Why is private more popular in HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Local public elementary schools are excellent, and your kids get to develop neighborhood friendships with (depending on where you live) a wide, uncurated variety of people.

Lol, local public schools are excellent. Ummm not even close.

Basically, hidden subtext is that you get your kids away from "the poors". So it depends on whether your kid is easily influenced by others or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writing and critical thinking skills taught at a good private HS are vastly better. I don’t agree that college freshmen catch up after a semester. For me, it has took years if independent reading to know the literary and historical and philosophical references that my kids already know. (I went to a mediocre public HS and had a pre professional college major.) I also think that peer group matters, and that kids at private high schools have many more opportunities for extracurricular leadership.

Yeah, you career success is largely determined by the spectrum of your high school and college experience. The academic and social skills are hard to develop in just 4 years in a new town while you are also figuring out laundry and holding down a work study job and trying to catch up in a semester what others learned over 4 years.

I attended Princeton at the same time as Mellody Hobson, and I was listening on the radio about how she grew up poor and then went on into great success. I was very impressed and looked her up, and realized she went to a Catholic Prep school in Chicago. Over and over again, I look at folks LinkedIn or even my college paper facebook and high school matters. It sets you up with academic schools as well as how to interact culturally. Sometimes I find an outlier, who maybe just attended a magnet like Stuy, but then their parents are doctors who were Legacy. Publics here are probably better than I had, but I can see the supersized schools warehousing kids and focused on just getting kids through not getting them prepared.

Omg

[Anonymous]

Another Alexandria City family here. The elementary schools are decent and foster a sense of neighborhood and community. Kids don’t get lost in the shuffle at that stage, but it really changes substantially at the middle school level where buildings are overcrowded. Alexandria City High School is around 5,000 students so the size of a small college. Now that we are accustomed to the personalized touch of private school (we left due to the closure of public schools during the pandemic) it’s hard to envision leaving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were zoned for a really excellent elementary school in APS. The teachers were all top notch. I was just going through my kids' old school work and was really amazed by the assignments, their writing and the things they were doing back then. At the time, I knew it was above and beyond based on nieces/nephews in schools across the DMV--but didn't realize how much. Both of my kids were so far ahead when they arrived at Middle School. Then, we found the public middle school experience to be under-whelming. My oldest had horrible, horrible math teachers. There was very little writing. Looking at writing samples, they regressed from where they were at the end of elementary school/5th grade.

Also, we were disillusioned with the County and the lack of foresight to the high school crowding and direction. What was the real kicker was when my oldest took an Algebra Exemption exam for one of the private high schools in 7th grade after completing a year of Intensified Algebra I (which he appeared to breeze through and get all As)--and he scored a 58% on the exemption exam. Holy wtf? This was also after scoring very high on the math SOL. His writing (and the actual hand writing) had grown so poor at this point.

So--we enrolled him in a private HS where he is thriving and very excited about his teachers and course work. I was worried he might not have drive because by 8th grade he was doing very little, the bare minimum and pulling in all As and just didn't seem to care or be interested as much in school. What a difference Freshmen year, he would come home talking about teachers and courses and have the text book open on the table at dinner in front of him. He joined a bunch of Clubs which I never would have predicted. He always played a travel sport and continued in that sport at the high school.

The services and attention are night and day to what we experienced in APS. My spouse and I aren't involved at all because the school prides itself on making the students fully independent from the minute they start day 1 Freshmen year. He handles everything and I have never even seen assignments, don't have access to his Canvas and have never talked to a teacher or administrator. There is also a very heavy community service element that is built into the school. The values that are taught and the forming of a 'good person' were important to us.

I am also amazed at how the school prepares the students for college application time. Incredibly supportive and guiding with a plan rolled out that starts in 10th grade and follows them through 12th.

It is not a 'pressure cooker' environment with kids stressed out and taking 7 APs each year, but I feel the education is at such a deeper level and the transformation in his writing in this short time has been miraculous.

Covid and the talk of standards-based learning in public just reinforced how happy I am we made the switch for high school. 2 years in I have zero complaints or any faults with the school and neither does he. And, I am someone that can be pretty critical.

This is almost exactly our experience!

This is why we are hoping to bail out at middle school. Does the school you chose also have middle? Trying to narrow down from context clues, because I would be very happy to be able to have a similar experience for DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writing and critical thinking skills taught at a good private HS are vastly better. I don’t agree that college freshmen catch up after a semester. For me, it has took years if independent reading to know the literary and historical and philosophical references that my kids already know. (I went to a mediocre public HS and had a pre professional college major.) I also think that peer group matters, and that kids at private high schools have many more opportunities for extracurricular leadership.

Yeah, you career success is largely determined by the spectrum of your high school and college experience. The academic and social skills are hard to develop in just 4 years in a new town while you are also figuring out laundry and holding down a work study job and trying to catch up in a semester what others learned over 4 years.

I attended Princeton at the same time as Mellody Hobson, and I was listening on the radio about how she grew up poor and then went on into great success. I was very impressed and looked her up, and realized she went to a Catholic Prep school in Chicago. Over and over again, I look at folks LinkedIn or even my college paper facebook and high school matters. It sets you up with academic schools as well as how to interact culturally. Sometimes I find an outlier, who maybe just attended a magnet like Stuy, but then their parents are doctors who were Legacy. Publics here are probably better than I had, but I can see the supersized schools warehousing kids and focused on just getting kids through not getting them prepared.

Omg

I’m sorry did I say something offensive? I personally think many of the competitive magnet schools like TJ or Stuyvesant are arguably as good or better than most privates. Is there a problem with that nickname for Stuyvesant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better college counseling

Why do people keep posting that you get into better colleges if you go public?

It is not all about the rankings but about being well prepared for college and finding the best match for each unique student …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Better college counseling

Why do people keep posting that you get into better colleges if you go public?

It is not all about the rankings but about being well prepared for college and finding the best match for each unique student …

Is that what parents tell themselves where they're paying 80k a year to send their kids to Gettysburg?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were zoned for a really excellent elementary school in APS. The teachers were all top notch. I was just going through my kids' old school work and was really amazed by the assignments, their writing and the things they were doing back then. At the time, I knew it was above and beyond based on nieces/nephews in schools across the DMV--but didn't realize how much. Both of my kids were so far ahead when they arrived at Middle School. Then, we found the public middle school experience to be under-whelming. My oldest had horrible, horrible math teachers. There was very little writing. Looking at writing samples, they regressed from where they were at the end of elementary school/5th grade.

Also, we were disillusioned with the County and the lack of foresight to the high school crowding and direction. What was the real kicker was when my oldest took an Algebra Exemption exam for one of the private high schools in 7th grade after completing a year of Intensified Algebra I (which he appeared to breeze through and get all As)--and he scored a 58% on the exemption exam. Holy wtf? This was also after scoring very high on the math SOL. His writing (and the actual hand writing) had grown so poor at this point.

So--we enrolled him in a private HS where he is thriving and very excited about his teachers and course work. I was worried he might not have drive because by 8th grade he was doing very little, the bare minimum and pulling in all As and just didn't seem to care or be interested as much in school. What a difference Freshmen year, he would come home talking about teachers and courses and have the text book open on the table at dinner in front of him. He joined a bunch of Clubs which I never would have predicted. He always played a travel sport and continued in that sport at the high school.

The services and attention are night and day to what we experienced in APS. My spouse and I aren't involved at all because the school prides itself on making the students fully independent from the minute they start day 1 Freshmen year. He handles everything and I have never even seen assignments, don't have access to his Canvas and have never talked to a teacher or administrator. There is also a very heavy community service element that is built into the school. The values that are taught and the forming of a 'good person' were important to us.

I am also amazed at how the school prepares the students for college application time. Incredibly supportive and guiding with a plan rolled out that starts in 10th grade and follows them through 12th.

It is not a 'pressure cooker' environment with kids stressed out and taking 7 APs each year, but I feel the education is at such a deeper level and the transformation in his writing in this short time has been miraculous.

Covid and the talk of standards-based learning in public just reinforced how happy I am we made the switch for high school. 2 years in I have zero complaints or any faults with the school and neither does he. And, I am someone that can be pretty critical.

This is almost exactly our experience!

This is why we are hoping to bail out at middle school. Does the school you chose also have middle? Trying to narrow down from context clues, because I would be very happy to be able to have a similar experience for DC.

9-12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on what your objectives are.

If you think the ultimate and most important thing you get out of HS is to get accepted to the most prestigious college possible, then your best bet is either (a) Big 3 (which are the only private schools around here where school reputation carries any weight at all), (b) a magnet HS or program, or (c) one of the good (not not necessarily the top) public HS + lots of enrichment. (C) is the safest bet of those because of the scarcity of seats in (a) and (b). It is the path that will allow you kid to differentiate themself in the eyes of the colleges.

We chose none of the above, because college admissions is not what we’re trying to get out of HS. Our DC will be ultra-prepared for whatever college they go to. DC’s HS work is and has been very challenging from day 1. Even if their GPA suffers a bit compared to what it would have been otherwise and that means DC goes to a less prestigious college, I’m willing to let the college chips fall where they may and trust that DC will be better prepared than 95% of the class.

This was our philosophy as well. I may be in the minority, but I think my kid would end up at the same/similar college whether they went to our giant neighborhood HS or the private they are in. They are the kind of student they are, and there will be a match for that. Because they are not aiming for Ivies or such, I was never worried about the numbers game of that.

So when people say privates have better college counseling, they may be like me, thinking the smaller load per counselors means more attention and guidance and a really good list of target schools.

College preparedness was our goal, and I believe my kid will be in a better place coming out of private than they would be in our public. I don't think every kid needs that necessarily, but mine doesn't mind flying under the radar doing "just fine" in a big school, and we wanted more of a push than that.

[Anonymous]

If people have limited funds, they will save it for 4 years of high school. Plus, private high schools are more willing to give FA because they only need to give it for 4 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous[b wrote:]If people have limited funds, they will save it for 4 years of high school[/b]. Plus, private high schools are more willing to give FA because they only need to give it for 4 years.

Or they are in a very strong public system, a particular niche elementary school, etc.

Our public elementary was better than most privates we toured. And, it was very 'community'. Students could walk to each other's houses after school. The Rec teams in early elementary were divided by your elementary school so your neighbors and classmates were on your teams. By the time it gets to travel sports, less important, but some of the highlights of my kids' youth are those early rec soccer and rec basketball games. These kids are all still very tight-knit even with about 6 out of 10 now in private HS.

[Anonymous]

I have one in private HS and one in a MCPS W school. The older one is in private b/c we felt she needed smaller classes and needed to get away from a bullying issue. We have many friends with kids at our local public HS and didn't think twice about sending our younger one there.
Some other background: I went to a very competitive private school and have always felt that it was actually a deterrent to getting into top schools because there are only so many kids from one school a college will take. Also, I thought that colleges really don't want private school kids b/c of privilege.

Here's where I am now. I really wish we could move our younger one to private. Her class has 700+ kids in it. The teachers don't seem to care much, she has no love of learning that her older sister does. Perhaps this will come.

As for colleges, my sense this year is that private school kids are doing much better with acceptances than public schools. While colleges still will only take a few from each school, at least you are competing in a class of 100 as opposed to 700. It's much easier to stand out in private school. I also know that certain privates have close relations with certain colleges and I really think that makes a difference. Also, in a time when so many kids get all As, having all As at a school like Sidwell probably means more than all As at a standard HS.

FWIW, my kids went to a Focus MCPS school and came out of it just fine. Do I think they got a great education? no, but I also don't think private in ES is worth it. It's a better overall atmosphere but not necessarily education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writing and critical thinking skills taught at a good private HS are vastly better. I don’t agree that college freshmen catch up after a semester. For me, it has took years if independent reading to know the literary and historical and philosophical references that my kids already know. (I went to a mediocre public HS and had a pre professional college major.) I also think that peer group matters, and that kids at private high schools have many more opportunities for extracurricular leadership.

Yeah, you career success is largely determined by the spectrum of your high school and college experience. The academic and social skills are hard to develop in just 4 years in a new town while you are also figuring out laundry and holding down a work study job and trying to catch up in a semester what others learned over 4 years.

I attended Princeton at the same time as Mellody Hobson, and I was listening on the radio about how she grew up poor and then went on into great success. I was very impressed and looked her up, and realized she went to a Catholic Prep school in Chicago. Over and over again, I look at folks LinkedIn or even my college paper facebook and high school matters. It sets you up with academic schools as well as how to interact culturally. Sometimes I find an outlier, who maybe just attended a magnet like Stuy, but then their parents are doctors who were Legacy. Publics here are probably better than I had, but I can see the supersized schools warehousing kids and focused on just getting kids through not getting them prepared.

Omg

I’m sorry did I say something offensive? I personally think many of the competitive magnet schools like TJ or Stuyvesant are arguably as good or better than most privates. Is there a problem with that nickname for Stuyvesant?

You sound like an arrogant putz.

I am sure that there were many public high school grads that ran circles around you at Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writing and critical thinking skills taught at a good private HS are vastly better. I don’t agree that college freshmen catch up after a semester. For me, it has took years if independent reading to know the literary and historical and philosophical references that my kids already know. (I went to a mediocre public HS and had a pre professional college major.) I also think that peer group matters, and that kids at private high schools have many more opportunities for extracurricular leadership.

Yeah, you career success is largely determined by the spectrum of your high school and college experience. The academic and social skills are hard to develop in just 4 years in a new town while you are also figuring out laundry and holding down a work study job and trying to catch up in a semester what others learned over 4 years.

I attended Princeton at the same time as Mellody Hobson, and I was listening on the radio about how she grew up poor and then went on into great success. I was very impressed and looked her up, and realized she went to a Catholic Prep school in Chicago. Over and over again, I look at folks LinkedIn or even my college paper facebook and high school matters. It sets you up with academic schools as well as how to interact culturally. Sometimes I find an outlier, who maybe just attended a magnet like Stuy, but then their parents are doctors who were Legacy. Publics here are probably better than I had, but I can see the supersized schools warehousing kids and focused on just getting kids through not getting them prepared.

Omg

I’m sorry did I say something offensive? I personally think many of the competitive magnet schools like TJ or Stuyvesant are arguably as good or better than most privates. Is there a problem with that nickname for Stuyvesant?

You sound like an arrogant putz.

I am sure that there were many public high school grads that ran circles around you at Princeton.

I thought that was literally my point. I came from a subpar high school, and observing the outcome of my classmates I see a correlation that start BEFORE they go to college. So if you can get into a magnet/selective public high school, you will likely have better outcomes. But for most warehouse size high schools, the emphasis is just getting kids to graduate (30% of my class did not) not really focused on success in college or beyond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writing and critical thinking skills taught at a good private HS are vastly better. I don’t agree that college freshmen catch up after a semester. For me, it has took years if independent reading to know the literary and historical and philosophical references that my kids already know. (I went to a mediocre public HS and had a pre professional college major.) I also think that peer group matters, and that kids at private high schools have many more opportunities for extracurricular leadership.

Yeah, you career success is largely determined by the spectrum of your high school and college experience. The academic and social skills are hard to develop in just 4 years in a new town while you are also figuring out laundry and holding down a work study job and trying to catch up in a semester what others learned over 4 years.

I attended Princeton at the same time as Mellody Hobson, and I was listening on the radio about how she grew up poor and then went on into great success. I was very impressed and looked her up, and realized she went to a Catholic Prep school in Chicago. Over and over again, I look at folks LinkedIn or even my college paper facebook and high school matters. It sets you up with academic schools as well as how to interact culturally. Sometimes I find an outlier, who maybe just attended a magnet like Stuy, but then their parents are doctors who were Legacy. Publics here are probably better than I had, but I can see the supersized schools warehousing kids and focused on just getting kids through not getting them prepared.

Omg

I’m sorry did I say something offensive? I personally think many of the competitive magnet schools like TJ or Stuyvesant are arguably as good or better than most privates. Is there a problem with that nickname for Stuyvesant?

You sound like an arrogant putz.

I am sure that there were many public high school grads that ran circles around you at Princeton.

And honestly that is quite a choice of slur.