Reply to Choosing public when you can afford private

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I get that OP is looking for an argument to stay public if you can afford private and this is on a public school forum, however, we did not have a good experience with MCPS and it is not a universally awesome option. You have to know your child.

We moved to Bethesda because we believed what we were told: the BEST schools. That was not our experience at all. Kids stayed in public through ES, but moved to private for MS and HS. For our kids, public was a disaster and private was excellent. Of course it’s possible for a kid to get a great education/have a great experience in mcps, but the opposite is also true. We chose to forgo elaborate bar mitzvahs, big ticket vacations, and expensive summer camp for our kids so they could continue at private and that’s a choice our family feels good about.

We have friends who stayed. Some of their kids have had what appears to be a fantastic experience at mcps, but others very clearly have not. [b]What’s interesting to me is that those who have not, twist themselves into knots trying to justify why they stayed.[/b] 
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Well aren't you smug.

Too bad your kids are so screwed up that they can't handle a good public school system and have to have their hands held in a private.  [/quote]

NP here. Maybe PP is smug, but you are clearly tightly wound.

That said, I thought I would chime in as I had one who did MCPS through middle school and one who did private all the way through.

The older one moved to private in 9th grade. He was well prepared in math, but sorely unprepared for English/writing. We all know that MCPS does a terrible job preparing our kids as writers and they suffer in college. Luckily we moved him to a private school that helped him become an excellent writer. He went to his dream college.

Younger one is in HS now, but she did private all the way through. First a small Catholic parochial and then an elite all girls HS. She is thriving. Luckily during covid, her middle school opened in September of 2020 and never closed. She didn't miss a beat. Her high school has very small classes (15-20 students) and keeps APs away from students until junior year. This keeps the stress level/competition down until they are more mature. She took many honors classes in the meantime, but by the time she graduates, she will have taken only 6 AP classes. This will still make her eligible for a T20 school as many who do the same curriculum matriculate to ivies and T20 schools. My older one had a similar experience (took 6 APs and got into a T20).

[b]DD just learned she is in Cum Laude Society (private school version of NHS, but more selective). Cum Laude means top 10% of class. For my daughter's school, that's about 10 girls. Very exclusive and she will stand out on her college apps.
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All in all, having experienced both MCPS and private schools, if I had to do it over again, I would have never enrolled my kids in MCPS. But we can easily afford private school now. That wasn't the case when my older son was in elementary school, which is why we did MCPS initially. So we didn't break the bank...we did what we could afford. Luckily MCPS was a bit better when my son attended...it has deteriorated since then.

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Yea, you're the one blathering on and on on another thread about this society which is so "exclusive" that it has chapters in Ohio, Tennessee and New Jersey public high schools and a bunch of little Christian privates who nobody's ever heard of.  So good for you.

We don't "all" think that writing skills aren't adequately taught at MCPS either.  You don't speak for "all" of us.

And plenty of kids are getting into top colleges from MCPS without throwing their money away on privates and thinking they're better than everybody else.

Again, if your kids need their hands held that much it's not the school system's fault.  Some kids are just of hardier stock than others.  Maybe it's the parenting.  Who knows.[/quote]

Wait, what public schools are members of Cum Laude? I think none..certainly none from New Jersey. The most elite private schools are members. Take a look if you are interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cum_Laude_Society_chapters
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Look more closely at your list, my friend.  Cherry Hill East High School, the 77th best PUBLIC high school in New Jersey, is on the list.[/quote]

An anomaly. Seems like a pretty exclusive list to me!
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Yea, you're right.  Anderson High School is the 12th best public school in the Cincinnati area, Byram Hills the 38th best public in the NYC Metro, and Collierville is the fourth best public school in Memphis.  My bad. [/quote]

Do we even know if this list is legit? The cum laude website doesn’t list its chapters so there is no way to know if this is accurate. Around here there seems to be only high performing private schools. [/quote]

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