<p>When reporting admits’ backgrounds schools typically consider parochial schools separately from other privates, e.g. “About 55 percent of current freshmen come from public schools, with 36 percent from private schools and 9 percent from religiously affiliated schools.” ([Princeton</a> admission guide available online](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/home/03/1027_admission/hmcap.html]Princeton”>Princeton admission guide available online)) There are certainly many great public schools. Among my son’s (public) high school classmates were matriculants to Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford and Cornell (among other great schools).</p>