I have 6th grade child. I am living in one of the best public school district in Westchester county, also among the best public school in the country. It is one of the best money-can-buy schools.
However, some of my friends and neighbors still chose the top private school such as Horace Mann.
I want to know what is difference between the best private and public school. We are not rich people but would like to provide the best education we can to our child.
My kid has been doing very good academically. She is A student but can not be clear No. 1 in her grade. I heard some tough competition in the top private school. I am not sure if it is worth the money to try these top private schools or stay in the current school. How much more advantage to get admitted to the best colleges for a top private school over a top public school for her situation? How can she fit into the rich kid culture of those top private schools?
If you pay for private will you still be able to fully fund college without endangering your retirement?
[Edited to add…if not then you will want to examine the college options very very closely because it isn’t like it used to be. Being a good student in a good district in a good university may not give you the aid you may want/desire/need]
Thanks for the reply. it will be very hard in our financial situation if we decide to go with the private high school. What is the benefit of staying at the top private school as being good but not top student comparing with being the top student in the public school?
Since you have top public schools go public! Don’t worry about potential class rank. Your public school could have a competitive peer group for your D. Think about academic and other offerings. In Wisconsin most of the public schools are excellent, better than privates in this state. Save your money for college. I understand many, many students attend private schools on the east coast but that doesn’t mean an equivalent education can’t be had if the public school is like yours. Totally different mind set in different areas. Wish all east coast parents would support their public schools instead of going private- then they all likely would be competitive.
"Thanks for the reply. it will be very hard in our financial situation if we decide to go with the private high school. "
If finances are a concern (and you will not be getting financial aid/scholarships to attend), there is little to recommend even a great private school over a public school.
People sometimes think that certain private schools are feeder schools to selective colleges. But, there are no feeder schools in the US any more. There may be some schools that do well in the admissions process. These schools, though, select excellent students and offer them good opportunities which the students then take advantage of. And, those students are more likely to be “connected” (i.e. legacies, development, etc.) at selective schools. Attending the school doesn’t give an arbitrary student a direct track to selective schools.
Other considerations – some excellent large public schools have many more choices than some good private schools, because they are larger and have enough students to offer a wide variety of classes and opportunities. Small private schools will sometimes have fewer opportunities to take high level classes in math and science and language (especially when the classes have prerequisites), because they simply have too few students for each class. On the other hand, some private schools will offer classes for two students.
The answer is complicated for each individual family and child; some chose private schools because they simply like the school better, and money is not a concern. It’s important not to let that selection skew choices when finances are a concern.
The main difference between the best private and best public schools in most places in the country is the number of AP classes your daughter will need to take to stay anywhere near the top of the class (top 5%, top 10%, top 25% or whatever she aims for). Public schools generally weight the GPA for AP courses, so you need those AP classes to have a high GPA. Public schools also do not usually limit the number of AP courses a student can take, except perhaps for freshmen. The top students at the public school will likely take up to six AP courses a year, and finish high school with 15 or more AP courses completed. The top students at the private school, by contrast, will probably only complete about one or two AP courses at a time, and finish high school with about six AP courses total – that is because pretty much all private schools drastically limit the number of AP courses students can take.
If your daughter wants to start college with lots of AP credits to save on tuition money or finish college in three years rather than four, then she probably wants to go the public school route and take as many APs as possible. If not, or if taking loads of AP classes would not be suitable for your daughter, then go the private school route. And double check with the target private school on the limit of how many AP classes the students can take per year and total.
The answer, of course, depends on your specific “great public school” and “great private school” and how much the cost of the private school will impact your household finances.
From reply #2, it seems like sending her to the private school would leave you no money to contribute to her college. If so, she may be substantially limited in her choices of college due to many of them being unaffordable.
If you will have trouble funding college if you have to pay for private HS…and you are in a top public school district, stay in that top public school district.
What I meant to say was the amount of private school tuition, $80-100K or whatever over 4 years, will not provide you with an equivalent bump in FA or admissions over the public school option. It might not provide ANY bump.
Knowing Westchester, the best public school, might not have the most APs because they don’t believe in them. I know people who have sent one kid to Horace Mann and one kid to our pretty good (but not top) Westchester high school. I actually think the cohort who are in the AP classes can stand up to any of the kids in the supposedly better districts, but that’s another story…
Anyway, my friend with kids in both places thought that the writing program was far better at HM. The kids write more papers, they get more comments, there’s a faster turn around. That’s a function of the smaller classes. My kids had good teachers, and they wrote enough to become good writers, with some exceptional teachers, especially in history (less so in English). We had better arts, especially in music (several orchestras and bands, mulitiple singing groups, a lively rock band scene) but also all sorts of theater, a solid AP Art Program, and dance. There’s more diversity at our school, both economically and racially (though I know the NYC area privates work hard on being reasonably diverse it is not the same.)
From what I’ve seen admissions officers know the Westchester schools and the private schools very well and know just what a 1% rank at one school means vs a 25% rank at a school with fewer stragglers. There are lots of trade-offs, but where you’ll get into college is probably not one of them.
“How can she fit into the rich kid culture of those top private schools?” If you have to ask this question, she very well may not, and then you will have a sad kid. Would she be comfortable there? Would she be happy there? Considering she has a great public school available, I see no reason to strain your family for this private school. Is she happy where she is and does she really want to leave her current group of friends? And how much extra time would she spend commuting? Could that time be better spent?
Why do some people choose these schools over excellent public options? I don’t know this school specifically but privates generally have smaller classes and more personal attention. There are also many people who simply don’t want their kids to socialize with public school kids and are willing to pay a lot of money to keep their kids away from them.
There are also folks with money, and private school may be seen as a status symbol.
There may be a difference in education as well (especially when it comes to writing), but remember that education is mostly driven by the kid and his/her family. A kid who wants to read will read. A kid who wants to write will write. And when it comes to writing, remember that if you want to write well, writing lots and critiques and all that help, but so does reading widely.
When you are choosing between two schools you really have to compare the individual schools. There are good private and public options out there so you really have to focus on the differences between the schools.
My own kids go/went to private school. I think that private schools for my kids was worth the money. However, it was not a strain for us to pay for private school. If it is a big strain on your family you really have to consider the rest of the family, not just one person. You also have to consider what it will do to your ability to pay for college.
First, let me say upfront that my own offspring went to a NYC public magnet.
There are benefits to going to a school like Horace Mann, but the benefits do not include automatic admission to a top dozen college.
Academic advantages include
*having teachers with superb academic credentials. About a third of HM faculty have PhDs in their subject areas.
smaller classes with a LOT more individual attention and at most top private schools, a LOT more emphasis on writing
course offerings few public schools offer
superb facilities--in HM's case, this is especially true in the arts.
Non-academic advantages
Prep school sports: lacrosse, water polo, fencing, squash, etc. For some kids, these are a way into top colleges.
With a much smaller student body, your child has a better chance of making the team, getting a role in a school play; getting a meaningful position on the paper, the yearbook, etc. than the same child might have at a large public school.Don't think of this in terms of getting into college. Think of it in terms of getting you child interested in something and keeping him out of trouble. I know it's not common to admit it on CC, but I think that it's really important to keep a kid busy and happy in high school.
better college advising. I'm NOT saying that attending such a school will boost your child's chances of getting into one of the top dozen or so colleges. I AM saying that someone will review your kid's college app essays, will help figure out which colleges are appropriate reach, match and safety schools.
This is strictly anecdotal but my sister’s D’s both went to the schools in the district in WC that doesn’t have AP’s anymore. The first D was basically told by guidance that since she wasn’t one of the top 10% and applying to Ivy’s to basically not waste their time. My sister already had a private college counselor but expected more from this district’s GC’s. This D was not a dummy, either. She had 1410/1600 SAT and went to Colorado College. My sister didn’t want to go through it again with her younger daughter, so sent her to boarding school in 11th grade. She still used a private counselor, but the guidance at the boarding school didn’t treat the kids not going to Ivy’s or equivalents like dirt. This D had similar SAT’s & stats and went to Kenyon.
Agree that guidance is one of the top features of a private HS. On the other hand, hiring a college counselor is a lot cheaper than several years of tuition.
As for the other stuff (which @jonri did a good job pointing out), some publics have some nice labs/facilities/etc. as well (you really need to research). Plus, some of the stuff like sports can be done via clubs outside of school. Obviously, some folks still think spending money on a private HS is worthwhile. The alumni network of some top high schools (though I’d include magnets there along with top privates) rival that of some elite private colleges. A lot of that stuff does kind of fall in to the “luxury good” category to me, though. Maybe if I had excess money, I’d consider it, but I wouldn’t jeopardize retirement or savings for it.
My answer: Don’t worry about your child getting into a "top’ college. Let her do her best, wherever she is, and let her be. Don’t choose a high school based on future college admission.
However, if the high school is expensive enough to cramp your household finances, that will likely severely limit her college choices, regardless of what level her academic and other achievements end up being.
My kids actually went both to a top (probably the top) private school in our area and to a top public school. They could write you a book about the differences, but one of them wasn’t where they went to college. The kids at the public school who were most like the kids at the private school, in terms of demographics and attitude – and there were a number of them – went to the same colleges. My older child, who changed schools in 11th grade, pretty much knew where the GCs at the private school thought she should end up and, guess what?, that’s where she went to college. (Along with five other kids out of the 24 who had been in her 4th grade classroom, believe it or not. At a college 700 miles away. There may not be any feeders anymore, but if so that’s a recent phenomenon.)
In terms of academic ability, the top kids in both schools were interchangeable. A kid who would not have been among the top 4 or 5 kids at the private school wasn’t going to be among the top 4 or 5 kids at the public school, either, although everyone at the private school would have been comfortably in the top half of the class at the public school, and most of them in the top quartile. (The public school, being somewhat rigidly tracked, without ever acknowledging it, the kids in the top quartile of its class didn’t spend much class time with poorer students, so that the academic experience was very comparable). The public school kids were much more STEM focused, and more exclusively STEM focused. They were much more diverse, in every way: race, religion, national origin, class, politics. The public school was overtly competitive (although the kids did not undermine each other at all); at the private school overt competition was declasse but covert competition was rampant. The private school was warm, family-like. It had exquisitely personal college counseling, part of the point of which was to nudge equivalent students to apply to different colleges so they weren’t competing head to head. The public school was a complex structure of interlocking cliques, each of which was tight and warm, too, and usually had some star faculty member at its core; its college counseling for top students, however, mostly consisted of students passing folklore back and forth among themselves.