<p>I’m a boomer originally from the Philly suburbs. When I attended High School in the 70s, the burbs had great public schools and there was no necessity to send kids to private schools. In fact, I didn’t know any parents who sent their kids to private schools. Has that now changed?</p>
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<p>Private colleges, or many of them, are very much a big business right now. They may call themselves non-profit, but when you look at what some of the “executives” in the business are being paid, you realize that they are there for the money and not because they are interested in educating your children. That’s why tuition is often running thirty to forty K per year for mostly run of the mill private colleges and universities. You don’t have to play along with this scam. You can still send your kids to reasonably priced State schools for undergrad where they can get equivalent educations to the big business schools.</p>
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<li> I don’t know why anyone who lives in Lower Merion Township sends kids to private school, but lots of them do. However, the quality of the public schools in the Philly suburbs varies a lot burb-by-burb, sometimes even within the same district. You basically pay for the school district in house price and real estate taxes, so some people choose to live in towns with less attractive schools and to pay for private schools. And for some people, the money for private schools isn’t that big a deal. </li>
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<p>The schools are magnificent, by the way. They all raised a ton of money before the recession began, and were building like crazy during the period when no one else was building anything and the contractors were working cheap. They are like little colleges. They have wonderful faculty to go with their wonderful facilities, and great, personalized educational programs, and amazing extracurriculars.</p>
<p>Why would anyone in California or Michigan go to a private college? Same question, same trade-offs.</p>
<p>In any event, truthseeker2 is wrong to imply that no one went to private schools in the suburbs in the 70s. Baldwin and Haverford (and Agnes Irwin and Episcopal and Friends Central and Shipley and LaSalle and others) were all perfectly vibrant back then, despite sharing their turf with one of the best school districts in the country. They are all a little larger now (or a lot larger, in Episcopal’s case), but so are the public schools.</p>
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<li> In any event, I, too, am very familiar with private schools in Philadelphia and its suburbs, and I think the three selected are the three top private schools in the region from an academic standpoint. I could make an argument that one other school is on more or less the same plane, and that a different school deserves consideration because of a combination of academic and social factors. But if you asked me which three schools are most impressive academically, it would be the ones on this list.</li>
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<p>"…honestly, why do parents send their kids to these schools? Students can be more than successful by going to (free) public schools. Just saying."</p>
<p>Some schools are more of a guarantee of quality than others. My kids went to #21 on the list (brag), and the vast majority of those kids were extremely bright, motivated and compassionate. No bullies, kids could be kicked out for bad behavior or poor performance, and the teachers were awesome. Going to college was probably a step down for them, as far as teaching quality. As long as the cost doesn’t kill you, what’s wrong with that? It’s the same thing as kids finding the best college that suits them, and maybe even more important to be challenged and well educated when you’re younger. I’m not putting down public schools at all, but there surely is a place for great private schools.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is I did not know parents who sent their kids to private schools. Not saying they didn’t, but if they lived in my school district . . there was no necessity. My High school graduated a number of national merit finalists, a number of ivy leaguers, a number of doctors and lawyers, one of the best professional baseball players who ever lived and a current Head of State. I don’t believe however my school district then and in the present are comparable in quality. As I understand it, things have gone down hill since the 70s.</p>
<p>Many of the kids (demographically) who made your public high school great, truthseeker2, are going to private schools today, or live on the Main Line, and I know few academically ambitious families who think about moving there. It’s not a bad school, but it’s not the kind of world-beating place it was a generation or two ago.</p>
<p>Methinks I know where truthseeker2 went to HS. I attended the next door rival. And yes, in that area of the Philly burbs, back in the day, not many people sent their kids to private school unless it was Catholic. My public HS had children of very successful businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, etc (right on down to kids on welfare too). But today, I think many of those parents would have looked at Abington Friends or Mt St Joe’s or GA.</p>
<p>The Main Line has always had those private schools, but I assumed that up until a couple of generations ago, kids who attended there went there because of the families they were born into. Just like kids went to Harvard and Yale because that is what their pedigree dictated.</p>
<p>In the suburbs of a major city we are blessed with good public schools. Maybe not as good as private as a rule, but your kid, if he is meant to go to an Ivy or wherever, can get there. Much of the success of the private school kids is due to the support and benefits provided by the families before they even step foot in the school. Public schools have to educate kids from all types of backgrounds, with all types of issues.</p>
<p>.…honestly, why do parents send their kids to these schools? Students can be more than successful by going to (free) public schools. Just saying.</p>
<p>That certainly was my experience growing up in the suburbs.The only people I knew attending private school were attending parochial schools. Either because they were Catholic or because they had gotten expelled from public schools so often that parochial school was the last step before " reform" school.</p>
<p>But when we started a family, we moved from the suburbs to a nice city neighborhood with an elementary school in walking distance. ( albeit our house in the suburbs had a school within walking distance too- )
However because our oldest was twice gifted, the only school I could see working well for her was an alternative public school that had mixed age classrooms and lots of art & other hands on activities. This was after the kindergarten teacher at our local school suggested that she might be happier somewhere else.</p>
<p>I went to public school in the 70s in a nice town until seventh grade, and then went to private for a year. I had thought I was a good student. It turns out my public school never bothered to teach me how to study. That was a huge wake up call. I learned more in that year than I ever did. I hated the school tho. Mean rich girls. I didn’t fit in and went back to public. I learned much in that year. And from what I see with my own kids in public and private, the education in great private schools is so much better. My experience, not speaking for all schools.</p>
<p>I think my state now has the largest private school voucher system in the nation. I so wish there were good private schools within a decent driving distance. After S1 being in college, I’ve seen the difference…o.m.g. There is no comparison in the preparation level/academics those kids had vs. our small, rural public school corporation. None. At all. Average SAT = 900. Average AP pass rate = 0. </p>
<p>For all the posters in the current threads wishing they lived in an area that wasn’t so academically competitive, be careful what you wish. Very careful.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you got your ‘facts’ from but Roxbury Latin has a diverse student body across all socio-economic strata. There are very few children of faculty and with a true 'need blind" admissions, you see children of all occupations. In addition, one reason the tuition is much lower than other comparable schools is an active, involved alumni base who are proactive in giving back to the school.</p>
<p>I went to a high school that won’t show up in any rankings, except for maybe the most families under the poverty level, most kids that receive free lunch, etc</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to receive a nice scholarship and attend a top ranked college that was only about 25 miles away from my house. I was not the top student in my high school, I would say I was in the top 5%.</p>
<p>One day in a Poli Sci class the Prof starts discussing funding and the public school system, using my high school as an example! Using the “stats” he explained how no one from THAT school would be attending this college and certainly couldn’t succeed if they “happened” to get in. It was just past midterms, and I knew I was one of the top three students in the class grade wise. I was determined to be #1 at the end of that class, which I was because he posted grades for all to see.</p>
<p>After I finished my final exam, I signed it “proud graduate of said public school”. He seemed
a bit embarrassed when I picked up my final!</p>
<p>I’ve attended reunions, and of a class of about 200 kids, we have doctors, lawyers, teachers, career military, architects, Engineers, Musicians, a few politicians-- you name it. Needless to say, I take rankings with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>This is always a touchy subject, private vs public school, especially when public school is free. We made a very difficult choice in putting our kids in private school when we moved out of NYC to a town with good public eduction. To us it was as normal as apple pie to have your kid walk to local school everyday and hang out with kids on your block. </p>
<p>We did send D1 to our local school for a semester. After few months we knew the quality of education she was getting wasn’t as good as what she was getting at a private school in NYC. She was doing a lot of repetitive work and she was bored. We didn’t budget for private school tuition when we moved out. I still remember where H and I sat when we had the conversation about private vs public. We talked about that it would mean ~13 years(D2 was 5 years younger) of commitment of paying for private school tuition for both kids and it would mean a lot less for our family’s long term saving (and kids’ college tuition). Each year when I got my bonus, the first thing we did was to put aside money for their Aug tuitions. There were few years when the bonus wasn’t as big as I expected and we had to find other ways to pay for their tuitions.</p>
<p>In hind sight, we still feel it was the best investment we ever made. Our kids probably had more work thrown at them than kids at some public schools, but they were happy going to school. They felt it was cool to be smart and a nerd. Their teachers had their own kids at the school (one of very big perks of being a teacher there), they were always available for consultation whenever we had concerns. Those teachers may get paid less, but they had to teach fewer classes, which meant they had more time for office hours and more time to grade papers/tests. The kids weren’t coddled. Most of those kids had very demanding ECs, but they were expected to turn in their schoolwork on time. As early as middle school, students were given course syllabus with assignment due dates. Students were told that they had to manage their schedule to make sure their assignments were turn in on time - if you had a state competition few days before an exam/paper, then maybe you should try to get the work done earlier. The school’s facility was top notch. Some parents who were research scientists said the school’s labs could rival some top university’s labs. They had a performing arts wing with sound proof studios and a state of the art auditorium.</p>
<p>We didn’t send our kids to a private school with expectation of getting them into top tier colleges because most public schools around our area were sending a lot of students to top 20s. We did it purely for the quality of education, which I believe is more important from K-13 than college level. It was our gift to our kids. Now one has graduated from college and another in college, they thank us often for the privilege.</p>