Anonymous
Post 01/15/2026 15:46     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
On average, private school children are exponentially better communicators. But I do love when you get phonies who live in districts requiring a 1 million dollar house or send their kids to hyper selective "publics" like TJ and Walls and wax on about how amazing public schools are. lol
Anonymous
Post 01/14/2026 07:33     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
I’m sure it depends a lot on which schools. My sister’s kids attend a politically conservative Catholic school (out of state) by design. She and my BIL don’t want their kids being influenced by liberal thinking whatsoever. Their zoned publics are already white/wealthy/GS 10’s but that wasn’t good enough.
Anonymous
Post 01/14/2026 06:57     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Given that everyone has different and conflicting opinions, the logical conclusion is no, it doesn't. It depends on your own emotional quotient.
Anonymous
Post 01/14/2026 05:50     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:Just look at any given club soccer team, the kids in small privates are less social with the entire team. The kids open to bonding with others are often diverse public school goers. I have seen that and adult versions of that looking at college interns. Deny it all you want but it happens and it does not negate the positives of private so don't be upset or call it cope when drawbacks exist. Get out in the world and notice things.


This is so interesting to me as we just started club soccer this year. There are 2-3 private school kids on the team and the rest are public school kids. The private school kids are so mean and insular. 2 of them in particular talk back to the coach and mock the others and tell them what to do. Definitely act superior and aren’t interested in bonding with the others. The others that go to various publics all became good friends with each other.
Anonymous
Post 01/14/2026 02:46     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It did make it easier for me to deal with different people. But also made it harder for me to launch my career as I wasn’t as polished as people that went to private schools. I am doing exceptionally well now but I am in my 50s.

FWIW - I went to an Ivy League school. I send my kids to private as I don’t want them to have to battle as hard as I did.


I cam from a LMC background and definitely was a square peg at the Ivy I attended. I get along with anyone and can make small talk about anything (well except sports because unless you follow it closely you quickly get left behind), but hardscrabble roots and ignorance definitely hurt me in my career progress.

That said a DC high performing public and private school are largely indistinguishable for your kids; its pretty unlikely they will be hanging out with the kids smoking under the bleachers.



As LMC I was taught hard work and skills matter until corporate American taught me otherwise. I think that perspective is what holds back most people in their careers.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 20:56     Subject: Re:Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
I think the confidence that came from going to private schools has helped me get along with people from all types of backgrounds. That and working overseas.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 17:08     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Going K-12 and being in Girl Scouts in public schools in a small city was valuable, looking back, in that I met, studied, played, camped with people whose parents had varied incomes and educations, as well as jobs. My classmates were academically oriented and college bound, as well as not and studying Bride Magazine in study hall, or planning to work as mechanics or fishermen.
In my career, I also had to work with and be friendly with people who were technical, non technical, technicians, managers, engineers, programmers, lobbyists, songwriters, artists, scientists, lawyers, politicians...
I think it helped.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 17:07     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Curious to see if people feel it did.


It's a cope public schoolers tell themselves. Total nonsense. And frankly, who the heck even cares about "easily working with people from different backgrounds"? What does that even mean? Nearly all white collar professionals have a very narrow social orbit.


Once you go to college, when are you really interacting with people from wildly different walks of life? You live and work largely with college educated professionals.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 17:02     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:It did make it easier for me to deal with different people. But also made it harder for me to launch my career as I wasn’t as polished as people that went to private schools. I am doing exceptionally well now but I am in my 50s.

FWIW - I went to an Ivy League school. I send my kids to private as I don’t want them to have to battle as hard as I did.


I cam from a LMC background and definitely was a square peg at the Ivy I attended. I get along with anyone and can make small talk about anything (well except sports because unless you follow it closely you quickly get left behind), but hardscrabble roots and ignorance definitely hurt me in my career progress.

That said a DC high performing public and private school are largely indistinguishable for your kids; its pretty unlikely they will be hanging out with the kids smoking under the bleachers.

Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 16:58     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:People who assume urban schools will make it easier for you to work more easily with a range of people ignore most urban schools are not really diverse places. They are filled with poorer kids who have very little exposure to genuine socio economic diversity. Your average suburban high school will have greater diversity.

But in terms of really intermingling all classes, nothing can beat a small town high school where all kids go to the same one high school, whether the doctors' kids or trailer park kids.

As for the thread topic, there are too many nuances to public and private schools. Your typical urban school is as much a bubble as a rich private school, just in a different way.


Nah, small towns don't prepare you for the big city.


You can say the same about big cities failing to teach people how to cope in different environments.

dp but most jobs are not in rural areas; they are in cities.


But in cities the doctors' kids and the public housing kids don't attend the same schools. Lots of jobs just means there's enough people to be broken up into different SES communities.


This isn’t always the case - look at schools like Thomson when my DD attended it was a mixed income class each year end to end. Multiple income levels, multiple languages, it ran the gamut.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 15:41     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think it depends if people grew up in a city or suburb...not private vs. public. Example...an inner city Catholic School is going to be much more diverse than many suburban public school.


Exactly. My DS went to a public elementary in MoCo before he switched to private and everyone was middle to upper class and mostly white. just like his private school.


Yup! People often pat themselves on the back for going to public schools...out in Lilly white suburbs.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 15:23     Subject: Re:Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
It probably depends on where you grew up. I grew up in a city in the southeast that used bussing in the public school system as an attempt at racial integration starting in the 70s. I attended my neighborhood public school for K-5 which was mostly white, middle class, protestant families like my own. I then went to a historically black middle school, and then a magnet HS, which also had a lot more diversity. Had I attended neighborhood schools for k-12 in a nearby county that did not have bussing, I think the outcome would have been similar to attending private schools, WRT exposure to different people.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 15:13     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Just look at any given club soccer team, the kids in small privates are less social with the entire team. The kids open to bonding with others are often diverse public school goers. I have seen that and adult versions of that looking at college interns. Deny it all you want but it happens and it does not negate the positives of private so don't be upset or call it cope when drawbacks exist. Get out in the world and notice things.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 15:13     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:I don’t think one can really know this because one doesn’t know what it would be like to grow up in a private.

That said, I went to a private school until I was in sixth grade. I entered public school at seventh grade and it was a whole other world. was definitely sheltered in private school. I can’t imagine being that sheltered until college or after.


Same. I went from a small Christian school where there were 12 kids in my combined 5/6th grade class to the public grade 7-9 junior high in a very economically diverse town in a border state. I think I'm still socially stunted from the Christian school.
Anonymous
Post 01/13/2026 15:10     Subject: Did going to public school allow you to more easily work with people from different backgrounds?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:People who assume urban schools will make it easier for you to work more easily with a range of people ignore most urban schools are not really diverse places. They are filled with poorer kids who have very little exposure to genuine socio economic diversity. Your average suburban high school will have greater diversity.

But in terms of really intermingling all classes, nothing can beat a small town high school where all kids go to the same one high school, whether the doctors' kids or trailer park kids.

As for the thread topic, there are too many nuances to public and private schools. Your typical urban school is as much a bubble as a rich private school, just in a different way.


Nah, small towns don't prepare you for the big city.


You can say the same about big cities failing to teach people how to cope in different environments.

dp but most jobs are not in rural areas; they are in cities.


But in cities the doctors' kids and the public housing kids don't attend the same schools. Lots of jobs just means there's enough people to be broken up into different SES communities.