see on the right hand side that the average financial award grant from boarding schools is $19,000, on a tuition of $46,900.)</p>
<p>Unlike colleges, prep schools do not count loans as financial aid.</p>
<p>@Mantras: no, do not send your child to boarding school if your only goal is Ivy League (or similar) admission. It won’t work. Prep schools and magnet schools do well in college admissions if the schools are able to practice selective admission. That is, to a certain extent, the schools which are able to select their student body are able to select bright, hardworking, talented students from a variety of backgrounds. If a student’s “in the running” for admission to Andover, for example, he or she is an “early bloomer,” and as such, more likely than the norm to be “in the running” for admission to Duke or Princeton, no matter which high school he or she attends.</p>
<p>We have found our children’s prep schools to be more socioeconomically diverse than our local public school. At our local public school, it is commonplace for students to receive cars for their 16th birthdays. Student clothing and parties hosted by the parents tend to be luxurious. At the boarding schools, even if the students are very wealthy, there really isn’t much opportunity to show off by buying stuff. (I gather that prep day schools are like public high schools in wealthy towns in this respect.)</p>
<p>As to “real-world survival skills,” I have found seniors at boarding schools to be independent. They are not as likely to be guided by parents as they would have been, had they stayed home. They have lived away from home for four years, dealing with other students and adults in the school community largely without parental involvement. They have often traveled without adult minders. This is not to every parent’s taste, especially in these days of “helicopter parents.” </p>
<p>There are other downsides. Your student will generally not be able to take part in national competitions held during the school year. Boarding school schedules don’t even align with other prep school schedules, let alone public school schedules. Students in the last two years of high school may feel more pressured at prep schools than they would at home. </p>
<p>There was a related discussion right here on the Parents Forum not long ago OP may find useful.
<a href=“Why do parents send their kids to boarding schools? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1607127-why-do-parents-send-their-kids-to-boarding-schools-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Just remember that while private schools in general are set up and operated differently from public schools, boarding schools or prep schools are not ‘created equal’, just as there are public schools of varying qualities around the country. It’d be wise of you to keep an open mind and take a close look at options that are possibilities to your families, and figure out whether it makes sense to explore prep schools for your child. </p>
<p>Does your child even want to attend a prep school?</p>
<p>One of my kids went to our very good public HS. The other went to the very good Northeast college prep school in our town. Both the public and private schools got kids into Ivies (including my son). The proportion who go from the private to Ivies or equivalent is much higher than the proportion that go from the public school but that is due to the pre-selection by the private schools. I suspect that one’s chances of getting into an Ivy or equivalent would be higher from the honors classes at the public HS than at the private HS. I suspect further that the chances of getting into an Ivy would be much higher still if one were to attend a public HS in a state from which they don’t get tons of applicants (New Mexico, Arkansas, Alaska, etc.). The WSJ ran an article years ago analyzing where the graduating class of Groton Academy had gone one year and the conclusion I reached was that going to Groton really helped URMs. If they could survive and/or thrive at Groton, they could do the work at Yale. It didn’t appear to increase the Ivy chances of others and probably decreased them for kids who would have had higher GPAs and class ranks at their neighborhood publics.</p>
<p>Like @Periwinkle, we live in an affluent town where all kids get cars. But, while the private HS has a higher proportion of low income kids (on scholarship), it has a significantly higher proportion of kids who think that going to the Caymans over Spring Break is a birthright.</p>
<p>The private school’s resources were much greater than the public school. Art and dance programs were extraordinary. In our case, our son had profound strengths (intellectually) and profound deficits (severely dyslexic, language, processing speed). We thought that the public HS would do a better job with both extremes. Because of the much larger student body, even without pre-selection, more kids were probably at the very high end at the public HS (e.g., one kid at the public placed 3rd (?) in a national math exam as a sophomore or junior at the public and no one at the private HS was in that league) but the private cuts off the lower end of the distribution.</p>
<p>JHS’s story rings a bell though. I had a young woman who worked for me – one of my best employees ever. Her father was a fisherman and was divorced from his wife who lived in a working class town with a mediocre high school. No one in her family had ever gone to college. When she was in 8th grade, her teacher suggested she apply to Andover or Exeter (can’t remember). She was admitted with a full scholarship. She didn’t want to go (I want to go to HS with my friends) but her mother insisted that if they had given her a scholarship, she had to go. She started school at a small LAC that looked physically like her prep school (I don’t think she got good college advice) and she didn’t find the people smart or inquiring enough so she transferred on her own to a school in the UK and got a Bachelors/Masters there and met her husband getting a PhD in biomechanics or something like that. Her life has I’m sure been changed dramatically not only by what she studied but as well by who she met. Alas, her husband got his dream job in another city and she moved, but I think going to the private HS changed her life.</p>