There is a big difference between 1781 and 2045.
Have a tour of Pingry or other top private schools in NJ, you would see a big difference in their facilities, especially when it comes to science/computer labs and performing arts facilities.
Pingry does not just draw from the Somerset area. Many students come from Princeton, Oranges, Summit and Short Hills.
One thing to be aware of is most of those private schools do not cater to any LDS because they do not take federal funding. If your child needs special care (even with speech), public school is a better option, but OPâs kids do not seem to have any issues. If your kid needs additional accommodations for high level sports or performing arts (travel for competitions or after school lessons), private schools would be more accommodating than public schools.
Some private schools are more accommodating of a flexible schedule tHan LPS. Others less so. While it doesnât sound like that is OPâs concern, thatâs a very important question to ask if that matters in your situation.
https://education.state.nj.us/pr/
link to NJ school districts
My son applied to Pingry. Although he was accepted, he decided not to attend. Instead he chose a boarding school. Pingry is filled with wealthy kids, and hence has little ethnic diversity. The education your kids will receive will be top notch. The athletics are just as good as the academics at Pingry. I donât know many parents of Pingry kids who didnât like it.
Pingry is cheaper than other nearby boarding options (Hun, Lville, Peddie).
Hi @oldfort - Thanks for the info.
Thanks @wisteria100 . I looked at my town and I looked at neighboring towns. My town doesnât look bad compared to Millburn. 
I googled magnet schools. They are very much academically oriented. Am I wrong? Like I mentioned, SAT and GPA will take care of itself either at local public or at a Private. If magnet schools are mostly about academic success,weI wonât really look at them.
Hi @sgopal2 - Did he apply for high school? Also what boarding school did he chose if you donât mind me asking? I truly want boarding school but it will take convincing to do on my wifeâs part.
Hi - my son applied to all of the big name schools and was accepted everywhere. Yes he applied only during 8th grade for high school spots. Look at my past posts for details.
However you will definitely NOT get a boarding school experience at Pingry, nor at Newark Academy. If your wife is against living outside of home, you might consider having your kids attend a boarding school as a day student. Lots of the NJ boarding schools offer this as an option: Lawrenceville, Peddie, Hun, Pennington, Blair.
Iâve heard of one student who attends Pennington as a boarder, but then goes home on the weekends (his parents live near NYC). This might be a possibility as well.
Also keep in mind that the competition as a day student for these NJ schools is fierce. It is much harder to get in as a day student vs boarder. Even 4.0/99th percentile students get routinely rejected. Your kids will need something special to stand out.
Hi @sgopal2
My kids will apply for 6th grade. Other than ISEE we got no idea what else Pingry is looking for. My kids arenât even 10 yet. What will they want to see other than superb ISEE results and great teacher recommendations?
I am with your wife. Your kids will grow up in the blink of an eye, you will regret missing time with them. My kids went to college and never came home to live again after graduation. Now they live in the opposite coast and I treasure all the time and experiences shared with them while they were growing up.
Again, probably a digression, but because @sgopal2 mentioned â5-day boardingâ, i.e., going home for the weekend, I thought Iâd mention that when DS, who was a day student at BS, was considering changing to boarding, his school was supportive. They were also very up-front with him (and us) in saying that boarding was not about having a bed at school during the week but being part of a community all week long. Every weekend (except closed ones), there are boarders who go home, but itâs more of an occasional thing. At a BS, there are lots of things for the kids to do on weekends, and most of them are excited about doing them. As a day student, DS went back to school on the weekends (often both days!) to participate in activities with friends. I gather that OP is not interested in looking at BS.
@cbreeze, Iâm with you. The time flies as it is! This is why DS enrolled as a day student. With that said, once he was there and I understood their community better, I became much more comfortable with the idea of boarding (which I had whole-heartedly resisted when he was originally applying). At a commencement event, several of the boys got up and tearfully spoke about how much they meant to each other and how grateful they were to their parents (and the parents of their friends) for having made the experience possible. It sounds corny, I know, but it was so moving to me to witness the love (and vulnerability that goes with it) that had been nurtured in that environment between kids whose paths would never have crossed under any other circumstance. I realize thatâs not the experience at every school nor is it what every parent wants for their child, but for me, it was really the icing on the cake.
It is true that a top NJ public will have college placement results on par with many day and boarding schools - but OP specifically said college placement was not a concern. The major difference between Pingry and NJ public school is likely to be class size,the personal attention your child receives from teachers and coaches, and the rigor and quality/depth of the academics (many NJ publics have large lecture based classes of 25+ versus a private or boarding schoolâs more intimate and interactive discussion based classes of about 10-12.) Students in private schools generally read and write much more extensively (teachers can grade more essays when there are 10 kids in a class vs 30).
To my mind, these are differences worth the price. Students may end up at the same colleges, but the Pingry kids will likely be better educated/prepared (even if their SATs are the same), likely more self-aware and will hit the ground running when they arrive at a top college because they have been âpreppedâ for the rigor and critical thinking top colleges expect. I can also understand why many familys donât want to spend the money on private school in NJ and I know many very talented and grounded seniors at our public school (which is small and highly ranked ) who are headed to Tufts, Stamford, Barnard and other top colleges next year.
In terms of what do the private schools look for these days, most competitive schools are looking for students who have developed a deep interest in at least one thing (a sport, an art, community service or something unique that they are passionate about) and they want students to be well rounded academically as in 90th %s across the board indeally, but they also weigh character heavily as they have the luxury of hand selecting a community and not suprisingly, they favor kids who are going to be positive and happy members of the school.
The parents are always interviewed, and schools want to know that the parents are level-headed ie not helicoptor parents, that they will contribute to the school both by volunteering and donating as much as possible (a rule of thumb is 10% of tuition annually but many canât afford that level and thatâs ok, parents willing to run events etc are also very valuable) and that they have a realistic view of their children that is in line with the childâs teacherâs comments.
Personally, we have never felt that our kids were in any way bothered or negatively impacted by the fact that we had less money -in fact no money - for fancy cars and vacations than other private school classmates (and in wealthy NJ towns like Milburn etc this is just as likely to be an issue in the public schools imho)
Hope this helps! Even if you dont want to go the BS route, much of the application advice on the BS pages will be useful and apply to you when you apply to Pingry and others. Our daughter just graduated from BS but we looked at NJ day schools as well (but not Pingry which is a bit far for us) and she attended both a private NJ day school, our public middle school, and a BS for high school.
Hi @gardenstategal - The thing you are describing about BS kids is so true when I look at my own life. When I was in boarding school back in my country, we were like brothers and sisters. Most of us came from poor families and the boarding school was run by the state and it was by no means luxurios. There were times we would use ketchup and bread and call it a snack. Those burnt soups in the mornings, those disgusting dinners at the school are all behind us. Brotherhood is so strong. I have more of my BS friends still active in my life than my college friends.
@chemmchimney - Thank you very much. Really a great post. Appreciate the input.
What @chemmchimney wrote is spot on. Pingry can fill their classes with 99th percentile full pay kids if they wanted. But they donât. Its because they need kids who can fill various niches that are needed: athletes, development, URMs, musical prodigies, artists, etc.
Having good grades and top SSATs are a given. So for your kids to stand out, help them develop one of the extra skills that the schools are looking for. Donât force an activity upon your kid, just see what they are most passionate about and help develop that. Pingry is very athletics oriented. So being a top athlete at a young age is always helpful. I know they are building new squash courts and are trying to build up their team.
In terms of parents, they want to ensure that you arenât too overbearing, and wonât disrupt the teachers. Show that you want to help with the parents association, fundraisers, sports teams, anything. Emphasize that you want to stay involved in your childâs school experience as much as possible.
I agree that the kids who finish from Pingry are a bit better equipped to handle college than those from top nearby public schools. The reason is that private schools generally emphasize writing skills and critical thinking, and are able to give much more support than a public school teacher would.
Note that Hun and Pennington accepts day students starting in 6th grade. You may consider applying to both to see what its like. As a compromise you might consider sending your kids to boarding schools for summer camps. This would give them the boarding experience but still being at home during the school year.
Thanks @sgopal2 . Appreciate the insightful post. Interesting thing is, not one Pingry parent has responded so far.
Something else to keep in mind since you are still a few years out, many (not all) US boarding schools also accept a good number of new students in 10th grade versus the private day schools who accept the bulk of their students either in middle school or as incoming 9th graders, so you could keep the kiddos at home, possibly in public school, for another 4? years and then do BS starting in 10th.
I went to a traditional US boarding school, and although I had a good experience, like your wife, I was certain I would NEVER send my children to boarding school. When my daughter was a 9th grader, I took her to a BS open house on a whim because it offered a unique sport she played and I thought it was worth a look at least so she would know what BS offered. During the tour she was tugging on my sweater whispering âI love this school! Can I really apply?â and my first thought was, âOh my god how are we going to pay for this!â I donât recommend this exact process to others, but in the end, our family is super happy with how things turned out. :-/
Hi Arden,
If private is how you want to go, I think there are two good options. One is, like you implied, to apply for and attend Pingry or a similar school. The other is to stay public until 9th grade, and send your kids to a nearby boarding school.
For the first option: Itâs a great idea, albeit expensive if youâre going with middle school and high school. Pingry isnât necessarily known for being the cheapest private school out there, but its reputation is well-deserved and not one to play down. With this strategy, you can expect your kids to excel academically, since they can really benefit from the private school environment at a young age. I canât say the same thing about social life though. Iâm well acquainted with a few Pingry students and their opinions concerning student life arenât necessarily the best. Youâll have to find out about the other schools by visiting or seeing websites. Good options: Pingry, PDS, Pennington
The other option is to wait for high school and attend a nearby boarding school. I say nearby because most boarding schools have day students for a much cheaper tuition. Boarding schools also tend to be more generous with financial aid if itâs really an issue. Reading what your wifeâs concerns, I can assure that boarding schools in this area have none of those problems. Another point toward boarding schools: student life is top notch. Like what you said about brotherhood, a boarding school is truly a community experience for your kids. Academics are also fantastic at the boarding schools in central/northern New Jersey. While your students wouldnât necessarily have the head start they might get attending a private school early on, boarding schools also boast very strong academics and college matriculations. Good options: Blair, Peddie, Hun, Lawrenceville
If you were to ask me for my opinion, I would choose the latter option; I think that 4 years at boarding school are more valuable and more affordable than 7 years in a private day school. I myself am a day student at Blair (rising junior) and Iâm very glad that my family made this choice for me. That being said, I think that the most valuable opinion doesnât belong to me, a Pingry parent/student, or anyone else on this thread. It belongs to your kids. Someday, sit them down and really talk about these to options (or others, as there are good options out there) and what they could mean for their future. Visit schools with them and always ask them how they think. They are the best judges of how they feel in any given environment.
Regardless, youâre very lucky to have kids like yours who can take their education seriously, regardless of whether they go to Pingry or Blair or even public school. No need to stress.
What a great post. Your parents should be proud. I enjoyed reading your post and admired your parents. Thank you very much for the insight.