It also depends on what your public school options are. Where we live, the public schools have just about as many tippy top candidates as the private day or boarding schools. My son probably wouldn’t have done any better if he’d gone to the local public high school. Would he have stood out more at the local public high school if we lived in Podunksville, USA? Yes, but we don’t, so that was never part of the comparison for us. But more to the point, I totally agree with @SculptorDad that the value of attending a BS is about the educational experience, not about the college results. I would pick the experience he’s had at BS over greater certainty of “top” college results (assuming that’s even true) all day long.