NJ has the highest taxes in the country, insane by midwest and southern standards, so public schools are the only option for most families, even upper middle class ones. As @ucbalumnus says, $43K/yr x 2 kids for the #3 private NJ HS vs $0K for the #1 public NJ HS would seem to be a fairly easy choice financially unless your income is above the pricing structure. The only real question is whether the OP thinks the smaller class sizes and higher rigor is worth the sacrifice and reduction of college options.
@annamom - We will consider magnet schools for sure.
All - I put everything out there maybe more than I should. But in return, I got excellent feedback on this thread. I also received great advice from some parents thru private messages. You gave us more than enough to think about. When we make a decision it will be a well informed one and we will know what will be waiting for us.
Since someone mentioned magnet schools --have you ever considered moving into NYC? If you live in Chatham, NJ maybe thatâs possible.
My offspring attended one of the best public high schools in NYC. In some ways, it was like your boarding schoolâadmission by exam.Socioeconomically the SciHighs and the other exam schools plus schools like Townsend Harris are diverse. Ethnically, not so much as most have become heavily Asian.
By and large, the kids are highly competitive, but good kids. The schools offer the full range of public school type ECs.
For what it is worth, the largest racial/ethnic group and free/reduced-price lunch percentages at Chatham, Pingry, and some NYC exam-entrance high schools:
85%/02% Chatham
73%/NA% Pingry
76%/65% Queens Science at York College
73%/45% Stuyvesant
63%/47% Bronx Science
61%/66% Brooklyn Technical
59%/54% Townsend Harris
52%/35% Staten Island Technical
51%/27% High School for American Studies at Lehman College
37%/51% High School for Math, Science, Engineering at CCNY
36%/69% Brooklyn Latin
Note: reduced-price lunch eligibility is family income under 185% of the federal poverty line, as described at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/04/10/2017-07043/child-nutrition-programs-income-eligibility-guidelines . For example, a family of 4 with income under $45,510 qualifies for 2017-2018.
Iâm not sure that NJ taxes are the highest, but they are truly up there.
A decade ago, when we began the private switch, our finances were much less sound than they are today, and making the decision required a sharper pencil than it does now. I honestly think that, had our finances not done as well as they have, Iâd still consider NA a slam dunk good choice for our kids. The Millburn schools do an excellent job for the vast majority of kids who attend there, but thatâs of limited solace if your kid is one of the ones who is falling through the cracks. Iâm not saying that I could do it better; having an entering class of 100 kids must be easier than an entering class of 350 or so, especially when you get to pick which 100 kids you allow in.
One difference between public and private that hasnât been raised here, unless I missed it, is the nature of the teachers. At NA, my kids had a good number of teachers who were financially set, could afford to earn what is often less than a public salary, but really want to teach. There was the recent Harvard grad, the science teacher who had retired from high income on Wall Street, the chemist with numerous patents at Bell Labs, etc. They were inspiring to my kids. There were inspirational teachers at the public also, but surprisingly, mostly at the elementary school rather than middle school (no idea why).
@ArdenNJ Your description of your son reminded me of my friendâs DD (only child). When she was in middle school, she asked to go to Bergen County Academies. At the time, the school only required residency after admission. The girl was accepted to both BCA and a private school, and chose to attend BCA. The family moved. I later found out the girl travelled to different states to compete in Math. Because of your post, I checked the Math curriculum of BCA, it offers more than many of the high schools. However, if you do consider magnet schools, many require application in the beginning of 8th grade. I live in a town similar to Chatham and understand your (and @IxnayBob 's ) comment about some teachers.
Competition to attend BCA is now brutal. The idea to move to Bergen county to attend BCA is a gamble.
@annamom - One son is Math crazy the other is a social butterfly who loves club activities. I guess we will have to get ready to the idea of breaking them up in high school since they are two completely opposite kids.
@Tanbiko - I donât think we will be moving to Bergen County though that would be my dream. I work close to George Washington Bridge and I would love if we moved to Ridgewood or Glen Rock but since my wife and kids are crazy about the town we live in, Bergen county is not an option.
There are great private school teachers and not so great ones. One of my kidâs favorite public HS teachers had a PhD in his subject and had worked in private industry before becoming a teacher. Great teachers are not only at pricey private schools and are not only those who do not need their salaries.
Good luck Arden. Seems like you have good options.
@ArdenNJ I think you may be interested in this article and that family was also from New Jersey and immigrant:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm
Its a cautionary tale for any middle class family who wants to send their kids to private school based on admission stats in hopes of getting into top colleges.
@ArdenNJ I work in a wealthy district not far from you. Many attend the public HS; some go private. One mom told me that her daughter⊠who attends a NJ private HS⊠wants to attend a certain university. Mom told me that she offered to âmake a phone callâ to get her in⊠just like her cousin. The daughter told her no⊠she wants to get in on her own merits. This is a very wealthy family and I found myself standing face-to-face with a development case.
Are you prepared for this ⊠maybe⊠if you decide to choose the private school?
The private school that you are considering does have a curriculum that goes beyond that of your HS. Does this definitely mean a âbetterâ outcome when it comes to college? No. Is the private school experience better for your kids? Only you can answer that.
There is a lot to consider and I am sure you will make the right decision for your family. Good luck!
Thanks @jzducol . I read the article. Pretty strong message for my family. Appreciate it.
@twogirls - Thanks for sharing the story. No I am really not ready for this to be honest. I am now leaning more and more to the Public option. I feel more distant to private option now. Good thing we still have 2.5 years until high school.
Okay being originally from the surrounding area I can tell you kids from schools such as Chatham went to top schools just as kids from Pingry went on to screw up their life. I would not be too concerned about the public school. High school with APâs and honor classes really changes things around. Since students from Chatham and similiar communities tend to go out of state to university making it inherently expensive I would save the money for college.
Ditto on the differences in HS classes available to challenge the gifted compared to middle school. HS teachers are often happy to get students with standout ability and interest in their classes and will go the extra mile for them. You do not report your sons to be exceptionally gifted so either HS is likely to meet their academic needs.
When the time comes for college, eons away in time and maturity/growth/development for your kids, you and they will find that most will neither have heard of your school- private or public- nor will they care. Those in your region who are familiar with them will also know of plenty equal or better HSâs. I so often see students from OOS who claim to be from an elite HS but are not one of the top students. They are competing with kids from lesser schools who are top students and who do better on the ACT/SAT. Admissions will not place your kids above those who did more with what they had available. With standardized AP exams available getting 5âs on them shows more than being at elite HS X.
Do not be prestige crazy. College students wonât care about your sonâs HS choice and their peer group at colleges they choose and get accepted to likely wonât be impressed. Harvard and Stanford et al take students from podunk, USA public HSâs with excellent credentials. btw- most away from your region couldnât care less about most of the top tier schools there- they have other excellent choices so not many care to apply to those.
Now is the time to teach your sons about true value in education. It is not a locally known private school that rich friends consider. They need to think beyond your area- ie not be provincial. There is nothing wrong with a young teen being denied his heartâs desire. A student who needs more than the system provides will find a way to get it- without being spoon fed. Going beyond the usual is impressive, more so than passively taking what is offered and getting a mix of Aâs and Bâs.
Unless you are so wealthy that you have money to burn, I frankly do not understand the point of living in a town like Chatham, with eye-wateringly high property taxes, if you are not going to use the schools. As Morris County residents, your kids could also apply to AMSE (the public magnet school) if they wanted a more specialized and rigorous experience.
Chatham is one of those New Jersey affluent suburban pressure cooker high schools. There will be plenty of challenge there. It may be 90% white but as someone upthread commented, your children will probably be attending school with the children of affluent bourgeois professionals even at Pingry, no matter what the race. Is that kind of âdiversityâ so important as to be a priority to you?
New Jersey is a funny state because while on paper it is very diverse, it is one of the most class-segregated places in the country, partly because each municipality has its own little school system (very little consolidation). I canât actually think of a public district in NJ where children of doctors and stockbrokers routinely go to school with children of manual laborers or service workers. This is not true in, say, Southeast Minnesota, where I grew up, or in New York City (or any place with a so-called âunified school district.â
I would venture a guess to say that the same tippy top elite colleges visit and recruit form Chatham schools as well Pingry in the Fall. It should be pretty easy to find that out in a quick search. I agree with the posters that say rigor increases in public HS vs middle schools. At my Dâs urban HS (different part of US) there are upwards of 25 AP classes. Some of the top students take 5 or 6 a year knowing at elite colleges these donât translate to credit (just access to higher level courses). This type of schedule is extremely challenging and provides more depth in a subject. We opted for a public for our teen even though we could have afforded a private. Private school tuition would have robbed our family of experiences and funds to pursue music opportunities, enrichment, camps, family adventures and travelâŠand some of the things that make for great common application essays.
There is really a lot to think about with this kind of decision. First off, I donât think that the choice in and of itself would make any real difference in college options. Both are excellent schools and likely served by the same AOs at the colleges. I would also be really surprised if a kid who was in the top 1% at Chatham would be only at the 20% point at Pingry. I suspect youâre giving them much too much credit in their selectivity. Remember that this is a continuing school â there are kids who were here in the lower and middle schools and are continuing on for high school. The ones who really couldnât cut it, either as a result of temperament or ability, will leave the school, but there will be PLENTY who will be average to above averageâbut certainly not exceptional â who will simply stay on for high school. (The math track that ends at pre-calc suggests this as well.) So this brings me to the first point â if your son thinks that by attending Pingry, heâll be surrounded by kids of a vastly different intellectual caliber than he would in the top track at Chatham, I suspect heâll be sorely disappointed. I would guess that at either, he will end up in a group of high-achieving peers and that there will be lots of more average kids in the mix. I would confirm that heâll have access to the highest level of classes at Chatham (because public schools often âgateâ these classes) but it sounds as if this isnât really in question.
If, however, your son seems to be a bona fide math prodigy and really wants to go further with that during the school day, Pingry seems to make this available; there are classes past Calc BC. You would have to check with Chatham to see what they would do for your son if he needed more than they offer. Would they allow him to take classes at the nearby CC or do online classes? Or would he have to do higher level math on his own time as an enrichment activity, and if so, how does he feel about that? IME, public schools find themselves really challenged to accommodate an individual student who is not in a âprotected classâ (i.e., one who must be helped to adhere to the law) because they answer to taxpayers and how, legitimately, do they say that they made a teacher available to help one kid who is really advanced in math when they arenât making classes smaller/offering art classes/offering an AP class that 10 kids want to take, etc. But then again, if itâs ONLY math where he is outside what the school offers, is it worth it â in terms of the money and the energy to get there every day â for only one subject? And if he canât take more math but instead decides to check out some other classes, whether STEM or otherwise, is that a bad thing? It wonât be held against him in the college application process that he didnât take classes that werenât offered.
Now, if your son(s) really learn better in a Pingry type environment (smaller classes so more discussion, more mentoring by teachers, generally more and longer writing assignments because the teachers have fewer studentsâ papers to read), thatâs a consideration. There are kids who are naturally quiet (and not necessarily shy) who just sort of disappear in a larger school setting. Those kids can really thrive at a smaller school. Iâve heard several people comment that where they feel the private schools really excel is in the humanities, not because they are bad at STEM, but because smaller classes are more conducive to challenging kids to think and participate, and because the teachers know the kids, they may be able to help students connect with the material. There are plenty of kids who donât need that, and if your boys are doing well where they are and have been noticed by their teachers as high-achieving, they may not need that. You may want your kids to try a JHU/CTY residential program over the summer to see how they like that kind of a program and get their feedback on how they like to learn.
As for diversity, Pingry may want it, but given that itâs a day school and is located where it is, itâs probably not significantly different from your public school. Which is to say, not really diverse at all. (Looking at the pictures on the website seem to confirm that.) If you were saying that your son was looking at Exeter, for example, I think he might find many more exceptional math students and a lot more diversity â in fact, I think heâd be likely to find that at many boarding schools that arenât at that level â and that could be a tempting contrast to LPS, but that isnât what youâre asking. And of course, at a BS, kids from different backgrounds live the same life at school. Itâs much trickier at a day school, especially because they are socializing from their homes/communities.
I would also carefully check out the social environment at Pingry both for your son and for you. As you know, NJ has the highest percentage of education costs paid through property taxes, which means that by living in certain districts, your taxes are effectively your tuition. There are lots of reasons that people make the school choices they do, from good child care before and after the school day (key for working parents) to special learning needs being met. I have known kids who moved from an excellent LPS to a less good private school because of social issues such as bullying and were infinitely happy with the decision. Iâve also known kids to choose private schools so that they could continue with a sport at a high level â especially one with a lot of non-local competitions â because many private schools are more lenient about missing school and making up work. And of course, there are the families that just feel that their kids are falling through the cracks at the public school. But there are also families who choose private schools because they feel that their kids wonât have to associate with certain types of kids of that they can involve themselves in a way that will give them more leverage over their kidsâ education than they have in their public school. Iâm not familiar with the workings of Pingry so donât know how much of this is there, but I think that doing as much of this due diligence as you can would serve you well. Best to have your eyes wide open!
Ultimately, as everyone here has said, you want a situation in which your kid can become his best self, and only you know where this will be. Youâre smart to be thinking about this now, but know that because your kids are slightly less than 3 years away from starting high school and more than 7 away from finishing it, this is also a really difficult exercise. Getting educated on the options is a great idea, but the decision may become more clear over the next year or so. Given the cost involved, you want to be sure that you feel itâs worth it.
I am throwing this out there because it is something to think about. I do think there has been a paradigm shift at elite colleges. It caught us a bit off guard. We have sat through a number of information sessions at elite colleges this year and last where it was stressed that high test scores and access to AP courses correlate only to socio economics. In fact after one our high stats daughter told me she felt like a criminal for having high scores and lots of AP classes. In our generation that was the ticket to a better future and acceptance to a top college. It was a bit painful as for our family our kids are the first generation of upper middle classâŠmy spouse and I grew up in economically challenged families with many siblings. It makes me consider that attending an exclusive private prep school might work against your kids in college admissionsâŠit is definitely headed in that direction. Food for thought.
OP, youâve been posting for a couple of years already, if memory serves me. There are valid reasons for placing kids in public schools, such as lack of challenging coursework, being bullied, and the like. My son attended a private school from grades K-2, but our public school has much better resources for his learning disabilities, so he went back and has thrived ever since. His current UW GPA is 92 as a HS junior, and he is dyslexic and dysgraphic. He takes AP and IB courses.
I donât think putting kids in private school to hopefully give them an advantage to get into a top-tier school counts as a valid reason. Then again, itâs your money, and you can spend it as you see fit. But hereâs a question: what happens if your children go to private school and donât get into tippy top colleges? What if they arenât interested in tippy top colleges? Would you be disappointed? If so, then you might need to examine your motives for sending them to private school if you have a very good public school already.
To add to Lindaâs fine post- the âhotâ college in my neck of the woods among private school kids for the last few years is Muhlenberg. The counselors love it because the kid who aspires to Williams or Swarthmore (but get âcrowded outâ by the true superstars in the relatively small graduating class) can still go off- happily- to a college which âfeels likeâ one of the uber-exclusives and isnât that well known. So it feels exclusive even if a kid wasnât among the top kids. And itâs a fine institution with fantastic opportunities in the arts.
Win win right? except for the parents who have dug deep- very deep- to pay for private school with the understanding that the kid is going straight to a âname brandâ college- if not Harvard or Yale (the parents get that not every kid is Harvard or Yale material) then certainly something still prestigious. The kids who have been in these schools since K arenât all superstars. Some of them are just average, and some of them end up in one of our state schools (a fine option btw).
So ask yourself how you are going to feel with Rutgers or Muhlenberg or Juniata- terrific institutions all- after paying for private school. "Cause thatâs certainly a possibility.