Private School for Middle Class income (middle class in DC terms)?

[Anonymous]

Don't ignore the diocesean high schools. Paul IV, Bisphop O'Connell and Ireton have top academics for top students. The schools are diverse in every sense of the word. Average class size is about 10 less than our highly ranked public. The schools also boast top ranked basketball programs (PVI boys is ranked #1 overall in the DC area, O'Connell is usually ranked top 20 and O'Connell girls softball has won VA state championships forever). Don't know about Ivy-level placement but I often hear parents say that they feel their kids get a bit of a college admissions break because they aren't competing against 500 others from the same high school for the same spots (at say UVa).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here: Some of the parish schools have an extraordinary track record of getting kids into the private Catholic HS for 9th grade. For both my kid's classes the only kids who went to public were the ones who wanted to. We are not in the "golden" Whitman/Churchill clusters so I really wanted the private HS.

Let's hope you're right! lol. My DS is in 5th at private Catholic HS, so it's a few years off for him. And my DD is patiently waiting for notificaion, and her 1st choice is.....SR. Don't want to hijack this thread, but sounds like your DD is having a fantastic time there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St John's or Gonzaga.

aren't these both @ 19k-because that is still too much if you've got a couple of kids. When I went to college, room+board+tuition was 15K at Williams in the late 80's. I make a little more $$ than my Dad did in those days, doing the same job. I can't afford to send my kids to private at those prices. And I went to a big 3 private for 5th-12th. It absolutely sucks. Private school tuition in this area really pisses me off.

SJC is 16k...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't ignore the diocesean high schools. Paul IV, Bisphop O'Connell and Ireton have top academics for top students. The schools are diverse in every sense of the word. Average class size is about 10 less than our highly ranked public. The schools also boast top ranked basketball programs (PVI boys is ranked #1 overall in the DC area, O'Connell is usually ranked top 20 and O'Connell girls softball has won VA state championships forever). Don't know about Ivy-level placement but I often hear parents say that they feel their kids get a bit of a college admissions break because they aren't competing against 500 others from the same high school for the same spots (at say UVa).

And soccer...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't ignore the diocesean high schools. Paul IV, Bisphop O'Connell and Ireton have top academics for top students. The schools are diverse in every sense of the word. Average class size is about 10 less than our highly ranked public. The schools also boast top ranked basketball programs (PVI boys is ranked #1 overall in the DC area, O'Connell is usually ranked top 20 and O'Connell girls softball has won VA state championships forever). Don't know about Ivy-level placement but I often hear parents say that they feel their kids get a bit of a college admissions break because they aren't competing against 500 others from the same high school for the same spots (at say UVa).

And soccer...

?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:St John's or Gonzaga.

aren't these both @ 19k-because that is still too much if you've got a couple of kids. When I went to college, room+board+tuition was 15K at Williams in the late 80's. I make a little more $$ than my Dad did in those days, doing the same job. I can't afford to send my kids to private at those prices. And I went to a big 3 private for 5th-12th. It absolutely sucks. Private school tuition in this area really pisses me off.

St. John's is $15,300, Gonzaga is $17,500. And both of these are high schools, which presumably OP doesn't need to worry about for 9+ years.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I just want to say that I feel the OP's predicament. I'm originally from the NYC area and sent three kids to private school for many years. In the final years it was costing us 90k/yr. When we started sending our DS it was only 18k/yr. Meanwhile our income dropped from 200k to 130k/yr and...well let's just say that we've now moved to MoCo and will gladly pay more for a place to live in order to take advantage of good free public schools. There just comes a point when the pain of private school tuition isn't worth it anymore.

[Anonymous]

OP, make sure you apply to a range of charters and traditional DCPS schools. Don't pick just west of the park schools -- they don't have spots. If you don't get in this year, try again next year and so forth. Make public work as long as you can and save your pennies. Then for middle school you can go private. You can stay private or come out again for public for HS. You can even go to Bethesda schools out of district and pay the non-resident tuition ($10K).

For cheaper privates, try the Montessoris like Evergreen or Christian Family. Both very lovely little schools that are affordable.

[Anonymous]

I understand there's fewer MS spots than ES or HS. Are people successful at transitioning to private for MS?

[Anonymous]

Im surprised no one has stated the obvious yet. Move to the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Not everyone wants to move to the suburbs pp. People look for more original solutions.

[Anonymous]

What the private schools has simply done is priced themselves so that only the top 5% maybe can afford to pay full freight. The schools then raise money to fund FA programs for lower income students, which is great obviously. These schools face 2 choices. First, they can continue to hike tuition. As tuition goes up, the percentage that can pay full freight gets smaller, the need for FA increases, the fundraising pressure increases on the decreasing percentage that can contribute significantly. These schools end up with only the top 1% at most paying full freight, with a few lower income kids. Or, second, these schools can get control of their expenses and program creep attitudes, and reduce tuition. By doing so, maybe the top 20% can pay full freight, which broadens the full paying applicant pool.

[Anonymous]

We were in DC. We had a baby and moved (barely) across the border into the eastern edge of the BCC cluster. Private school with a couple of kids was simply not an option for us (HHI <$90k).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:200k should definetly get you financial aid.

NOT. This from a family w/ HHI 80K who pay 45% tuition

Whoa! Are you serious! So if tuition is $30,000 you are paying $13,000 (roughly)? Your take home pay cant be much more than $55,000, minus avg $24,000 at least for rent or mortgage. Then car(s), insurance, retirement, food, etc. The numbers don't work out. How do you do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the private schools has simply done is priced themselves so that only the top 5% maybe can afford to pay full freight. The schools then raise money to fund FA programs for lower income students, which is great obviously. These schools face 2 choices. First, they can continue to hike tuition. As tuition goes up, the percentage that can pay full freight gets smaller, the need for FA increases, the fundraising pressure increases on the decreasing percentage that can contribute significantly. These schools end up with only the top 1% at most paying full freight, with a few lower income kids. Or, second, these schools can get control of their expenses and program creep attitudes, and reduce tuition. By doing so, maybe the top 20% can pay full freight, which broadens the full paying applicant pool.

So basically the middle class is priced out of the 25 to 30K + schools.