I would go with where the kid gets academically challenged early and consistently. A lot of bad study habits happen when there’s no challenge and suddenly in college or late high school your kids flameout when they have to actually study for the first time.

Growth mindset is hard to teach for the really smart kids. The truly academically rigorous private schools may still be worth it, otherwise I would take a public magnet over any generic coddled private school.

With the equity movement in this country, I’m not sure fancy private school is the way to go unless you are in the donor class and have national level name recognition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our regular old public was as you described. Lots of smart kids with smart parents and Ivy degrees, including us. And we both went to public high school too. It was great until it wasn't. Depends on the kid. The academics will be generally the same, give or take a few specialized electives at either at the high school level, as will the college options for a given kid (though this may be changing for some kids with the grade inflation/TO situation these days).

We switched mostly to get away from a bad social situation, and it made all the difference. I'm not sure they would be the people they are today if they had stayed. Your environment shapes you, and the same setting does different things to different kids. Who you meet and how they treat you matters more than anything else.

So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

My kids have a lot of friends and their social situations are fine. I just wonder if we are doing them a disservice of not sending them to private. In every other aspect of our lives, we pay for the better option. I’m wondering if we could provide a better option of education.

Depends on what "better" means to you in this context.

^^ I mean this, and people responses will show you just that. To one person, lots of STEM electives is better, to another lots of kids interested in the same subject matter is better, to another having a balance of STEM and humanities is better, to another a classical education strong in all subjects across the board is better, to another its access to a certain language or the ability to take two or immersion, to another many options for electives even though your kids can only take a few is better, to another a school with only high IQ kids, while to yet another a mix of intellectual levels is better as long as it has your kid's level; or better means access to rich kids, or a more diverse class, or religious education, or the best team for your kid's sport, or sports where any kid gets to play, or the best art teachers, or the most robust theater or music program, or the best debate team and so on and so on.

You kid will be well educated anywhere; the differences are around the edges. The point is to know what you want for your kid, to know where your kid will thrive and be confident in your own choice about that. Others will always have another opinion, and try to rank schools (putting their choice on top, because to them it is -- it has what they wanted).

What is important to you?

Our DC was in MCPS magnets all the way through, applied to privates for HS but ultimately chose MCPS Blair magnet instead and is glad it shook out that way—100 other kids with same interests in magnet classes but also chance to chill with a lot of non-magnet students. DC applied to colleges this year and confident it was the right decision. One thing that bothered DC about privates was that the “cohort” of kids with similar academic interests (stem) would be so much smaller.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our regular old public was as you described. Lots of smart kids with smart parents and Ivy degrees, including us. And we both went to public high school too. It was great until it wasn't. Depends on the kid. The academics will be generally the same, give or take a few specialized electives at either at the high school level, as will the college options for a given kid (though this may be changing for some kids with the grade inflation/TO situation these days).

We switched mostly to get away from a bad social situation, and it made all the difference. I'm not sure they would be the people they are today if they had stayed. Your environment shapes you, and the same setting does different things to different kids. Who you meet and how they treat you matters more than anything else.

So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

My kids have a lot of friends and their social situations are fine. I just wonder if we are doing them a disservice of not sending them to private. In every other aspect of our lives, we pay for the better option. I’m wondering if we could provide a better option of education.

It is all relative. If you want to send your kids to private have them apply to the schools you like and get on with it. Confirmation bias is a thing. Even if your child is bullied or does poorly you’ll probably convince yourself it is better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have kids currently in the gifted program of a very well regarded public school system. The kids are smart. The parents are smart. Just in my daughter’s elementary class, there are multiple kids with parents from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc.

Impossible. Everyone from DCUM talks as if HYP legacy admits come only from private schools.

We must not be reading the same threads then.

Every college admissions thread in the DCUM private school forum deteriorates into "but everyone admitted must have a hook" whining, often followed by stalker-like details about specific students who were admitted somewhere.

My child is in the Blair magnet (math, computer science and science). Plenty of kids have joined MCPS from private to attend, if they’ve been able to get through the selection process. We looked at private and it simply doesn’t compare. No private school gives kids the same grounding in STEM or rigor. The one difference could be that privates have much more personal hello with college applications. At least that’s my sense but we’re not there yet.

OP, I don’t know where your kids are or how old they are, but it’s quite possible they are getting everything they need from school.

Can we get back to the original question?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our regular old public was as you described. Lots of smart kids with smart parents and Ivy degrees, including us. And we both went to public high school too. It was great until it wasn't. Depends on the kid. The academics will be generally the same, give or take a few specialized electives at either at the high school level, as will the college options for a given kid (though this may be changing for some kids with the grade inflation/TO situation these days).

We switched mostly to get away from a bad social situation, and it made all the difference. I'm not sure they would be the people they are today if they had stayed. Your environment shapes you, and the same setting does different things to different kids. Who you meet and how they treat you matters more than anything else.

So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

My kids have a lot of friends and their social situations are fine. I just wonder if we are doing them a disservice of not sending them to private. In every other aspect of our lives, we pay for the better option. I’m wondering if we could provide a better option of education.

Depends on what "better" means to you in this context.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have kids currently in the gifted program of a very well regarded public school system. The kids are smart. The parents are smart. Just in my daughter’s elementary class, there are multiple kids with parents from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc.

Impossible. Everyone from DCUM talks as if HYP legacy admits come only from private schools.

We must not be reading the same threads then.

Anonymous wrote:I have kids currently in the gifted program of a very well regarded public school system. The kids are smart. The parents are smart. Just in my daughter’s elementary class, there are multiple kids with parents from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc.

Impossible. Everyone from DCUM talks as if HYP legacy admits come only from private schools.

Thanks for your question. I am interested in reading the answers here.

I am actually interested in learning about both types of switches:

public magnet -> good private
good private -> public magnet

Anonymous wrote:Our regular old public was as you described. Lots of smart kids with smart parents and Ivy degrees, including us. And we both went to public high school too. It was great until it wasn't. Depends on the kid. The academics will be generally the same, give or take a few specialized electives at either at the high school level, as will the college options for a given kid (though this may be changing for some kids with the grade inflation/TO situation these days).

We switched mostly to get away from a bad social situation, and it made all the difference. I'm not sure they would be the people they are today if they had stayed. Your environment shapes you, and the same setting does different things to different kids. Who you meet and how they treat you matters more than anything else.

So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

My kids have a lot of friends and their social situations are fine. I just wonder if we are doing them a disservice of not sending them to private. In every other aspect of our lives, we pay for the better option. I’m wondering if we could provide a better option of education.

Our regular old public was as you described. Lots of smart kids with smart parents and Ivy degrees, including us. And we both went to public high school too. It was great until it wasn't. Depends on the kid. The academics will be generally the same, give or take a few specialized electives at either at the high school level, as will the college options for a given kid (though this may be changing for some kids with the grade inflation/TO situation these days).

We switched mostly to get away from a bad social situation, and it made all the difference. I'm not sure they would be the people they are today if they had stayed. Your environment shapes you, and the same setting does different things to different kids. Who you meet and how they treat you matters more than anything else.

So, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I have kids currently in the gifted program of a very well regarded public school system. The kids are smart. The parents are smart. Just in my daughter’s elementary class, there are multiple kids with parents from Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc.

Dh and I went to public school so we started our kids in public even if all our professional colleagues send their kids to private. We have a seven figure income and cost is not an issue.

Can anyone share their experience from switching from a public gifted program to private?