Sidwell - 2023-24 tuition for PK-2 will be $50k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are Sidwell’s athletics facilities so average given these numbers?

???

They have a relatively new athletic facility that puts many small colleges to shame.

Well I would hope so, if it costs 50k to send a 4 year old who won't even be able to use the athletic facilities there.

Seriously, at these prices, it should be a palace with the best teachers, no student should ever experience bullying, the school should be able to guarantee entry into the college of your choice, and all the kids should get a puppy. Arts programming should be top notch, children should be able to publish novels before the graduate, their writing should be so good.

Everyone saying this is worth it is insane. I think the main allure is the prestige of the name ("presidents' kids" is such a selling point for Sidwell) and the idea that it puts you in a specific peer group. The idea that the school is inherently worth this much money is garbage. Sidwell is a good school but literally no school is this good.

More of the "Joneses" than anything. There are kids that go to Sidwell that end up at Montgomery College. But you'll never hear that. ROI is important to most people.

[Anonymous]

All the folks saying it's not "worth" it are doing from the lens of their own incomes. Sure, if you're a dual fed with $250k HHI, this is a huge amount of money. But if you're a law firm partner, a doctor couple, or SVP pulling down $1.5M, then it really isn't that much money. And guess what, that's who is sending their kids to Sidwell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s a full $10K more than we pay for K and will pay for 1st grade next year at a well-regarded K-8. Does Sidwell truly provide $10K more in value?

One of my kids goes to our local public for elementary. Does your well regarded K-8 truly provide $40,000 more in value?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a full $10K more than we pay for K and will pay for 1st grade next year at a well-regarded K-8. Does Sidwell truly provide $10K more in value?

It’s a full 50k more than we paid at a well-regarded k-2.

I have no doubt it does provide the value. I wish it were cheaper but I’ve never laid awake at night wondering if I’m wasting my $$$. I would do at -$10k in most schools that are not NCS, STA, SFS. Maybe GDS

Can you tell me what the value is? Like can you quantify what makes Sidwell worth 10, 20, 30, 40, 50k more than other schools? I would be curious to know.

Name brand. You can go anywhere in the country, and many places around the world, and the name Sidwell is known. Not true for most of these other schools.

Not really true, but even if it were, how is this a valuable part of your 5 year old's education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Name brand. You can go anywhere in the country, and many places around the world, and the name Sidwell is known. Not true for most of these other schools.

You cannot possibly believe this. Wow, you live in a very small bubble.

It’s actually true. I don’t have a kid at Sidwell but years ago we were traveling out of the country and we were talking to a non-American woman who asked if we’re planning on sending our kid to Sidwell or a school like Sidwell. People know about it for whatever reason. Now whether that leads to better outcomes is a debate.

Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls - Sasha & Malia- effect

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s a full $10K more than we pay for K and will pay for 1st grade next year at a well-regarded K-8. Does Sidwell truly provide $10K more in value?

It’s a full 50k more than we paid at a well-regarded k-2.

I have no doubt it does provide the value. I wish it were cheaper but I’ve never laid awake at night wondering if I’m wasting my $$$. I would do at -$10k in most schools that are not NCS, STA, SFS. Maybe GDS

Can you tell me what the value is? Like can you quantify what makes Sidwell worth 10, 20, 30, 40, 50k more than other schools? I would be curious to know.

Name brand. You can go anywhere in the country, and many places around the world, and the name Sidwell is known. Not true for most of these other schools.

No one gives a *&%$ in the real world

Really? The historically unprecedented low upward mobility and high wealth gap beg to disagree.
Of course we need to change the real world. But it is misleading to not acknowledge the facts

If you think attending Sidwell is going to close that gap for most kids, you are not in the real world.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

x10000 Private school has always had a certain aura of keeping up with the Joneses. But the exponential increase of tuition to 50k +, especially in comparison to wage growth, has lead to an infestation in private schools of children with parents who have no values except for new money consumption and look at me attitudes. Public school children are more down to earth, do equally as well if not better in college admissions and job prospects, and are hungrier. This is why private school is a net negative, among other reasons, and many employers are seeing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

x10000 Private school has always had a certain aura of keeping up with the Joneses. But the exponential increase of tuition to 50k +, especially in comparison to wage growth, has lead to an infestation in private schools of children with parents who have no values except for new money consumption and look at me attitudes. Public school children are more down to earth, do equally as well if not better in college admissions and job prospects, and are hungrier. This is why private school is a net negative, among other reasons, and many employers are seeing it.

Does anyone who has gone to college or professional school even list their HS on their resume? I have never done this and can't recall ever seeing a resume with that info. Not sure how it would be a positive or a negative in employment (except via networking).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are Sidwell’s athletics facilities so average given these numbers?

That's not true. They have three athletic fields -including full size soccer, lacrosse and football. An extremely respectable gym with lots of natural light, weight room, separate wrestling room. It's honestly a little obnoxious that they don't provide more access to the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, three quarters of a million dollars before you even get to college. It sure will suck to find out the neighbor’s kid went to MCPS for free and is going to the same college as your kid.

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Just take a gander over to the MCPS board and I think you'll see why people are willing to pay this much. Top threads are about drug overdoses in the bathrooms, petition to bring back SROs and lockdowns because of all the violence, complaints about the lousy curriculum and benchmark, poor test scores, etc. Sure, some kids do fine despite that, but I think most parents would rather avoid all that if they have the means to do so.

Nope. The fact that there is complaint and negativity among the families of nearly 200,000 MCPS students does not mean that you need to spend three quarters of a million dollars. That’s like people who will never go into DC because of what they saw on the evening news. An overreaction based on rumor and fear.

Yes, we live in a society with a drug and gun epidemic. You live in that society too, regardless of where your kids go to school. Your upper middle class kid is not going to suddenly take fentanyl and join a gang if they go to public school.

[Anonymous]

This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

This is so smug. Read the thread carefully. Plenty of people send their kid to private fir the rigorous education with small classes. We have had kids in private and public, and there are the types of parents you describe in both cohorts - this is DC, and you are naive at best to think somehow the “values” you identified are limited to private schools. Also, wth are you doing on the private schools forum if your “values” are so superior that you would never send your kids to a private school? More likely you can’t afford to send your kids to private school and are trying to console yourself that it’s for the best anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

This is so smug. Read the thread carefully. Plenty of people send their kid to private fir the rigorous education with small classes. We have had kids in private and public, and there are the types of parents you describe in both cohorts - this is DC, and you are naive at best to think somehow the “values” you identified are limited to private schools. Also, wth are you doing on the private schools forum if your “values” are so superior that you would never send your kids to a private school? More likely you can’t afford to send your kids to private school and are trying to console yourself that it’s for the best anyway.

NP but PP is probably like me, fwiw -- saw this post title in the Recent Activity and came in here shocked to see what had happened to make parents pay $50K for second grade.

"Most likely you can't afford to send your kids to private school and are trying to console yourself that it's for the best anyway." -- who's the smug one now? sheesh.

[Anonymous]

For all the people asking if it’s “worth it,” that’s not the point! Lol

Which you probably already know. Especially if you’re sitting in a 100k SUV.

You have to look at it as a % of income and net worth. 50k a year is interest on a low interest savings account to a lot of people. We don’t even notice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread makes me so happy my kids don't go to private school. Everyone is justifying spending all that $$ to ensure that their kids make a lot of money and are in the right social class. Those values are not my values so I am extremely glad my kids aren't a part of it.

Those aren’t the reasons we sent our kid to private. We don’t even look at report card.