Reply to If you are wealthy would you send your kids to a W school over private?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think there's something to be said about class size in high school. If the graduating class is 500 kids, and 80% of them are taking at least 1 AP class, well, in fact there may be more rigour and competition in a public than some privates. I'd certainly expect that at Whitman or Wooton. My understanding is most of the graduating class sizes at large privates is far less than that.

With that being said, paying for private education at the secondary level is similar to the rationale of paying for Ivy's when a good state public might offer very similar courses/standards - you are not paying for the courses, curriculum, or teachers - you are paying for connections and alumni networks.

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Not more rigor. More competition, maybe, but only because each kid is competing against more kids.[/quote]

Yes!  and more competition is not necessarily better; it’s just more.  At many of the privates each kid gets to stand out at what they are good at.  If there are 50 kids just like them they don’t get the same confidence boost.  Confidence is a huge part of success IRL.  Look at all the insecure parents on this board, for example, insulting random strangers on an anonymous forum to ‘prove’ whatever.  It’s nuts.  Top kids will be top kids in both places.

Extreme competition is something I see as a real negative in our society and culture.  So many people grow up with a “win at all costs” attitude.  You can see it in sports, academics, pretty much everywhere.  It leads to adults with mental health problems, insecurity, obesity, anxiety, social issues - these are the things that really hold people back, not necessarily the slight edge a public vs private school can have academically.  [/quote]

Someone saying "top kids will be top kids," then decrying competition, lol. Not to mention a list of "mental health problems, insecurity, obesity, anxiety, social issues." One of these things is not like the others.[/quote]

You completely misunderstood that post.[/quote]

Frankly, what needs to happen is the top colleges and universities need to open up their enrollment levels to match the growth in population in this country. I tend to agree with the implications of Raj Chetty's recent study. The SAT and ACT may be flawed but they're the least flawed of the measurements of student success (and they do measure intelligence despite what many people think) and I think it would be best if colleges based their decisions largely on those. One alternative would be to have an entrance exam the way Oxford and Cambridge do.

Grades have too much variance across schools. Extracurriculars favor the affluent. So do essays. All of these can be gamed in this ceaseless competition and arms race to distinguish oneself for a few privileged spots at certain universities and colleges. Everything but standardized tests and entrance exams favors private schools. Do I think any of this will happen? Nope. Same as it ever was. [/quote]

Standardized tests and entrance exams favor students who are good at standardized tests and entrance exams, which is a skill, but not an inherently useful or valuable one.[/quote]

Also, PP is exceptionally naive to cite Oxford and Cambridge as examples, as they are more insular than any US universities.[/quote]

In some ways perhaps, but Oxford and Cambridge don’t have 30 pct legacy admits as part of their incoming classes the way Harvard does.  They don’t allow legacies at all. [/quote]

Why isn't the idea of an entrance exam a reasonable one?[/quote]

What information do you think the results of the entrance exam would provide about the person who took the exam?[/quote]

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