Reply to DH is not impressed with college admissions from the private schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Tell your DH to compare the % of students going to Ivy colleges from local private schools versus local public school.  He'll soon discover the difference. [/quote]
Don't do this, because the comparison is stupid, as PP well knows. Many kids from area publics aren't planning to go to college, or they are in that middle position between qualifying for FA (about $50k household income) and being able to pay the full $60k/year at an Ivy (none of which give merit aid). So many public school kids are not even considering Ivies, instead they are looking at state schools or 2nd-tier privates that will give them lots of merit aid. This might be a useful comparison if we could compare private school exmissions to the public school kids who can afford at least $30k/year (what the private school kids are already paying) in tuition, but we don't have that data.
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I don't think it's stupid at all.  First, just as there are many public school kids who don't consider Ivys, the same applies to many private school kids.  Second, just as there are some public school kids who might have the grades/scores to be admitted to an Ivy, but don't attend because they cannot afford it, the same applies to many private school kids.  Your points may carry more weight if comparing Bethesda private schools against public school from low-income areas.  But I suspect the public schools we're talking about here are ones in Bethesda/Chevy Chase/Potomac/McLean, so I doubt the "admitted to Ivy but couldn't afford it" story is too common.  And finally, to the extent your points have some merit, I'd consider them where the public school has only a little smaller % than the private school.  But where the private school is sending 3-4 times more students to Ivys on a % basis, your points don't account for the difference.

Also, if you look at factors not-so-easily dismissed by supposed family income -- like National Merit Semifinalist % for example -- you see the same pattern as with Ivy attendance.  The strong private schools will have 3-4 times as many Semifinalists on a % basis.  Surely even if some highly qualified public school students were admitted but chose not to attend Ivy colleges because of finances, those same students tried just as hard on the SAT and PSAT tests.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not knocking public schools; I'm a proud public school grad.  And I'm especially not knocking public schools in the DC area; they're incredibly strong.  But looking at the objective data on student success, it's inaccurate to claim the strong private schools don't have better outcomes.  If you want to argue those better outcomes are partially the result of the strongest students flocking to private schools over public schools, I'd probably agree.  It's hard to get an apples-to-apples comparison of which situation will bring out the best in any particular kid, and harder still to say by how much.  But again, saying the objective data doesn't favor the strong private schools just seems to be ostrich-like to me.[/quote]

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