Families who can afford private but go public, why?

[Anonymous]

So they get use to what college will feel like

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So they get use to what college will feel like

That doesn't seem like a win.

[Anonymous]

This is all about everyone justifying THEIR choices which nobody should do or worry about.

I don't even tell people my kid is applying to private HS because of the judgmental people that have to weigh in on why it is a stupid idea. I found,after telling one person when she asked if my kid was going to attend our public HS that he was applying to private HS, people get very weird about it. They make your choice about them. They think you are saying the public school is no good or not good enough for your kid. Then, inevitably comes the blanket statement that there are drugs there or something else. WTF? I don't bash the public HS.

My kids went to public school K-8. My husband and I attended public K-12. I know the academics are sold at our HS. That is not the primary reason we are choosing to go private for HS. As other pps have noted, many things change when schools reach a certain tipping point in numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is all about everyone justifying THEIR choices which nobody should do or worry about.

I don't even tell people my kid is applying to private HS because of the judgmental people that have to weigh in on why it is a stupid idea. I found,after telling one person when she asked if my kid was going to attend our public HS that he was applying to private HS, people get very weird about it. They make your choice about them. They think you are saying the public school is no good or not good enough for your kid. Then, inevitably comes the blanket statement that there are drugs there or something else. WTF? I don't bash the public HS.

My kids went to public school K-8. My husband and I attended public K-12. I know the academics are sold at our HS. That is not the primary reason we are choosing to go private for HS. As other pps have noted, many things change when schools reach a certain tipping point in numbers.

*solid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is all about everyone justifying THEIR choices which nobody should do or worry about.

I don't even tell people my kid is applying to private HS because of the judgmental people that have to weigh in on why it is a stupid idea. I found,after telling one person when she asked if my kid was going to attend our public HS that he was applying to private HS, people get very weird about it. They make your choice about them. They think you are saying the public school is no good or not good enough for your kid. Then, inevitably comes the blanket statement that there are drugs there or something else. WTF? I don't bash the public HS.

My kids went to public school K-8. My husband and I attended public K-12. I know the academics are sold at our HS. That is not the primary reason we are choosing to go private for HS. As other pps have noted, many things change when schools reach a certain tipping point in numbers.

Well, I think it can be helpful to hear the thinking behind people's choices as you weigh your own. I'm the PP with a private HS background who revised my worries about large school size and ended up happily sending my kids to a large public HS and seeing benefits I hadn't imagined. I in part did this because I listened to others. I wouldn't presume I had all the info to judge a person's decision on something as personal as this but the point of forums is to hear these different perspectives.

[Anonymous]

Ladies who can afford Gucci bags but don’t buy them, why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all about everyone justifying THEIR choices which nobody should do or worry about.

I don't even tell people my kid is applying to private HS because of the judgmental people that have to weigh in on why it is a stupid idea. I found,after telling one person when she asked if my kid was going to attend our public HS that he was applying to private HS, people get very weird about it. They make your choice about them. They think you are saying the public school is no good or not good enough for your kid. Then, inevitably comes the blanket statement that there are drugs there or something else. WTF? I don't bash the public HS.

My kids went to public school K-8. My husband and I attended public K-12. I know the academics are sold at our HS. That is not the primary reason we are choosing to go private for HS. As other pps have noted, many things change when schools reach a certain tipping point in numbers.

Well, I think it can be helpful to hear the thinking behind people's choices as you weigh your own. I'm the PP with a private HS background who revised my worries about large school size and ended up happily sending my kids to a large public HS and seeing benefits I hadn't imagined. I in part did this because I listened to others. I wouldn't presume I had all the info to judge a person's decision on something as personal as this but the point of forums is to hear these different perspectives.

Opposit situation, opposite decision for us. I attended a large public HS. I got a lot of feedback from parents with older kids that made the switch to private in 9th. It’s been great for my kids.

[Anonymous]

It makes people feel bad that they can’t give their children the best. That’s why they lash out.
Whatever. Most kids are fine in public.

[Anonymous]

We bought a house in one of the best school districts for a reason. We have been very happy with DS' education so far. The money we save on sending him to public can be used for other things. DH and I just saw no need to dish out for private when our public is a great option. FWIW DH went to private school and I went to a top rated public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought a house in one of the best school districts for a reason. We have been very happy with DS' education so far. The money we save on sending him to public can be used for other things. DH and I just saw no need to dish out for private when our public is a great option. FWIW DH went to private school and I went to a top rated public.

Either way, you paid for it. You either pay more for a house in “one of the best” school districts or you pay for tuition, or, if you don’t have those options, you send your kid to a school you’d rather not. There’s no free lunch.

[Anonymous]

Know of at least 3 children who went to private schools through HS. They applied to colleges that they should have gotten into based on their grades and scores but they did not get accepted due to the fact that the universities accepted a far smaller amount of private school students. We didn't want our kids to face that obstacle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We bought a house in one of the best school districts for a reason. We have been very happy with DS' education so far. The money we save on sending him to public can be used for other things. DH and I just saw no need to dish out for private when our public is a great option. FWIW DH went to private school and I went to a top rated public.

Either way, you paid for it. You either pay more for a house in “one of the best” school districts or you pay for tuition, or, if you don’t have those options, you send your kid to a school you’d rather not. There’s no free lunch.

We have a house in one of the best school districts. We are doing private HS. I attended schools in the best school district. It’s subjective. There are limitations. What it did give us was security to fall back on the public schools if ever needed. It is a less frantic private school application process when the fall back is a decent public HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Know of at least 3 children who went to private schools through HS. They applied to colleges that they should have gotten into based on their grades and scores but they did not get accepted due to the fact that the universities accepted a far smaller amount of private school students. We didn't want our kids to face that obstacle.

You should how small the #s were for top state universities from our senior HS class of 890. The number of students with greater than 4.0 is ridiculous and they have quotas per public HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a great public school and our kids don’t have any special needs

They’re doing well in school and we’re saving a huge amount of money. We’ll definitely be able to send them to whatever college and grad school they want. Plus probably give them down payment money. Why fix what isn’t broke?

We can do that and private. But, I agree, it’s better to stay public if college savings are impacted.

So can we. We make around 850k and don’t have any debt.

But again, it just seems OTT for what they charge. We have GS 10 schools, kids are doing well, smallish class sizes (under 24) and they have highly involved, educated patents at home. Lots of books, games, limited tv and screens, etc. We take the money we’d spend on that and splurge on travel. We easily spend 60-70k and don’t feel guilty because of where we save in our areas of the budget.

Just seems like a waste of $$$ to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It makes people feel bad that they can’t give their children the best. That’s why they lash out.
Whatever. Most kids are fine in public.

This is the attitude that is repugnant and may be why you experiencing "lashing out"--the idea that there is a universal "best" in these options. And this thread is about people who can afford private but don't choose to, so obviously it's not about the case of whether they can give their kids a private school education, but rather whether they think it's the better option. We came to a view that public is "the best" for us--not on the basis of finances-- but wouldn't impose that view on others.