Send them to a good public school, that seems to be the way you are leaning.
College will work out either way (one is not going to be head and shoulders better than another by just by that metric).
Private school costs a ton of money and if you have good alternatives, take them!
My kids go both go to private school, but I continue to be somewhat ambivalent about it.
My husband went to a top public highschool. I went to a small Private highschool. Same college. We were both top students at our respective highschools. He would say that he noticed his private school peers were better prepared for college. I would agree. The highschool I went to was NOT prestigious but I happened to attend at a time when every teacher I had was a master of their subject in a way that I DO NOT see in my kids’ VERY prestigious schools. This is to say, private school is somewhat of a crapshoot. One of mine currently has a new teacher and an interim teacher. Both are terrible. She goes to a “top three“ private school. It’s pretty annoying.
As far as college matriculation goes. Wow. It can be hard to tell. At my daughters school it looks impressive but if you drill down into the ivy admits a year above her they are ALL recruited athletes or URM/first gen. if your kids won’t be one of those I’m not sure the superior matriculation list of a private school means that much.
This is a very tricky and hard to predict process. Good luck to you!
Dear @cinnamon1212 I am actually leaning towards the top private schools but my definition of what is in that universe, along with geographical constraints probably limits me to 10 private day schools in the NY/NJ area. Obviously odds of getting in there are not easy, so not taking it for granted and realizing that a elite public school district is where my kinds might end up if they don’t make it in.
@one1ofeach you hit the nail on the head. The one area where I feel private schools clearly have the opportunity to be truly superior is quality of instruction. That is kind of hard to assess until you are actually seeing it in real-time with your child. The other thing I see that top private schools do is bring a lot of alums to campus to talk about their careers, get well known public figures to speak at school etc. Those are things which can subconsciously motivate the child to aim higher and be confident and unintimidated no matter what their setting.
Regarding college matriculations I think the Top 15 national universities and Top 5 LACs will always be insanely difficult to get it given that about half of the openings are set asides of one sort or another. My self-worth as a parent or concern for the well-being is not tied up to whether or not they matriculate into those schools. Outside of a handful of post undergrad jobs like investment banking and strategy consulting it doesn’t really matter there are about a 100 colleges in the US where they can get a good education and get any job they want if they are motivated.
Now that doesn’t mean I am going to ignore college matriculations when comparing private schools. They all have access to similar sources of advantage (rich parents, parent alumni of prestigious schools, URMs, athletes etc. - last category of athletes might vary) so comparing what % of class they place into the top schools is absolutely fair. It gives you an idea of overall competitiveness of the student body, which is something you want to have a feel for since part of the whole raison d’etre of private school is sending them to an environment where they will be challenged to do better academically and push themselves.
I apologize if you thought I was belittling you. Definitely not my intention. I can certainly understand where you’re coming from, as I had the exact same views. But I can tell you with sincerity that my views changed 180.
There are probably less than a handful of private schools I would pay for in NJ because there are so many great public schools. That being said, I really do feel like I got my money’s worth for my kids’ K-13 private school experience. I kiddingly said to my older daughter that I do expect my grand babies to go to one of those private schools.
Dear @sgopal2 I appreciate your apology, but am not sure you truly understand where I am coming wrong. One can believe quite easily that a school cannot guarantee matriculation into a top college (I 100% agree) but at the same time believe it is a very important metric in comparing private schools (I 100% agree here too). Those two positions are not in tension with one another.
Haha as long as you are not expected to pay for the grandchildren too!
If you’re going to look at the matriculations of your target private schools, you need to also look at the matriculations of your public school options. Big fish/small pond works when the small pond has an amazing guidance department. Definitely do your homework, ask friends and neighbors whose kids graduated from the LPS. What is the LPS “known” for? Great robotics program? A great debate team? A town like Milburn is one of the top LPS in the state and might be comparable to a private high school, but also has a couple dozen kids applying to each ivy each year. If you’re talking about a town that’s way down the list, that’s a different small pond. When I applied to boarding schools, I threw my LPS in the list ranking positives & negatives. It’s a dance, just do as much homework as possible.
I know this isn’t what @jcparent isnlooking at but just to build on the post above…
If you are comparing matriculation to LPS, remember to take economics into consideration. You may see a lot more state schools which may reflect top kids that could not afford top USNews schools. This includes a lot of families “in the middle” who would be half-full pay at privates.
^^This also applies to private schools. Ours was very committed to SES diversity, which translated into more than half the class getting some FA, which in turn translated into more than half the kids having to make college choices based on affordability. Not surprisingly, many turned down more prestigious schools for those that had offered merit or for the state school.
Fundamentally, you shouldn’t choose a school that could be an obstacle to getting into a very selective school but based on what I know now (and did not when DS was applying to BS), I would not assume that because a school places a lot of kids in tippy tops that any random kid would achieve that, even as the top student at one of those schools. I have been repeatedly stunned at how a decent, hooked student with a well-strategized approach to high school and testing can beat out a far better, unhooked student with better stats for a seat at top rated school. With that said, the latter always excels where they land even if it was initially disappointing.
Yes I have looked at matriculation stats of top public school options for me in Millburn, Scarsdale, Bronxville, Chapaquua, Jericho. Millburn and Chappqua make it hard because all you can find is dated newspaper reports. However between those and the matriculation reports for the other two I would say that for top public school options we are talking about, ~8-11% going to Ivies, and ~20-25% going to Top 25 Universities & Top 15 LACs.
For the suburban high schools I mentioned I doubt that is the case. These are highly affluent suburbs.
I think this is where people might misunderstand those such as myself who take matriculation stats into account. Obviously I understand how the admissions process into top schools works and how it is stacked for special preference applicants who might take up half the undergrad spots. I full understand that just because a schools is sending x% of its senior class to top colleges, that doesn’t imply a x% change for my kid. However understanding that doesn’t mean that we can’t use those metrics to compare peer private schools. Those two ideas are not in tension with one another.
Yes, in our area the “good” (ie affluent) public schools are sending more kids to ivies and top lac than the private schools are. I had a work acquaintance who did a whole spreadsheet on the top private vs public schools and based on that decided which town to move to and to send kids to the public highschool. It was brought up as an argument against sending my kid to private school.
If we are looking at the very top tier of private schools then they will be sending at least 2x more seniors to top colleges than even the most prestigious public high school. However if you go beyond the top tiers of private schools what you say could indeed be happening.
@jcparent I totally get where you’re coming from. We’re in the process of doing this search now. We’re in MA, with many great private schools and public schools. There are very few private schools that I’m willing to pay for, given our good fallback public school option. So we’ve ended up with only 2 elementary schools under serious considerations. If none of those work out, it’s public for us.
I realize when talking to other parents without that fallback option that their approach is very different from ours. Which makes total sense.
@NewTwinMom you are very lucky to be based out of MA. In my prior job I had to spend a fair bit of time in Boston suburbs travelling on work and looked up the stats on public high schools. What struck we was not only the high performance of a few public high schools but the depth - how many options there were. In NJ there are just a few truly exceptional high schools, in Boston metro area there were a lot more and it cost a lot less to live in those suburbs compared to NJ and NYC suburbs.
Might I suggest the Elisabeth Morrow School in Englewood? I know you will have to apply out again for 9th grade, but they will help with that and many of their students end up at the Manhattan day schools, NJ private schools and a smaller number go to boarding.
I would think long and hard before sending a child living in NJ to one of the girl schools you mentioned. It is not just schlep to Manhattan but also all the way across Manhattan. Now that the Q line is running it is slightly more accessible but still a huge commute. Assuming your daughter would want to be involved in after school activities it is a really long day with draining commute at night. There are a few girls that do it but typically either a parent is able to drive them home or they use Uber/Lyft, which is convenient but rather pricey. Unless you live right next to NJ transit station someone still needs to pick up at the end and the logistics suck big time.