Public HS and college acceptances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just getting in, it's also how well you're prepared. I had friends whose kids went to private schools, and they breezed through their freshman year, while some kids who had gone to middling public schools struggled mightily. Even my husband, who went to a well-regarded Montgomery County school, had a tougher time in his first year at college. His roomate, who had gone to a private school, had already covered the material in high school.

Is that a problem. By the end of 4 yrs of college, did your husband catch up with the private school roommate? I, personally, think that it is OK that students start college at different levels.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my husband caught up, but that doesn't make it any less of a problem. For many kids, freshman year of college is tough enough adjustment without struggling academically. That doesn't mean all public school grads are at a disadvantage to all private school grads, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Anonymous]

On the other hand... I went to a good public high school (NY suburbs), went on to Harvard, and found I was far, far better prepared than many of my friends who had gone to elite prep schools. Why? My high school was good, and I came from an educated family in which people read, read, read, talked, and read. Whereas a lot of my private school friends came from families that pushed them to "achieve," but never really modeled how learning and intellectual curiosity might be integrated into adult life. Don't forget, parents, WE matter as much or more than the schools matter. The bottom line on all the research is that bright kids with involved, educated parents will generally thrive wherever the go, public or private-- whereas kids whose parents don't much care, or whose parents see learning as purely instrumental, will suffer the consequences, wherever they go.

But of course.... all generalizations are just that. Some public schools are fabulous. Some private schools suck. Some really bright kids come out of really crappy public schools and do fabulously well in college admissions and in their college courses. Some really bright kids go to really great private schools and manage somehow not to learn a whole lot.

[Anonymous]

Not the standard scenario, but I grew up in Europe, had lower SATs than my cousins here but got into a top ten school.

My cousins went to a private prep school on the east coast and neither got into a top ten school (they did get into top 20) and their test scores were higher than mine. But they and their friends all experienced the same problem mentioned in other posts, almost all of the kids in their class applied to top 20 schools, so your chances of getting into an Ivy were automatically diminished.

Standing out is more important I think than the school you go to.

Btw, 60% of students transfer
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/education/edlife/zernike.html?_r=1&ex=1146628800&en=bc46c3eed073be3e&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, not everyone has access to a Whitman quality public school.

Be careful about Whitman, I went there. It was a good school, but it allowed students to be as laid back as they want to be. Also, it was not the teachers, it was the students and the parents. The students pushed each other, and the parents weighed in.

[Anonymous]

I went to a top public high school, graduated in the top 5 percent of my class, went to a top university and found the first year of college a piece of cake.

[Anonymous]

There can be great public schools. But the issue is they are public. Before you all have an attack, let me clarify. I don't want to send my kid to a school with parents who could care less about their kids' education, who just dump them there, and who are basically entitled to do so. (PS, obviously no one on this blog!)...but when you do public school, you MAY land in with a group of parents for whom education is important, who raise well behaved children, and you may NOT. It's public. The greatest parents in the world send their kids to public school. And so do the worst.

I am not saying that the parents of private school kids are better. But I will say there is at least one screening process. And I don't consider the screening process whether or not they have money. I myself am struggling to put my son in a private school. I'm not rich. The screening process is that they are willing to make a sacrifice to send their kids to a school they have to pay for. For me, that is important. I want my child in a school where I know no one is bringing in a gun, where the child can be kicked out easily for bad behavior, where the children AND parents are held to a standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There can be great public schools. But the issue is they are public. Before you all have an attack, let me clarify. I don't want to send my kid to a school with parents who could care less about their kids' education, who just dump them there, and who are basically entitled to do so. (PS, obviously no one on this blog!)...but when you do public school, you MAY land in with a group of parents for whom education is important, who raise well behaved children, and you may NOT. It's public. The greatest parents in the world send their kids to public school. And so do the worst.

I am not saying that the parents of private school kids are better. But I will say there is at least one screening process. And I don't consider the screening process whether or not they have money. I myself am struggling to put my son in a private school. I'm not rich. The screening process is that they are willing to make a sacrifice to send their kids to a school they have to pay for. For me, that is important. I want my child in a school where I know no one is bringing in a gun, where the child can be kicked out easily for bad behavior, where the children AND parents are held to a standard.

This is the stupidest thing I have read on here... in a few days. Rich parents just as frequently dump their kids in private school because they can - because their kids are status symbols - as are the schools. Do you know how rampant drug use is among rich kids? They actually have money to buy the coke and heroin - they may not be chugging 40s, but they're snorting coke and popping oxys like it's no one's business. There were more drugs in my rich school than there were in my husband's poor inner city school! they couldn't afford it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On the other hand... I went to a good public high school (NY suburbs), went on to Harvard, and found I was far, far better prepared than many of my friends who had gone to elite prep schools. Why? My high school was good, and I came from an educated family in which people read, read, read, talked, and read. Whereas a lot of my private school friends came from families that pushed them to "achieve," but never really modeled how learning and intellectual curiosity might be integrated into adult life. Don't forget, parents, WE matter as much or more than the schools matter. The bottom line on all the research is that bright kids with involved, educated parents will generally thrive wherever the go, public or private-- whereas kids whose parents don't much care, or whose parents see learning as purely instrumental, will suffer the consequences, wherever they go.

But of course.... all generalizations are just that. Some public schools are fabulous. Some private schools suck. Some really bright kids come out of really crappy public schools and do fabulously well in college admissions and in their college courses. Some really bright kids go to really great private schools and manage somehow not to learn a whole lot.

How come you have so much insight into how your college friends were brought up? Just curious as you seem to know exactly how their parents related to them vis-a-vis education. Is this an assumption or did you grow up with the very people you went to college with and were able to make a direct comparison with your and their parents' and eventual college outcomes?

[Anonymous]

"How come you have so much insight into how your college friends were brought up? Just curious as you seem to know exactly how their parents related to them vis-a-vis education. Is this an assumption or did you grow up with the very people you went to college with and were able to make a direct comparison with your and their parents' and eventual college outcomes?"

The specific people I'm talking about are people I knew quite well, whose families I knew quite well-- and my friends and I spent a whole lot of time talking about our upbringings and school experiences and how these had (or hadn't) prepared us for college etc.

My point obviously isn't that all or most pivate school kids come from such families-- my point is just that the issue really isn't public school v. private school, it's much more complicated, and families have whole lot to do with it.

Not just whether parents are "involved"-- that's term by itself doesn't tell you much, right? because to one parent, being "involved" means constant pressure on kids to cram and achieve for purely instrumental reasons-- with no particular inherent interest in what is being studied or achieved beyond whether it will get the kid into an elite college and eventually a high-paying a prestigious job-- while for another parent, being "involved" might mean a lot of reading together, a lot of cuddling, a lot of conversations, a lot of bringing kids along on interesting work trips, and almost no interest in the kids' grades or test scores.

Okay, those are extremes-- most parents probably fall in between-- but you get my point. Sadly, there are still plenty of parents in the first category, and I don't really think they're doing their kids much of a favor. (I say this also as a college professor-- I see a lot of kids in my classes who have been pushed and pushed and pushed, and they're like wind up toys who know how to cram and ace straightforward test questions, but who don't really know how to make interesting connections or ask interesting questions... and, saddest of all, often don't really seem like they have much sense of how to make seek happiness in this world.)

[Anonymous]

My dad was a public school teacher in Maryland for 35 years, and he taught at a number of schools with reputations that were mediocre (at best). His belief is that a kid whose family values and emphasizes education can do very well at pretty much any school that has a strong core (say, 5-10%) of high-achieving, motivated kids. Every year kids he taught in his AP/gifted classes went off to top schools, including Ivies; often the advanced classes were small, but the kids were no less smart or less well-prepared to enter rigorous college programs.

My husband and I could send our kids to private, but we intend to stick with DCPS all the way through. We are an education-focused family, so we're pretty confident our boys will do well wherever they are, and we've heard good things about our neighborhood HS (Wilson).

And, frankly, I couldn't care less whether they go to Ivies; I want them to choose the paths in life that makes them happy. OP's post upsets me because her husband seems to have defined success very narrowly for his children; what if they don't want to go to Ivies? Worse, what if they can't get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There can be great public schools. But the issue is they are public. Before you all have an attack, let me clarify. I don't want to send my kid to a school with parents who could care less about their kids' education, who just dump them there, and who are basically entitled to do so. (PS, obviously no one on this blog!)...but when you do public school, you MAY land in with a group of parents for whom education is important, who raise well behaved children, and you may NOT. It's public. The greatest parents in the world send their kids to public school. And so do the worst.

I am not saying that the parents of private school kids are better. But I will say there is at least one screening process. And I don't consider the screening process whether or not they have money. I myself am struggling to put my son in a private school. I'm not rich. The screening process is that they are willing to make a sacrifice to send their kids to a school they have to pay for. For me, that is important. I want my child in a school where I know no one is bringing in a gun, where the child can be kicked out easily for bad behavior, where the children AND parents are held to a standard.

OMG. I have to second the post that this is the stupidest thing I've read on here. Possibly ever. Writing a check does not make you an involved or caring parent. And to imply that all kids who go to private school are smart and well-behaved is hilarious. The "screening" process you note is a joke in terms of what you seem to think it filters out (or in). There aer some good private schools, there are some bad ones. There are some good public schools, there are some bad ones. Kids with involved, caring, and supportive parents will most likely do well in any school and can be found in any school. The opposite is also true. I would strongly urge you to get a better grip on reality before you "struggle to put your son in a private school."

[Anonymous]

About Whitman... (and I suspect a host of other good area public schools) -- there is some truth in the fact that its not necessarily that the Whitman TEACHERS who are so great that makes the school so good. At lot of it DOES have to do with the types of families that live in that area and send their kids there. In that respect, I think the parents of Whitman kids care every bit as much about their kids' educations (and are every bit as involved) as the parents of kids at St. Albans, NCS, or elsewhere.

But that is part of the reason why I really don't think you're chances of getting into an ivy are diminished by going to any of the good public schools here. People who keep pointing to these statistics that 50% (or whatever it is) of St. Albans' graduating class got into ivies are missing something... It may well NOT be the school. You think George W. got into Yale because of his steller education and grades? No. And any number of kids at St. Albans (et al) are kids of diplomats, senators, and other "dignitaries" for lack of a better word. Not to mention, the number of parents who are alumni at Harvard/Yale/etc.. I'm not saying the school isn't good, and I'm sure the same phenonmenon accounts for a number of Whitman kids who get into the same schools. All I'm saying is that I think you're kidding yourself if you're "Joe Parent" and you think that sending your "Joe child" to St. Albans is going to give him a 50-50 chance of going to Harvard. The reality is, if he's smart enough to be validictorian at St. Albans and go to Harvard, he's also smart enough to be valedictorian at Whitman and go to Harvard. So, that's just my 2 cents, but I think all of this jockeying for the "best" private school is a bit silly. Maybe not if you live in Ballou H.S.'s district... but if you live in a district like Whitman/Langley, etc... I think it makes very little difference. And, as far as quality of teachers is concerned... PUBLIC schools in this area routinely pay MORE to teachers than these elite private schools do... so where do you think the better teachers go?

[Anonymous]

I am always amazed by the anti-private school bias on this blog. Anytime someone says private schools are better gets an earful!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am always amazed by the anti-private school bias on this blog. Anytime someone says private schools are better gets an earful!

It's not an anti-private school bias. It's an anti-idiotic generalization bias. People who make statements like "private schools are better" are woefully underinformed about the range of both public and private school experiences. Anecdotally most of the private school kids I know (and we're talking NCS, etc) didn't finish the mediocre colleges they started and are living off their parents. Still. At 30.