If you could only afford private for grades 1-6 or grades 6-12, what would you choose?

[Anonymous]

I think in MoCo doing private first and public for high school is best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, I think it is easier to get in at 6 than at K?

We will be in a charter from PK-5 or possibly 8th grade at the most, private for high school definitely!

Yu Ying? (I just ask because we're there and that's our plan as well.)

Us, too, at Yu Ying. Plan on sending DC off to private, boarding school for 9-12. I prefer that it be in the U.S. but DH is open to worldwide prefers Swiss. He!!, if DC's mandarin is good, he could end up in China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6-12

I'm a teacher at a private school in DC and this is what we are going to do for our children.

Interesting; can you tell us why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Choose a big public (any one of them) for high school ONLY if your child is independent, self-motivated, and extremely bright. If he/she is at all insecure, unmotivated, or less-than-brilliant, I'd pick a private high school.

Agree with this - we have one at each for those reasons. MCPS is fabulous if you can take advantage of it - APs and honors classes. For a less ambitious student, or one who needs more inidividualized attention, privates are a better choice.

[Anonymous]

Private first, then public. Because our kid is really bright and our local high school is one of the best in the nation.

[Anonymous]

We did public for 8 great years but for middle school our options were kind of bleh... so we're going private for 3 years. Then prob back to public because the public high school options are much better.

[Anonymous]

1-6 worked for us.

[Anonymous]

So lots of different approaches! We did Arlington Public K-5, are doing private 6-8 at a K-8 school (wanted a smaller environment than we could get in APS), and plan on returning to public for HS, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

6-12 is when the differences are greatest among school curricula, and they are the most important years academically. We go public K-6, then private 7-12 and that works well for us.

[Anonymous]

If you do private at the end of HS and plan to apply for financial aid, the aid offices will assume you can pay what you were paying in private school tuition, just an FYI.

[Anonymous]

PP, that's not how the need analysis works when determining financial aid. There is no presumption of ability to pay this year what you paid last year.