Public HS and college acceptances

[Anonymous]

You all are so easy to wind up. It's hysterical! Can't you see the post is in part designed to wind people up?

[Anonymous]

Hi - I am the OP and I just check once in awhile - I did not write to wind people up. I was just actually hoping that there was a website or something that could show college accpetances from various schools. I was just trying to convince my husband that we don't HAVE to send or kids to private to ensure their success. I thought if he saw numbers, etc. it would help with my argument. He - like many people - seems to think that money and status will guarantee a place in life. I say hard work, determination and luck.....

[Anonymous]

It might also be helpful to get comparable information for private schools. I work with 2 older parents here whose kids went to NCS and Gonzaga, and they went on to...Longwood and Christopher Newport. So if you're looking at private school as a "guaranteed" means to a top tier college...you might want to rethink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, we're paying for these things (and more). We're in the BCC school district. We are a minority family, and unfortunately in this country that often means we're constantly faced with having to validate and qualify ourselves. It happens to my husband and me almost every day in run of the mill interactions with people and in the workplace. We don't wear Ivy League on our shoulders. But you'd be surprised at the leading questions we receive, and how one is treated differently based on the answers. It's insulting, but it's the reality. So yes, I need my male minority kid (who'll probably be judged countless times) to go to St. Albans, Sidwell, GDS.......undergrad at Duke, Harvard, Stanford....graduate school at Duke, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

I'm sorry you feel you have to justify your choices, and for sake of this argument I won't question that. Where I disagree with you is that ssending your kid to St. Albans or GDS (over BCC) is going to give him a better shot of going to undergrad at Duke, Harvard, etc. I just don't think there is that much difference. Either he'll be smart enough and work hard enough, or he won't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, we're paying for these things (and more). We're in the BCC school district. We are a minority family, and unfortunately in this country that often means we're constantly faced with having to validate and qualify ourselves. It happens to my husband and me almost every day in run of the mill interactions with people and in the workplace. We don't wear Ivy League on our shoulders. But you'd be surprised at the leading questions we receive, and how one is treated differently based on the answers. It's insulting, but it's the reality. So yes, I need my male minority kid (who'll probably be judged countless times) to go to St. Albans, Sidwell, GDS.......undergrad at Duke, Harvard, Stanford....graduate school at Duke, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

I'm sorry you feel you have to justify your choices, and for sake of this argument I won't question that. Where I disagree with you is that ssending your kid to St. Albans or GDS (over BCC) is going to give him a better shot of going to undergrad at Duke, Harvard, etc. I just don't think there is that much difference. Either he'll be smart enough and work hard enough, or he won't.

You can only say that if you don't have a minority child- especially of of a darker hue. You just would not understand

[Anonymous]

I think there are plenty of perfectly good reasons to decide to send a child to a private school (as well as plenty of excellent reasons to decide to send a child to public school.) It depends on the child's needs, the quality of the private/public school's at issue, the parent's needs (as a single mother who has a job that pays well but less time than I wish I had, for instance, I value the "one-stop-shopping" aspect of good private schools, where you can get your extras and after care and summer care all in one easy package).

But boy, the poster who says she sends her child to private school for the "grooming".... that's the kind of attitude that makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction. Sadly, from my perspective, the one HUGE problem in too many elite private schools is the appalling social attitudes you find in some members of the private school community-- a sense of entitlement and privilege that I hope to God my children will never internalize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, we're paying for these things (and more). We're in the BCC school district. We are a minority family, and unfortunately in this country that often means we're constantly faced with having to validate and qualify ourselves. It happens to my husband and me almost every day in run of the mill interactions with people and in the workplace. We don't wear Ivy League on our shoulders. But you'd be surprised at the leading questions we receive, and how one is treated differently based on the answers. It's insulting, but it's the reality. So yes, I need my male minority kid (who'll probably be judged countless times) to go to St. Albans, Sidwell, GDS.......undergrad at Duke, Harvard, Stanford....graduate school at Duke, Harvard, Stanford, etc.

I'm sorry you feel you have to justify your choices, and for sake of this argument I won't question that. Where I disagree with you is that ssending your kid to St. Albans or GDS (over BCC) is going to give him a better shot of going to undergrad at Duke, Harvard, etc. I just don't think there is that much difference. Either he'll be smart enough and work hard enough, or he won't.

For heavens sake, there's definitely no need to feel sorry for me. And I really don't need to justify my choices...neither do you for that matter. I was merely offering a different perspective.

I understand your confusion if you happen not to be a minority. Oftentime minority children do not get a fair shake. I can attest to that given that of the less than 10 African American children in our local elementary, all but one just happens to be in special education. Statistically (without bias, that is), that just floors me. I don't doubt that our child is smart enough. It's a matter of needing the pedigree more than the average WASP. Sorry BCC just won't cut it. Perhaps it would for your child, who most likely is automatically given the benefit of the doubt. Can't take the chance with my child. And FWIW, there's quite a bit of difference between St. Albans, Sidwell, GDS and BCC.

[Anonymous]

Wow! What nastiness in the previous post! As a future BCC parent I guess I should be glad you're planning to send your child elsewhere... that sense of superiority and entitlement just reinforces my aversion to the fancy private schools.

No doubt there are differences in the curricula and resources. I sure hope there would be if you're coughing up $35-40k in tuition bills for 12 years. And at a basic level I understand why the pedigree/brand name seems so important to some people. My husband, who came to the US in his teens from a place that is the subject of considerable discrimination and worked his way thru multiple grad degrees, is also enamored of the idea that a big-ticket private school is a ticket to the permanent American elite. As the product of middle American public schools and the Ivy League, I see things very differently. But I don't feel the need to castigate others' choices and priorities, and I trust that my child will do as well as his abilities enable him to do - or even better, because he has over-educated neurotic parents! Based on my experience, that's the best guarantee for a kid's success, not the number of zeroes on the tuition check.

[Anonymous]

wait wait. I am the 13:23 poster and I think I have been misunderstood. I didn't mean to sound condescending. I really DO feel badly if your experiences as a minority parent are such that you feel this way, but I'll take your word for it. I'm not a minority parent so I really don't know (for the record, not that it should matter, but my children are biracial, so this topic is not completely foreign to me). The only "issue" I meant to take with your post is this: Assuming you are correct that minority children need to have "better" credentials to be taken seriously in life (and frankly, I'd dispute that but that's a matter for a different post -- for purposes of this post I'm assuming you're correct) -- do you really think it will matter when they're 30 where they went to high school? I hope not. To the extent that you think that the only way your child will get into Harvard/Duke is via St. Albans (as opposed to BCC) or even that you think it will give him a substantial leg up in that regard... I disagree. That is all I was trying to say in my post.

Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Not to get into politics, but a simple example would be Obama/McCain. McCain can almost brag about being at the bottom of his class in the past and knowing nothing about the economy, and he is a serious contender. No one scrutinizes him as much. If Obama were to say that he was at the bottom of his class...well, I think he would not be where he is. If he said that he knew nothing about the economy, that would be it.
I am just trying to explain pp's thinking.
I am a minority, but I am not going to kill myself over the tuition thing.

[Anonymous]

PP -- Great succinct and to-the-point example to illustrate a powerful, damaging but often subtle (well, subtle to some people) dynamic in race relations in the US today! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Very good analogy. I'm black and work in a law firm. The only black/minority candidates we will interview or hire have to have great credentials -- top law schools, grades, clerkships, law review. Not the same standard for white applicants, most of whom have great credentials, but not all -- some have gone to second or third-tier schools, but they or their parents know someone at the firm or some exception is made. This is a universal experience among all my black friends at law firms. Which is why my kid is always going to go the best school he can get into. This is nothing new. Most African American kids are told at a young age that they will often be held to a higher standard and that's just the way it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very good analogy. I'm black and work in a law firm. The only black/minority candidates we will interview or hire have to have great credentials -- top law schools, grades, clerkships, law review. Not the same standard for white applicants, most of whom have great credentials, but not all -- some have gone to second or third-tier schools, but they or their parents know someone at the firm or some exception is made. This is a universal experience among all my black friends at law firms. Which is why my kid is always going to go the best school he can get into. This is nothing new. Most African American kids are told at a young age that they will often be held to a higher standard and that's just the way it is.

This is the very reason we are sending our son to private school. I also think its slightly worse for males.

[Anonymous]

I have taught at the college level at both a large urban state university (about 1/3 minority students) and a small-town expensive liberal arts college (heavily white) It was not a top college by any means but it is considered to be somewhat respectable regionally.

At the university, I encountered a wide range of students from the most poorly prepared to the truly bright and engaged. When I moved to the college, I thought the students would overall be smarter but ONLY because they had the benefits of an upper middle/upper class upbringing.

After the first exam, I was shocked to find out that the college students' reasoning skills, while better than my worst students at the urban university, were quite mediocre. Many of these students had gone to private school and they did have a bit more polished way of writing and presentation but they hadn't learned to think any better than my working class university students.

Although I was fond of my college students, I grew angry once I realized how many advantages they had over my former university students. Just walking in the door to an employer -- the white, well-to-do college students had both the degree and the cultural background that would make them and their employer comfortable with who they are -- true insiders.

Don't get me wrong -- they were good kids. I loved them! But I recognized how much harder it would be for bright, dedicated, working class African-American students from the state university (whom I also loved) to compete with some of my white liberal arts college students -- who, when it came down to it, were not all that bright.

African-American kids -- especially males -- really do have to worry about where their degrees come from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very good analogy. I'm black and work in a law firm. The only black/minority candidates we will interview or hire have to have great credentials -- top law schools, grades, clerkships, law review. Not the same standard for white applicants, most of whom have great credentials, but not all -- some have gone to second or third-tier schools, but they or their parents know someone at the firm or some exception is made. This is a universal experience among all my black friends at law firms. Which is why my kid is always going to go the best school he can get into. This is nothing new. Most African American kids are told at a young age that they will often be held to a higher standard and that's just the way it is.

The white people you are talking about get hired not because of their color but because they come from a rich, well connected family.
White people from a low or even a middle class background need to have great credentials to get ahead in life as much as minorities.