Which is better private HS or private college: cannot do both!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two children, very good students, and have enough to have them do private HS or private college, but not both. Please, not a discussion of why we should do neither. TIA

I would pick the best, most rigorous high school option, private if necessary. If your kids do well, they won't have to pay full price for college -- private or public.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Merit-based aid (including scholarships) that is not based in part on need is VERY difficult to come by. Now, athletic scholarships on the other hand...

[Anonymous]

Wrong, merit aid is plentiful for the top kids, whether public or private. Both my DDs National Merit Semifinalists/finalists and were offered full scholarships to all sorts of schools (granted mostly not ones they had any interest in, but did include places like University of Georgia and other large state schools and some middling privates, which seemed odd to me) and significant merit awards ($10-20,000) from even some pretty excellent colleges such as Oberlin, Emory, Tulane. Hard to predict whether you kids will test well enough to end up in this category, but if do in really top percentiles on ERBs or SSATs or whatever, may be worth considering. If your public HS options are not great, would consider a top private for HS, since the writing instruction, course selection and support in the college application process is much stronger than most publics.

[Anonymous]

If your kid has better than average grades, I would do public high school and private college.

If your child is struggling, I would do private high school.

If your child is a genius, do public high school and private college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid has better than average grades, I would do public high school and private college.

If your child is struggling, I would do private high school.

If your child is a genius, do public high school and private college.

Are you saying that it takes a genius to stand out in public?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wrong, merit aid is plentiful for the top kids, whether public or private. Both my DDs National Merit Semifinalists/finalists and were offered full scholarships to all sorts of schools (granted mostly not ones they had any interest in, but did include places like University of Georgia and other large state schools and some middling privates, which seemed odd to me) and significant merit awards ($10-20,000) from even some pretty excellent colleges such as Oberlin, Emory, Tulane. Hard to predict whether you kids will test well enough to end up in this category, but if do in really top percentiles on ERBs or SSATs or whatever, may be worth considering. If your public HS options are not great, would consider a top private for HS, since the writing instruction, course selection and support in the college application process is much stronger than most publics.

I'm the poster who said go with private high school, and this was exactly our experience with merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two children, very good students, and have enough to have them do private HS or private college, but not both. Please, not a discussion of why we should do neither. TIA

I would pick the best, most rigorous high school option, private if necessary. If your kids do well, they won't have to pay full price for college -- private or public.

There is no guarantee that anybody's kids will do well at the most rigorous high schools, and that's the rub. It's hard to stand out at the top area high schools, private and public. Also, the Ivies don't offer merit aid, and the most generous merit aid will probably come from 3rd-tier college. Some of these so-called third-tier colleges might be a fabulous match for your kid, but again it's so hard to predict these things.

So...your point is to go to an average high school, do really well, and then assume top colleges won't figure that out? If you have two "very good students," give them the best education you can manage in high school. Intellectually those years are crucial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two children, very good students, and have enough to have them do private HS or private college, but not both. Please, not a discussion of why we should do neither. TIA

I would pick the best, most rigorous high school option, private if necessary. If your kids do well, they won't have to pay full price for college -- private or public.

There is no guarantee that anybody's kids will do well at the most rigorous high schools, and that's the rub. It's hard to stand out at the top area high schools, private and public. Also, the Ivies don't offer merit aid, and the most generous merit aid will probably come from 3rd-tier college. Some of these so-called third-tier colleges might be a fabulous match for your kid, but again it's so hard to predict these things.

So...your point is to go to an average high school, do really well, and then assume top colleges won't figure that out? If you have two "very good students," give them the best education you can manage in high school. Intellectually those years are crucial.

My point is, there's no way to predict today whether OP's kids will shine in any particular high school. So there is no pat, one-size-fits-all answer anybody can give OP.

I'm sure you realize, of course, that some public HSs offer a better education than some private HSs.

Re merit aid, it is indeed plentiful - at 3rd tier colleges (and may make these cheaper than the state school, but that's another discussion). DC was offered tens of thousands of dollars by safety schools. On the other hand, DC was offered zip at the Ivy DC will attend, because by agreement among the Ivies, none of them offer merit aid. For colleges in between, here's how it works: the more selective the college, the more qualified the applicant pool, and the less likely they are to feel they need to lure your (or my) snowflake with a promise of substantial merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have two children, very good students, and have enough to have them do private HS or private college, but not both. Please, not a discussion of why we should do neither. TIA

I would pick the best, most rigorous high school option, private if necessary. If your kids do well, they won't have to pay full price for college -- private or public.

There is no guarantee that anybody's kids will do well at the most rigorous high schools, and that's the rub. It's hard to stand out at the top area high schools, private and public. Also, the Ivies don't offer merit aid, and the most generous merit aid will probably come from 3rd-tier college. Some of these so-called third-tier colleges might be a fabulous match for your kid, but again it's so hard to predict these things.

So...your point is to go to an average high school, do really well, and then assume top colleges won't figure that out? If you have two "very good students," give them the best education you can manage in high school. Intellectually those years are crucial.

My point is, there's no way to predict today whether OP's kids will shine in any particular high school. So there is no pat, one-size-fits-all answer anybody can give OP.

I'm sure you realize, of course, that some public HSs offer a better education than some private HSs.

Re merit aid, it is indeed plentiful - at 3rd tier colleges (and may make these cheaper than the state school, but that's another discussion). DC was offered tens of thousands of dollars by safety schools. On the other hand, DC was offered zip at the Ivy DC will attend, because by agreement among the Ivies, none of them offer merit aid. For colleges in between, here's how it works: the more selective the college, the more qualified the applicant pool, and the less likely they are to feel they need to lure your (or my) snowflake with a promise of substantial merit aid.

Huh? You consider schools like Emory to be third tier? You're playing the Ivy vs. everywhere else game, which is silly (the other side of the coin is that kids who can pay full price can have an advantage at schools that would otherwise be reaches -- I'm sure this wasn't the case for your snowflake, but it certainly was for mine!). I think OP raises an interesting question. In the long run, high school can be a much more formative experience than college -- which people often discover after the fact, rather the front-end obsessing over where to go to college (and which for many people matters less in the long run). Anyway, maybe OP's income is such that his/her child would qualify for decent need-based aid. So you're right, there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Huh? You consider schools like Emory to be third tier? You're playing the Ivy vs. everywhere else game, which is silly (the other side of the coin is that kids who can pay full price can have an advantage at schools that would otherwise be reaches -- I'm sure this wasn't the case for your snowflake, but it certainly was for mine!). I think OP raises an interesting question. In the long run, high school can be a much more formative experience than college -- which people often discover after the fact, rather the front-end obsessing over where to go to college (and which for many people matters less in the long run). Anyway, maybe OP's income is such that his/her child would qualify for decent need-based aid. So you're right, there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

I'm not playing the Ivy vs. everywhere else game, and I never mentioned Emory or any other school or suggested Emory was 3rd tier or in-between. I don't know if you're the same person who twisted my words the first time, but I'm getting tired of it. Please stop twisting my words into "go to a mediocre public and hope colleges don't figure it out" and "Emory is a 3rd tier school."

I do, however, think it would be unfair to OP to let PP's statement stand. That was the post that said, "if OP's kids go to a challenging high school, they are shoe-ins for tons of merit aid at the colleges of their choice." This needs to be set straight, because who knows what college OP's kids will want to attend, and there's a reasonable chance it will be a poorly-endowed SLAC that won't give them lots of merit aid. The second false assumption that I want to correct is that a "challenging high school" means a private high school, because some of you seem to believe that publics aren't ever challenging and privates are always challenging, which is wrong at least from my family's personal experience in both private and public.

[Anonymous]

Promising that OP's kids will get lots of merit aid at their first choice colleges if only they are NMSSFs seems like really bad advice. What if OP's kids fall in love with Williams? What if they aren't NMSSFs? What is wrong with you people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Huh? You consider schools like Emory to be third tier? You're playing the Ivy vs. everywhere else game, which is silly (the other side of the coin is that kids who can pay full price can have an advantage at schools that would otherwise be reaches -- I'm sure this wasn't the case for your snowflake, but it certainly was for mine!). I think OP raises an interesting question. In the long run, high school can be a much more formative experience than college -- which people often discover after the fact, rather the front-end obsessing over where to go to college (and which for many people matters less in the long run). Anyway, maybe OP's income is such that his/her child would qualify for decent need-based aid. So you're right, there's no one-size-fits-all answer.

I'm not playing the Ivy vs. everywhere else game, and I never mentioned Emory or any other school or suggested Emory was 3rd tier or in-between. I don't know if you're the same person who twisted my words the first time, but I'm getting tired of it. Please stop twisting my words into "go to a mediocre public and hope colleges don't figure it out" and "Emory is a 3rd tier school."

I do, however, think it would be unfair to OP to let PP's statement stand. That was the post that said, "if OP's kids go to a challenging high school, they are shoe-ins for tons of merit aid at the colleges of their choice." This needs to be set straight, because who knows what college OP's kids will want to attend, and there's a reasonable chance it will be a poorly-endowed SLAC that won't give them lots of merit aid. The second false assumption that I want to correct is that a "challenging high school" means a private high school, because some of you seem to believe that publics aren't ever challenging and privates are always challenging, which is wrong at least from my family's personal experience in both private and public.

Agree with this. My middling DC was offered merit aid at middle tier colleges. My superstar kid didn't apply to any middling colleges and didn't get any aid. Many of the top colleges really focus on financial aid rather than merit aid. But given a choice between merit aid at a middling private college or the same tuition at a UVA type public school I'd take UVA. I don't think the public v private argument is very clear cut for college - there are excellent options and not so good options in both categories.