How difficult is it to get into a good private high school?

[Anonymous]

If you are talking about the "elite" private high schools, it's still pretty hard. They still get many more applications than they have spots and often have acceptance rates lower than 30% and some in the 10% range.

The one big difference is that your child takes a SAT-like exam and have 7th and 8th grades available, so the selection process is much more academic orientated vs. whatever the secret formula for Pre-K admissions is.

[Anonymous]

Not to sound completely stupid, but to what BOOK are you referring? Peterson's Guide to Secondary Schools? If there is a different, better book available I would sure love to know about it! Thanks.

Georgia Irvin's Guide to Private (or is it "Independent"?) Schools lists every independent school in DC and reasonably close-in Md and Va suburbs, and for most, not all, of those entries, there's a synopsis of the school and a list of the intake years and how many the schools generally take. It's very useful for comparison purposes among schools.

Again, I don't have it in front of me now, but I recall seeing that GDS has an enormous expansion of total class size in 9th grade for example.

[Anonymous]

Thanks pp. That book sounds like a dynamite resource. Appreciate it.