Average Student at Big 3 - Where did your kid end up going to college?

[Anonymous]

DH and I are battling over whether to keep our son at a Big 3. He is in 9th grade, and as far as we can tell, is in the bottom half of his class. Bright kid. Good extracurriculars, but nothing to really make him stand out. I'm of the mind that paying 30K + per year is an investment of sorts, and can't really be measured by college placement. My DH is much more data driven, and thinks that if our son isn't going to end up at a top university by virtue of his bottom half status, we might as well just go public. We are in the BCC school district.

I still think that even bottom half kids at Big 3 schools end up at name brand colleges. But apart from thinking that, have nothing to back it up. So, if your kid was at a Big 3 and was not an academic standout, but in the bottom half, where did he/she end up going to college?

[Anonymous]

I know this contributes nothing to this thread, but I'm going to say it anyway...

I think education shouldn't solely be measured by going to an Ivy League university. I really hope you aren't putting tons of pressure on your son/daughter which is inherent in this topic. Who cares if they don't get into a big name school? Maybe it's ok to go to a decent school and excel there instead.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. I should add that re-reading your post, I side with you.

[Anonymous]

My cousins son went to a big name private school. Dropped out of college. Drives a forklift now at Home Depot warehouse. I think as parents, we all want to stack our kids chips but no matter how hard you try the chips can always fall. Under no circumstances would I ever pull a kid out of private and go public, never.

[Anonymous]

I don't really even understand your husbands view. If he's not getting kicked out why pull him out? Is unhappy at the school?

[Anonymous]

Somebody posted the St. Albans college list last spring, if I geta chance I'll try to find the post and link to it. Very respectable list, but share the view that the list alone doesn't measure how well you think your child, of any ability level, is prepared for college. We like the emphasis on writing that is easier with smaller class sizes; if our kids were more STEM oriented we might have stayed public. ( We also like our reasonably but not amazingly athletic kids getting to play varsity HS sports.)

[Anonymous]

I am data driven, like your husband. But I am having trouble figuring out how to use data to answer your question. I can think of ways to use college matriculation data to compare the top10% of a Big 3 against the top 10% of a strong local public. Or even something like the middle 30% of a local Big 3 against the middle 30% of a local public. But that won't help you unless we can know how your bottom 50% son will fare at BCC. Do you assume he will still be bottom 50%? Or something different?

Help guide me, and I will try to offer a data driven approach for you.

Sam2

[Anonymous]

Sam again. If you just want to know how the bottom half of a Big 3 school does in colleges, several lists are available online from those schools and similar ones. You also could ask your school's college counselor. I'm sure she/he will give you a list.

[Anonymous]

I didn't go to a big three in this area but from my private school in NY lots of kids went to private colleges that had lots of mid-range kids from elite private schools on the East Coast. From reading the alumni notes, it appears as though people have done well regardless of going to a mid-tier college. I think some of that is going to a college that has a strong alumni base and part might be the parent connections to getting that first job out of school and part is having classmates that you may work with to start a business.

So my worry is if this is the battle now, what will it look like when your child picks a college that is 50K a year and isn't a top ten college? I don't know if pulling your child out for 10th grade to go to a big public high school will be doing him any favors unless he already has a bunch of friends from the neighborhood and is looking forward to going to school with them. An extremely unhappy or lost ( as in no friends, can't figure out how to fit in) child can have much worse things happen than simply not getting into a top ten college.

is your son happy? Is the current high school preparing your son for college even with him being in the bottom half and is it preparing him for life in general? Would your son flounder in a bigger environment like BCC and get lost in the crowd? Would he get that chance to participate in leadership activities in the big public school assuming he has them now at the private school? How is the guidance counselor at your current school in really knowing your child and matching them to the best college for him?

[Anonymous]

My friend's son was bottom half at a Big Three. He went to Tulane. It was a good fit for him.

[Anonymous]

I went to school in Boston (Harvard). There were tons of students from the prep schools in Boston at Boston College, Wellesley, Tufts, etc.

I don't know about the Big 3 from DC but I know I think the worst college a kid can get into from a school like Exeter is Boston University.

[Anonymous]

This. You husband needs to think about more than the ROI.

"is your son happy? Is the current high school preparing your son for college even with him being in the bottom half and is it preparing him for life in general? Would your son flounder in a bigger environment like BCC and get lost in the crowd? Would he get that chance to participate in leadership activities in the big public school assuming he has them now at the private school? How is the guidance counselor at your current school in really knowing your child and matching them to the best college for him? "

[Anonymous]

Tulane and BU are pretty much safeties for any kid with respectable SATs (say above 2000) and a good GPA at a public school like Blair - this is what I've seen from DC's class this year.

But I'm with you on seeing value in a private school education besides just college placement. I wouldn't agree that prep for college-level work is always worse at public schools, especially if BCC is the home school (in other words, 19:05 is clueless). But the overall environment in your kid's school, his friends, or more individualized attention may make it worth keeping him where he is. Is he likely to fall through the cracks at a public school? Do you feel better if teachers keep a closer eye on him? Will he resent being pulled out and think your DH is trying to punish him? (And I'm serious about that last one, if that's what DS thinks is going on, it could be pretty scarring.) Then keep him in private.

[Anonymous]

Way too much trying to game the system here. Colleges will consider each kid based on who they are and how they have done where they are. Give the colleges some credit.

I would wager that the same kid with the same effort is likely to end up with about the same SATs and class standing and will qualify for about the same college whether kid is at public or private.

There are two areas, however, where prep schools do excel. (At least how we have seen it - and we have had kids in both). The first is college counseling. Prep school counselors take a lot of time packaging the kid for college. This can and does make a difference to admission committees. They try to deny it, but I have it on good authority that it is difficult.

The second area is college readiness. Now this is purely anecdotal, but worth putting out there. We have a friend whose DD was near the top of her public school class (sorry details withheld to protect privacy). She now goes to William and Mary. Our DD has two friends from her prep school who also go to WM. We heard from public school mom that daughter was really struggling with the workload. Both prep girls reported that William and Mary was way easier than the prep school and were surprised at how many kids were not used to the workload. Will the public school kids adjust? Certainly. But when it comes to workload. I can say from having seen it at both, the prep school workload is heavier. At DD's school. The average is about 3-4 hours per night. At our other kids public school, it was much less. Even for the kids with lots of APs. Does it have to be that much? Does it make a difference in the long run? I don't know. But that's the way it is.

[Anonymous]

IMO, private schools excel in teaching writing and engaging in class discussion. I don't think there's as much of an advantage in the STEM courses.

Also, private schools just FEEL different socially. They usually provide a smaller, more close-knit community. There is more time built into the school day for community building activities and extracurriculars. The large publics, even the very good ones, cannot replicate this.

IMO, if you can afford private and have generally been pleased with it, then stay with it through graduation. Education is about more than getting into college.