I’m PP - for the record, I’d LOVE to be able to send my child to public school. If I had no choice financially then yes, they’d be in public but because I can choose and I know the state of our schools, I choose and pay for private.

Our public schools, of which I am a product of and they weren’t great then but at least they had budget for things they don’t now (not DC) are not great. Elementary schools, if you live in a very nice area (and paying the mortgage to do so) you can find good options. Middle schools mostly are all terrible and high schools depend on where you live much like elementary’s except there are less good high school options even in nice areas.

That’s why we chose private. Smaller class size, budget for every type of opportunity for every student, extra curricular’s etc. I didn’t go into private in Kindergarten thinking my child would get into Yale because of it. As many posters have said, that’s shortsighted and a set up for immense disappointment.

Anonymous wrote:I’m an immigrant and speak English as my second language. My parents sacrificed and managed to send me to an elite all-boys Catholic school. I can only speak for myself, but it was a transformational experience for me. Not only did it provide me with an amazing high school education, it opened up a world to me that would have not otherwise been available had I gone elsewhere. Today, 35 years later, my high school friends are still my best friends. We socialize together, do business together, etc. I am fortunate to be part of such a special community. My son will enter as a freshman in the Fall. He’s so excited to experience what I did growing up. I’m so happy for him.

I relate to this. My parents are first-generation immigrants. They gave me a similar education, and I felt similarly rewarded from that experience. No question I will do everything I can to give that to my kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t send my kids to private school to get into the best college. I want them to enjoy learning, know how to write and analyze, gain exposure and experience with a broad curriculum of subjects, and go to school in a culture where kids and families prioritize education and learning.

My husband and I grew up in two different worlds. He went to private school and I went to public school. He was an average student in high school, I did very well. We both went to a big 10 university. Despite the fact that we went to the same college, we did not have the same experience or career outcomes. His knowledge of the world and how to navigate it far exceeded mine and pretty much any person we know that went to public school. He is now the successful CEO of his own company. I went on to get another degree and still don’t have his level of connections and knowledge. I attribute much of his success to the lifelong educational experiences and culture he grew up in.

I could have written this except I'm the one with the private school education and my husband is public. He has commented before on the educational experiences I had and the culture I grew up in (not solely related to my family, as they were first-generational wealth) and that made his want to send our kids to private school as well. I'm not smarter than him - our IQs are actually about the same - but our experiences were vastly different. And having the ability to choose for our kids, we chose the path I had gone down, rather than the path he had. And for what it's worth, he went to public in MD's top public schools, so he wasn't in some poor, rural county somewhere.

Neither you nor the PP have yet to listed what “educational experiences and culture” was experienced that so greatly improved your (or her husband’s) understanding of the world, beyond the connections you noted. Your answer may actually help the OP, answer the original question.

NP but just very curious if anyone can explain this too.

Anonymous wrote:Only focusing on teens in the top 5 or 10% of the public school is a cope by public school families. Look at average students at your local public and the average at the private, examine that gap. Poke around Facebook for the Class of 2015 and see that outcome gap. Average students influence the overall ethos of the school. What are you going to do if an average or God forbid a below average delinquent at a public sinks his claws into your daughter. Or below par girls coerce your daughter into becoming underachieving degenerates like them. By the time it happens it's too late for a school change to modify her personality and friend group. Kids are baked in the cake past a certain age and with technology, those bad apples aren't going to leave her alone just because she changed schools.

Nice that you have come out and said it. A private school gets your child around a select peer group. Not a worry for a balanced, confident child, but definately a concern with a mixed up 13 year old. The bad kids at a private school are not the same as the bad kids in public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have struggled with this. My kid was waitlisted this year at several privates. Got into their first choice, but out (the parents) second. We had our hearts set on one if the more elite schools were they were waitlisted.

My question is the elite privates are supposed to give you a to the Ivies and best colleges. But does where your kid goes to school really matter?? And why? Seems to me that if you have a bright innovative kid that they will succeed in life regardless of where they go to college?

Why the stress? Why the expense? Looking for real world examples.

Connections. Networking. My husband went to one of the privates in the area and he keeps in touch with a group of guys he went to school with. He goes to some of the alumni events which feature people like Supreme Court justices, corporate leaders, etc. One of those guys gave me a job sight unseen when we moved to the area years ago and I was job-hunting. It wasn't a forever job, but I had a paycheck.

Husband is happy at his current job, but will likely leverage those connections in a few years to make a move into a different field.

Also, he has those friendships. The guys get together for a trip every year or so.

This is insane. I get together with my friends from high school for a trip every year or so too. What does this have to do with anything?

What you are describing seems to boil down to the idea that people who could afford private school growing up (and their spouses) are a superior caste and deserve preferential treatment from one another in adult life. Ick.

Other terms that come to mind are clannishness and opportunity hoarding.

If you don't see what's wrong with this, I highly, highly recommend taking a look at this book, which is great.

https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Hoarders-American-Leaving-Everyone/dp/081572912X

I'm just telling you my perspective coming from a public HS, university, and professional school in the south where I had no exposure to the above atmosphere until I married into it. I certainly don't think the people I am describing are superior, but I assure you they exist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t send my kids to private school to get into the best college. I want them to enjoy learning, know how to write and analyze, gain exposure and experience with a broad curriculum of subjects, and go to school in a culture where kids and families prioritize education and learning.

My husband and I grew up in two different worlds. He went to private school and I went to public school. He was an average student in high school, I did very well. We both went to a big 10 university. Despite the fact that we went to the same college, we did not have the same experience or career outcomes. His knowledge of the world and how to navigate it far exceeded mine and pretty much any person we know that went to public school. He is now the successful CEO of his own company. I went on to get another degree and still don’t have his level of connections and knowledge. I attribute much of his success to the lifelong educational experiences and culture he grew up in.

I could have written this except I'm the one with the private school education and my husband is public. He has commented before on the educational experiences I had and the culture I grew up in (not solely related to my family, as they were first-generational wealth) and that made his want to send our kids to private school as well. I'm not smarter than him - our IQs are actually about the same - but our experiences were vastly different. And having the ability to choose for our kids, we chose the path I had gone down, rather than the path he had. And for what it's worth, he went to public in MD's top public schools, so he wasn't in some poor, rural county somewhere.

Why did you marry down? Did private school not teach you anything?

PP is an insecure troll and has written this same crap hundreds if not thousands of times on a private school forum.

Only focusing on teens in the top 5 or 10% of the public school is a cope by public school families. Look at average students at your local public and the average at the private, examine that gap. Poke around Facebook for the Class of 2015 and see that outcome gap. Average students influence the overall ethos of the school. What are you going to do if an average or God forbid a below average delinquent at a public sinks his claws into your daughter. Or below par girls coerce your daughter into becoming underachieving degenerates like them. By the time it happens it's too late for a school change to modify her personality and friend group. Kids are baked in the cake past a certain age and with technology, those bad apples aren't going to leave her alone just because she changed schools.

On DCUM 👀

The lines are blurred, and not too many of us worry about an elitist narrative anymore. You choose what's best for your child, which sometimes means a private i because the alternatives can't provide what your child needs.

DS is a senior at a NY public school. It's not on anyone's radar. I tentatively chose public because at the time I was the primary caregiver for my parents. I essentially financed their life of dignity and independence until the end. I had the foresight to know back then that their needs would be a financial burden, especially at the end with round the clock caregivers. Our public HS was good enough, but great teachers. I had my doubts on occasion.

Fast forward - My parents have passed away. It was a financial hit as I expected. Not only am I at peace that I could care for them, but I'm so happy that I can afford to send DS to the private college he chooses. He did not apply to any of our state schools or other publics.

The outcomes so far for 200 seniors (that I know of): 2 Cornell, 1 Dartmouth, 1 Hopkins, 1 Penn, 1 GA Tech, 2 Skidmore, 1 Fordham, 2 Tulane, 1 UVA, 1 Yale, 1 Williams, 1 Northeastern, plus 2 seniors recruited with full scholarships and 2 juniors recruited with full scholarships for 2022 admit. Didn't even know this was a thing!

.

For us it was a choice of an overcrowded public school with falling test scores or a private school with excellent academics and smaller class sizes, and we could afford it. Sometimes it's just that simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t send my kids to private school to get into the best college. I want them to enjoy learning, know how to write and analyze, gain exposure and experience with a broad curriculum of subjects, and go to school in a culture where kids and families prioritize education and learning.

My husband and I grew up in two different worlds. He went to private school and I went to public school. He was an average student in high school, I did very well. We both went to a big 10 university. Despite the fact that we went to the same college, we did not have the same experience or career outcomes. His knowledge of the world and how to navigate it far exceeded mine and pretty much any person we know that went to public school. He is now the successful CEO of his own company. I went on to get another degree and still don’t have his level of connections and knowledge. I attribute much of his success to the lifelong educational experiences and culture he grew up in.

I could have written this except I'm the one with the private school education and my husband is public. He has commented before on the educational experiences I had and the culture I grew up in (not solely related to my family, as they were first-generational wealth) and that made his want to send our kids to private school as well. I'm not smarter than him - our IQs are actually about the same - but our experiences were vastly different. And having the ability to choose for our kids, we chose the path I had gone down, rather than the path he had. And for what it's worth, he went to public in MD's top public schools, so he wasn't in some poor, rural county somewhere.

Why did you marry down? Did private school not teach you anything?

That is correct. For so called "elite" professions, it's the graduate degree that matters, not some BA degree that everybody has.

And undergraduates go on to excellent graduate schools as long as they get good GPAs and do well in the graduate school admissions tests (GREs, LSATs, MCATs, etc).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's about fit and your child's needs, not about outcomes. If you're interested in Sidwell because of college admissions, you're not choosing a school for the right reasons.

Why is this such a bad thing? Don't we all want our kids to go to the best colleges?

We all know the name on your degree matters to getting into the most elite professions.

It is what it is, why can't we just acknowledge that?

I say this as someone who had a dc in private as the large area high school was not for them. Quite a few students from the big public high school have gone to elite colleges and universities. Choose private for many reasons but not simply for a “ best college” or elite profession. Also, for most “ elite” professions, I have found it is the graduate school which really matters.

Anonymous wrote:I think much of what ultimately influences what our experience in life is depends on what social class we were born into. I'm not saying this as a good thing, just an observation. There is not that big of a difference between someone whose family has a lot of money, has traveled extensively, etc, who goes to BCC and someone whose family has a lot of money and who goes to GDS. If at the same college they will both seem more cultured than a student whose family doesn't have a lot of money regardless of whether that other student went to private or public.

I don't know, I do think part of what you're saying makes sense, but having witnessed public and private school kids from the same neighborhood (literally the same street, so same SES or as close as you're going to get) act differently in public settings. Notably, one situation was in a coffee shop like place where high school kids routinely stopped for breakfast before school. I was also there often because it was close to my kids' school. The owner and other guests commented multiple times that the behavior of the two groups of students was vastly different yet they were all from the same area and I noticed the cars that many of the public school kids drove were vastly nicer than those of the private school kids, so I don't think it's totally a class thing.