Private or Public?

Parents Forum
21

But then would you be able to afford a college more expensive than Rutgers or other NJ public if you spend the money on Pingry? It looks like the “anywhere but Rutgers / NJ public” attitude stronger in Pingry (based on matriculation listings) than in NJ generally, so you have to consider whether you will be fighting heavy peer and counselor pressure for your kids’ hearts and minds when it comes to college choice, if you cannot afford private or out-of-state public college costs.

In other words, do your financial planning now to determine whether you can pay for Pingry without financially closing off the college options that you hope that Pingry might improve chances for.

22

Given that you centered the discussion around the difference between the #1 public HS in NJ and a top private, that is what is being discussed. If you had said Pingry vs the worst HS in NJ, then my answer would be that the education would certainly be better at the private. Otherwise, the answer truly is going to be “it depends” on the specifics of the schools in question and on the financial ramifications.

23

I have done both small private and large top suburban with my children. I have found the education to be better at the large top suburban but the problem is it is very competitive to get into honors, accelerated and A.P. classes. The student truly is “just a number” and it is definitely a “sink or swim” atmosphere. In the end, it can be harder to end up with the type of transcript and GPA needed for college. The small private is more supportive and individualized however I have found the teachers to be not as current nor is the curriculum. Better education at the public but probably looks better on paper from the private.

24

“Being in the Top 20 of his/her class rank in a very competitive private high school or being in Top 1% of his/her high school? All other parameters are the same.”

Neither. It’s much more than that. I suspect you need to shift your thinking in the ways that others here suggest. Think holistically, whole kid. Focus on the things that grow them, not grow their “chances.” (Haven’t we said this before? I’m having some deja vu. Sorry, if I;m wrong.) Developing them as full and grounded individuals, first, leads to the characteristics that then propel them.

25

Again, Empire, it really depends. Some public HSs are very strict about entrance into honors or APs and others will allow a parent to over-ride the teacher recommendation, with some strings attached. Some have lots of those kinds of courses and so the majority of good students can take them, while others are quite restrictive. Some districts and teachers are very supportive, but most high schools expect to reduce the hand holding and require kids to swim mostly on their own by the end of HS to prepare for college. The reality at many top high schools is that a lot of students private tutors to stay in the top classes - be it a public or private HS.

26

@ArdenNJ , I will compose a PM later or tomorrow to share some of our experiences (Millburn-Short Hills and Newark Academy, not dissimilar to Chatham and Pingry). I’ve had 4 kids in the school systems, and I will say that generally, the public school did well for our older kids (oldest is 35, in fact she attended Pingry until we moved to Short Hills).

The public school, in my opinion, did well for thoroughbreds and also for draft horses. The quality horses in between, not so much. What they were especially not good at is re-examining their assumptions, questioning whether their tracking of a student was missing maturational changes, etc. At home, before we moved our two younger kids, we came to see the public school as believing their press releases; why should they question their decisions since the press was full of reports of their excellence?

If that sounds bitter, it somewhat is. On top of our high property taxes, we also had to pay private school tuition. We have not regretted it, at all, joking that it made college tuition feel less jolting :slight_smile:

PS. another unforeseen but welcome benefit of the private school was the diversity of students there compared to the public school. NA has a solid endowment, and a large percentage of students are on FA, coming from neighboring towns. There were many SOC, very rare in Millburn, and, I believe even more rare in Chatham.

27

We did not expect our public schools to provide enrichment or satisfy extracurricular interests once they were somewhat developed. In other words, for example, we did conservatory prep in the city versus expecting the music program at school to be enough. So having less homework and less rigor proved to be beneficial for a kid who read a whole lot anyway. But for a kid with struggles and less interest in reading, for instance, a smaller private might have been better. Then again the public provides special education (at least supposedly).

One thing I will say that is kind of paradoxical. Some of the difficult parts of our mediocre working class local schools (playground monitors yelling, focus on obedience rather than understanding, administrators who seemed less than ethical, kids who never did the reading etc.) was that they provided a sort of inoculation against the realities of life. I remember one of my kids coming home and saying “But mom, you know things aren’t fair.” That said, they also learned when it was important to speak truth to power.

Another thing is that the resources of the school were poor. Computers, theater equipment, art and music, were all woefully inadequate. An AP physics teacher slept in the room and the three students got themselves a book and studied together and all got 5’s. The lack of software forced some creative go arounds. If something wasn’t provided by the schools, the kids tended to fill in the gap themselves so they learned to take initiative. Many of us parents have seen this reoccur at college: the kids are go getters and don’t expect anything to be handed to them.

My point, I guess, is that you just never know what is going to be helpful! Some of the negatives in our kids’ schools ended up being positives in these strange ways. I would have loved them to have gone to great schools with creative, personalized programs but we didn’t have the money. But two ended up at Ivies, quite a surprise, partly I think because they thrived in a comparatively lesser kind of environment.

28

A few decades ago, American kids got physical education through the public schools. There were also rec programs at the YMCA or Police Athletic league, but not anything like the club sports that exist today.

Now the family needs to make sure kids are joining rec sports team or getting the right amount of activities. There also were a lot more clubs held at schools, even girl scouts and boy scouts, but now you need to seek them out.

Some private schools require participation in music, sports, culture, and science activities. If you want the school to be responsible for that, you should certainly pick the private school. It doesn’t sound like you are looking for that level of oversight. My kids went to a private grade school and it really was easier for me. If I called a teacher, I got a call back. If there was an issue in a class, the teacher called me or at least wrote a note. I knew the parents of classmates, and had a directory to call them if I wanted to. That wasn’t the case in the public schools, and my kids went to some well funded public schools. Even those had teachers and counselors who were overworked and had a lot of students to follow. They went to a private high school for one year and there was a lot more hand-holding. Even in freshman year there were meetings about college, prep for tests. We got none of that in the public schools. And still it was fine.

29

Public schools offer music, sports and science so not sure why that would be a criterion. To me, the freshman meetings about college and test prep sound like a stressful environment. We all have different things that we want, based on our own experiences and our own kids :slight_smile:

30

My kids went both to a top private school (comparable to Pingry in terms of reputation and college admissions) and to an excellent public academic magnet high school. They were vastly different schools, but they both worked.

The differences in their college admissions results was very much a reflection of the differences in their demographics, and much less a reflection of differences in education or college counseling. The kids at the public school who were demographically similar to the kids at the private school – and there were a fair number of them, enough to form an opinion – had pretty much exactly the same college admissions outcomes as the equivalent kids at the private school. No one went to Harvard from one school who would not have gone to Harvard if he had going to the other school. (A lot more kids went to Stanford from the private school, because only a handful of the top public school kids were willing to travel that far from home.) As others have indicated, differences in legacies, relatively obscure sports, capacity for megadonations, and faculty parents explained a lot of the apparent superiority of the private school in college admissions.

I agree strongly with what @BKSquared and @mathmom said. It’s a terrible idea to send them to a school because you think it will get them into a better college. What will get them into the best life, and probably the best college, too, is the school that challenges them and engages them most, and helps them become the best version of themselves. In the case of my kids, both schools did that well, but in different ways. The private school had higher quality classroom learning, especially in humanities (much less so in STEM, where the public school was great), but the public school provided a much more realistic, diverse, and challenging experience outside the classroom that really enriched my kids’ education. One of my kids actually did better at the public school than he would have at the private school – it turned out that the explicit competitiveness of the public school suited him much better than the complex, unspoken codes at the private school – the other probably lost something academic in moving to the public school, but came to appreciate its more diverse community quite a bit. And she ended up going to college exactly where she was being guided at the private school. (Which, of course, was no coincidence.)

That said, there’s little question that the private school did a better admissions job for what @mathmom termed “quality horses.” The obvious champions – the thoroughbreds – were going to rise to the top no matter where they were. As long as the school could keep them challenged and learning, they were going to be fine, and they were. For kids who were not practically perfect in every way, however, the private school made it much easier for them to develop personalized curricula and to mitigate the consequences of academic and behavioral slip-ups. They were given extensive, personal counseling, and recommendations and an admissions strategy that set each of them up like a beautiful gem in a perfect setting. The public school couldn’t really do that.

31

The horse analogy is interesting. And this fact that some kids benefit, at the right private, from a level of attention that helps them flourish. But “flourish” means different things, not just as measured by admits to highly selective colleges.

I think you have to realize that a pricey private likely won’t turn that “not practically perfect” horse into a Derby winner. There’s no fairy dust. Kids grow at different speeds. Some can catch fire, be inspired by one or two great hs teachers. Others simply find (or achieve at) their own right pace.

It can seem like more prep or BS kids get into top colleges. But a lot don’t. And the same goes for top 10% (or even OP’s hypothetical top 1%) at a super public. At an exclusive private, sure, kids can be cultivated differently. (Eg, the school taking an active role in getting able kids internships. Or setting up the right sorts of comm service. Or test prep/essay writing as a scheduled class.) GCs and teachers know just how to write a gung ho LoR. But not all kids get that same blue ribbon service. Many will rightly be pointed at the colleges right for them, not necessarily highly selective, at all.

32

Very eye opening posts. Thanks everyone. We truly appreciate it. I will go quiet now and just read unless there is a specific question.

33

@IxnayBob , that is quite an interesting role reversal of private (diverse) vs. public (less diverse), although I get it based on the neighborhoods you mentioned – we had many friends and acquaintances from your and @ArdenNJ’s neck of the woods back when I worked in the City.

I think that just illustrates how personal and fact specific the situation is for parents considering the best environment to place their kids for school. Each kid has different strengths, weaknesses and levers of motivation and each school has its own pluses and minuses. I guess there are certain generalities we can apply to most top notch private schools (more focused attention, more personalized guidance department with better access and insight to top college AO’s) and large public high schools (less resources per student, greater diversity of achievement levels/motivations of students), but for the resources and opportunities that matter for your kid, the situation may be the reverse.

Another factor that will drive families’ choices are their priorities. What is the relative importance of getting the best/most advanced academic education in high school, gaining admission to a “top 10” school, vs. things like gaining better socialization skills, including empathy, and having a relatively carefree/low stress high school experience. Finances are of course another issue as well. What opportunities are forfeited in order to pay for private school tuition and how does that otherwise strain the family as a whole.

@ArdenNJ , we have pm’d about related issues before, for my wife and me, we have always felt that it was important for our kids to know the “real world” and have exposure to kids and families of very different stripes. We were confident enough in their smarts that they would pick up whatever “technical” book knowledge they needed as they went along. Rather than send our kids to the district’s magnet IB program (or to a private prep school), where they would be in a “bubble”, we felt our neighborhood HS (where all their friends went) which had a full panoply of AP courses was a better fit. Maybe they would only have taken AP Calculus AB by senior year, but if they were really interested in more advanced mathematics, there were plenty of grad students at the local university who offered tutoring services. Maybe the magnet school sends half a dozen grads each year to highly selective schools and our school might send 1 or 2 with most of the top students going to the state flagship, but we did not think any opportunities would be closed to them. In the meantime, our kids went to school with their friends, played at a high level in the sports that had been playing since they were 8, and got to know and make friends across the entire socioeconomic and racial spectrums. In fact, our school went from majority white to majority nonwhite over the past half dozen years. My wife and I think our kids are better prepared for the real world (and probably better people) for having gone down this path. Maybe we were just lucky, but they also ended up at top colleges that fit them.

34

ArdenNJ, I’m not opposed to preps, at all. We sent ours, based very much on how D1 learned, how she tended, through 5th, to “go with the flow” in many respects. I knew early that, in a context where kids could sit in back and let others lead, she would. And our publics aren’t like some of NJ’s.

The prep brought her to life, in all the ways most of us on this thread hope for. That can happen at a great public, too. There just aren’t the sort of schools in our district that NJ often has.

But like other parents here, later, we realized it wasn’t just the prep school, but also us- how we talked/listened to teachers (and our kids,) encouraged some activities, developed their confidence, individuality, thinking skills, and goals.

She wasn’t 4.0 or a top scorer, but had the rest. And that’s what got her into a highly selective. Not “a private prep,” per se. I don’t know what I’d do, if we lived in NJ.

We were focused on college, sure. But more than looking at that race, we felt if we developed her, the rest was bound to fall into place. Again, the whole kid. Not just measured by admits. I’m big on the “life lessons,” not just being the kids who win some horse race.

Their prep, btw, was very diverse and encouraged, insisted on, cooperative values.

35

Thanks @BKSquared and @lookingforward . Excellent posts again. I know I gave you two headaches in the past thru Private Messages. Believe me it is much appreciated.

I guess maybe we are(my wife and I) aren’t looking at the whole picture in terms of college admissions based on our experience in our home country.

I was a smart but not a super hard working kid in middle school. My grades were very decent but that’s it. I didn’t have a direction or a purpose. I was in Public School by the way and my family was poor. I shared my mom’s story in another thread but that’s another topic. So at the end of 8th grade principal of our school took me and a few other kids and administered us a math, science and language multiple choice test. Total 150 questions and 3 hours. We didn’t know what the heck that was. In a few weeks they called my father to school. They said the government has total 11 boarding schools focused on Science and Math all across the country and they selected me as one of the kids to attend based on my grades and test score.

I had great friends at my middle school. I was dreaming to go to high school with them. I was a happy kid. I begged my father not to send me to this government boarding school. He said it was best for me and he had to let me go. We were 5 siblings and I was the youngest. The boarding school was totally government funded. My father thought I could get a great education there and go places he could only dream. Oh, he didn’t know how to read and write. He was a shepherd his whole life. Same goes for my mom. No education and she didn’t know how to read and write either.

The boarding school I was going at the age of 14 was in a city 12 hours away by bus. Of course my father didn’t have much money. He couldn’t join me on the trip. He purchased 1 ticket and put me on the bus with my 2 luggage. I don’t know why but I purchased a pack of cigarette at one of the rest stops. That was the first time I smoke a cigarette. Well I didn’t like it and threw the whole thing away. In summary I was heart broken. Angry at my father.

I arrived to the boarding school. They put me in girl’s dormitory as I have a unisex name where 80% of people who has my name are girls in my own country. Of course I was happy but they then fixed their mistake and put me in a boy’s dormitory. I told you this was a government boarding school right? Conditions were poor. No hot water first 40 days. No cafeteria. Just plain old dining hall with terrible food. I hated my father more at first. I was helped with a friends family who had some money so I could take a shower at a hotel nearby.

Long story short, I loved my new school. I was around very smart kids and excellent teachers. It was my teachers who inspired me to be my best. I was great at math but the two math teachers challenged me more and I liked it. They gave me math questions that were almost impossible to solve. I finished Calculus when I was in 10th grade. And I finished entire high school curriculum in 2.5 years instead of 3. At the time high school was 3 years in my country. In math I loved being challenged. I entered AMC 10 type of Math Olympiad test and I was selected as a team member. I represented my country on the olympic math team after attending a summer camp in country’s best college along with other members who were selected.

I ended up going to the top college in my country where I met my wife. She went thru a very similar background in another country.

Now, I hated my father at the age of 14.

I love my father now as I am getting to become 40.

If my father opted to keep me at the local public school I could only dream the things I accomplished in life. Same situation for my wife.

Now, we are in USA. Me, my wife and twin boys. If we make the mistake our boys will pay. We don’t know the system much. I am looking at my boys and I am seeing myself. When they started kindergarten 6 years ago they didn’t know English as we didn’t speak English at home so they could learn our language. The continued to have problem with English thru the end of elementary school. We felt terrible for that. The decision we gave about English when they were born ended up causing them issues later. Thank God now their English is A+ along with their Math, Science etc.

That said, we want our kids to be happy kids in life. We want them challenged We want them explore new things. Now tell me, is it wrong to be scared for me if a teacher isn’t getting back to us for correcting her mistake? Is it wrong to be scared about the unresponsiveness of guidance counselor? Is it wrong to question if they will be challenged and inspired like I was in boarding school? Will they fall in love with their teachers and try to learn more and more?

Some told us to ask our kids. Our kids are smarter than us believe me. They know about things. They are the ones who are asking us to send them to Pingry. My son who is better than his brother in math and better than me honestly, told me last week dad how come they are calling this accelerated math. Kids are so slow. I am bored. Well his mom who had a math major in college is studying algebra with him to keep his interest going.

Now the money. We make enough to afford Pingry, Newark Academy full pay. But we won’t have much left for extracurricular activities they do now. No more Atlantis during Christmas or no more European tours in the summer. Also no more donations for me to poor families in my home country.

Diversity. Our town is as white as it gets. No single black kid in their elementary school all 5 years. Pingry and Newark Academy much more diverse which I want for my kids.

Tried to paint the best picture I can and your valuable posts will help us to evaluate this much better. I truly appreciate all the inputs.

36

In terms if the cost of Pingry… look ahead and assess whether that cost will force you to financially limit his college choices.

It may be socially difficult for a Pingry student who is financially limited to Rutgers or cheaper when everyone else has no financial limits on their college choices.

37

Both our kids attended mostly private schools, despite an excellent reputation for our local public schools. I’m going to differ and say that middle school is actually the most important time for your child to be enrolled in a private school. That’s when good and bad study habits are formed. That’s when many long term friendships are made. And that is the most difficult transition time in early adolescence and where it’s easy for kids to get involved in unsavory things.

Public schools tend to be pretty good at handing kids in the middle, it’s on the upper end where they usually fall down. That might not be the case for you.

Middle–> High school is a transition time for every child.

When both our kids finished private middle school, we looked at all of the options for each. The older was flamboyant and outspoken, and we placed him directly in a public early college program because we knew he would advocate for himself. The younger was more rounded and quieter, and we placed him in a private school because we knew our that in our local public high school, he would not get the attention he needed.

Other parents chose to save the money for private HS and place it toward college. Since you are paying crazy NJ taxes (about 4x more than we pay) and you are in the best district in the state you should look at the public option supplemented with tutoring as a good substitute. Although you have the free EU college option available to you, it’s likely your kids will want to attend school in the US. That’s been the case with all of our friends who are EU citizens.

38

If your sons don’t feel challenged at their current school and are the ones who want to go to Pingry, that would be a major, probably deciding, factor for your consideration. Then that would be a decision based on what you, your wife and your sons feel is best for their longer term success and happiness.

Who needs Europe when you can go to NYC and emerge in a “new country” just a couple of subway stops from the one you entered, lol.

39

But how many “quality horses” will be admitted to a prep school like Pingry? They only accept around 50 kids into the 9th grad (they already have the lower school kids continuing). I recall a number of 8th graders looking to go to private high schools that ended up at our public, at some of whom were not accepted to the privates. I think the number of “average” kids at those schools is pretty limited (at least at Pingry level).

40

It’s a lovely story, Arden, and one many of us “Americans” have in our own histories, as so many of us know/knew our immigrant relatives.

“Now tell me, is it wrong to be scared for me if a teacher isn’t getting back to us for correcting her mistake? Is it wrong to be scared about the unresponsiveness of guidance counselor?” Sometimes, this is a matter of your own intensity, your expectations and how the school sees them add up and the timing. I don’t know how often you contact them, what their impressions are, it’s just something to consider. There are bad teachers everywhere, low energy GCs. My D2 had major issues with a teacher, worse than misplaced homework, and that was at an expensive prep. I had issues with a GC at a public that was, at the time one of the top 2 in the country. Ages ago, but still. (I changed GCs.)

A family friend made the prep decision with this philosophy: “Get them the best hs education and they are prepared for any college.” At your income level, with your resources and drives, you can find ways to pay for college that work. Despite how CC scorns ambitions and the prestige hunt among some immigrant families, we all go through this sort of balancing act, what we can pay for now versus its impact later, what we believe is our kids’ potential versus letting them be themselves.

I wholeheartedly agree that exposing our kids is more than that giant waterslide at Atlantis. It’s done, they experienced it, (maybe even too young to remember more than the fun which, believe us, they can also find at a waterpark in the NJ/NY area.) You got to do “luxe.” Now you get to explore locally and in the US, the truly “enriching” and eye-opening- and sometimes, the new challenges, sometimes the pure fun that bonds families. I think it’s been said to you, before, haunt the museums, but also do the local big park concerts, explore the neighborhoods in NYC, walk the trails, go to ballet and other performances. Let them learn what they like, what widens their horizons, creates thinking individuals.

Adding: I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t include community service, the real roll-up-your-sleeves sort where you come face to face with the needy. In 6th, I started each of mine at a local soup kitchen. It happened to be small and well run, but opened their vistas and a long term willingness to do this. built their awareness of their own good fortune and gave perspective to family stories of sacrifice.