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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I see pros/cons as follows:

- writing/critical thinking—private wins out strongly.  Teachers can only grade, edit, revise so many pages and you just lose out on numbers in public.
- math.  I thought public would win, but at least Big 3 teaches math more in depth than public which tends to move a lot faster but is more superficial.  And top privates can support fancy high level math just as well.  
- community. This is very kid/parent dependent.  Idiosyncratic kid more likely to find tribe in larger environment. Quiet kid can benefit from smaller community in private.  Some parents also really want the snooty private school vibe for their own social status.   While a downside of private, this tends to be sucky subset of climbers and not majority.  And HS parents matter a lot less since your kids have own lives. Overall, this is a wash but might weigh heavily in your own household. 
- sports / theater / clubs.  Very private/public dependent.  For athletics, big private recruit so your kid may never get playing time for baseball, basketball and definitely country club sports tennis, golf.  But, they will make the team and play JV.   Publics they won’t even make the team if not playing club/travel for big sports.
-  there’s more homework in private early on.  Public tends to more ease you in, particularly ninth grade.  Private kids at big 3 are grinding right away.  This could be a downside or upside depending on your pov.  [/quote]
I wanted to add something to my list 
- moral/ethical/religious emphasis.  This again cuts both ways.  Our family is non religious, but turns out that I am grateful for the emphasis on character and living a meaningful life at my child’s private school.  Particularly in high school, think teens are searching for some deeper truths and incorporating these big questions into everyday school life is more valuable to me than much of the academics.  [/quote]

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