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<p>EricLG, this is true. But I think many were referring to SOME private schools that have selective admissions on the academic front to be admitted. I realize that not all private schools are very selective in this regard. I also worked with a student the past two years who went to a boarding school where everyone has a learning disability. In some earlier posts, where NMF stats were shared, those private prep schools were academically selective ones.</p>
<p>The academically selective private schools do not allow disruptive or substance-using students to remain. I can assure you of that. In fact, it is quite the opposite. One false move and the student has a good chance of getting booted. They simply won’t accept the risks and are not willing to take away from the rest of the students while they deal with the “problem”. There ARE private schools who are set up to deal with severe learning differences or kids who need a “second chance”, but unless we are talking about emotional growth (therapeutic) boarding schools which cost about $70K a year, even these schools have a tolerance limit and when it is reached, out you go. </p>
<p>For this discussion I thought the comparison was between the selective privates and publics. There is a huge range of private schools. In Dallas there was even a very small “great books” school which appealed to some. There was also a school geared to Olympic level young athletes (gymnasts etc) with very compressed school hours.</p>
<p>At the selective boys’ private in Dallas that has been discussed here, a young man was expelled from middle school shortly after Columbine because he wrote a poem that mentioned guns. It was a pretty tame poem, actually, and the boy had no history of mental issues and no violent tendencies. The school simply wasn’t going to take any chances, and out he went. They can do things like that. The other boys (including my son) petitioned to save him, but it didn’t work. So- the selective private schools are hardly places to park trouble makers. I’m the parent of a very bright “trouble maker” and I assure you his antics were not tolerated.</p>
<p>I agree with MOWC. The highly selective privates are absolutely not a place to place kids who are having problems with the public schools unless those problems are along the lines of not having challenging enough work. And I have never seen exceptions made for kids with connections. The kids that were kicked out were often very well connected and even from development families for years on end. Such families, by the way, seem to understand that the rules work that way, as they continue to send their other kids to the school. It s nothing personal. </p>
<p>i\It’s not as though such schools are the best for every child or every family. Clearly, if you cannot afford it, just as it goes with colleges, it is not a wise family financial choice. But just as private, selective colleges have financial aid, so do many of these schools if you want to give them a go. The same reasons families give for so wanting the selective colleges, can hold for the high schools and even before those years, and the same drawbacks are there. I always get a kick out of people who are so gung ho about their public schools k-12 but want only private, sleep away college for their kids that magic year they graduate from high school.</p>
<p>This is some of the biggest bs I’ve ever read. With the third post about college credit, anyone who signs up for an ap exam from college board can get college credit, you don’t even need to take an ap course. I go to an NYC public school and have the same composition course. I have many friends who go to top NYC private schools, and I find them to actually be less well rounded and intelligent than my public school friends. Because of the money the parents pay, the teachers baby them through everything, and they don’t have the chance to grow as independent Learners. Once they get to college, they are lost without the umbilical cord. Public schools have even tougher qualifications fir getting in, they don’t just accept any schlub that walks in. With private school, if you have the money, you have the spot at their school. It is ridiculous how some of my private school friends thoroughly believe they are getting a better education. I guess that’s the secret of public schools- you can get a better education without the 30k tuition. Private schools are ruled by money- it is common that the students with the most “benevolent” parents have significant advantages over the students who don’t. Extra time on tests, being feared by the administration, etc. To be honest, I would not want a child of mine to grow up with NYC private school kids- they are very elitist, and there is little to no diversity. I have had the pleasure of growing up with the poorest kid to the son of a multi millionaire. These are experiences you can never have in a private school. If you continue to wish to spread the gospel of wealth, and talk about how much better private school students are, urbanbaby.com is a much better forum.
I apologize for typos, it is difficult for me to write on an iPad, and is not the product of my lowly public school education.</p>
<p>@ MomofWildChild <<<the academically=“” selective=“” private=“” schools=“” do=“” not=“” allow=“” disruptive=“” or=“” substance-using=“” students=“” to=“” remain.=“”>>></the></p>
<p>^^^My child just graduated 1 of the (considered) top 3 private high schools on the West Coast (admit rate is 1/7)–always mentioned on a top-10 list, nationally. Fully 18-20% of her class was substance-using, some with parent awareness while some parents were clueless. Did the school know? Yes, I think so, but turned a blind eye, largely (although I heard tell that someone was just expelled for drugs, in a class behind my daughter’s), partially motivated by the fear of severing relationships with some generous donors.</p>
<p>I attended a top-notch private in L.A. when it was all-girls, which is now co-ed; the school did and does have its substance-using students, everything from alcohol to “e” to cocaine and other stuff. </p>
<p>So, the notion that private schools don’t have a population of substance-using kids is erroneous. As well, I had friends who ended up at “top” boarding schools in CA, MA, NH, and CN and saw drugs like they never saw drugs before, and some kids even had their own little meth labs. Private school is definitely not exempt from substance, not by a long shot.</p>
<p>I disagree with you fully, Leahs623. I, too, know the kids of the NYC/suburbs “ivy league” and kids from the top NYC schools over a 40 year time period and do not come to that conclusion at all. First of all, the college graduation rates for these schools is phenomenal which is a direct rebuttal of what you are saying. Also the economic and ethnic diversity is far better than some school districts in the NYC suburbs. In my son’s class, 5% of the kids came from outreach programs where the kids were on full scholarship. One young man was homeless and an orphan to boot. Though there are some very wealthy and influential families represented in the school, not that many more than the scholarship kids in number. Most of the families were upper middle class that put their priority towards a top grade education in the most promising environment when choosing a school for their children. Also, you are not going to buy your way into schools like Riverdale, Horace Mann, Trinity, et al. They reject more students than they accept on a need blind basis. Not that they will meet need once you are accepted as aid and scholarship funds, though there are not 100%, but development and legacy kids are accepted pretty much the same way the top colleges treat them. I know personally such kids who were rejected from these schools because they did not have the academic stats to get accepted. </p>
<p>I also know a number of kids who do switch from the private schools to public in NYC. Friends of ours made the decision to take advantage of a spot at Stuyvesant after many years at a top Manhattan private school for financial reasons, and this does happen a number of times. </p>
<p>There are also private schools that families feel are preferable to the schools the NYC lottery gives them if the kids do not get the top choices. They are not the selective independent schools, but are less selective, less pricey choices that offer a lot of scholarship and merit awards. I have no problem with the statement that schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx School of Science have equally able students. One issue I have with those schools which families who contemplate the transfer also have are the lack of certain ECs that the privates seem to offer in quantity, quality and even push the kids to participate. My son was able to be a NY state athlete and could compete at a college level because of the excellent athletic opportunities that his private school offered that the top NYC privates simply do not have. Academics is the strong point there, and I don’t see a lot of in school programs in making the student well rounded. But the tuition money you save can buy a lot of private opportunities, which is what our friends are doing with their son. </p>
<p>A greater % of kids by far, at our very good public high school, qualify for extra test time than at my son’s private school. The school is not at all sympathetic or give any quarter for kids with any learning disabilities. You can forget getting any extra time on the ISEE if you want to get in there. It is a strong given, that the academics are rigorous and little quarter given. </p>
<p>The truth with these private schools is that they tend to be able to do much more because of their selectivity. They load the deck in their own favor with their stringent admissions standards, and can do this because there are always so many more applicants than spaces. </p>
<p>A lot of bitterness in your post, and little acknowledgement of the benefits of a system that most of us can clearly see, even as we discuss the drawbacks. The fundamental reason for my sending my kids to a private school is that I could see that they got more opportunities for high level academics, sports, music and a lot of other things as compared to their highly regarded high school. Now some kids were able to get those same goodies at their public schools, and that is a wonderful thing. I did not enjoy those years of paying that tuition and if our public school, or any public school in the area could have provided the benefits that the privates could, I would have jumped on it. But they did not. I had kids who could not get into AP programs at our county school districts, but got into them in the private schools and got all 4s and 5s on the tests. They have found and are finding college very easy compared to the rigor of their high school. My kids are about as well rounded as they come, in that they are excellent athletes, musicians and able to do high level academic work, and only the private school would let them do it all at the high school level. Can’t do it at our public. If you are in band/orchestra/drama, you can’t do a varsity sport. The private encourages doing both and all.</p>
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<p>That would be us … and I agree with this certainly appears to be a contradiction … for high school we prefer a public high school with a wide distribution of kids and for college would prefer (in some cases) a school with a concentration of high achieving kids … so why the split. Honestly, my time on CC has made me think about it … and for Mom3ToGo and I it is a matter what we believe is the best time for our kids to be grouped with such a high concentration of similarly high achieving academic students. For us there are two issues that work in opposite directions …
<p>So the question is when and how to provide both … for going from private school to highly selective college would makes exposure across the second grouping very tough. While this thread has pretty much been a love-in for prep/boarding schools from my experience I had one big concern … I attended three highly selective colleges and the odds a fellow student felt their background was superior or that they were intoloerent of other’s issues or that they were just an a**hole was much higher than among kids who attended prep/boarding schools. I didn’t say it was a ton of kids but I did say it seemed to be a much higher percentage.</p>
<p>So for Mom3ToGo we think from ages 12-18 we wanted our kids to be exposed to both the opportunity to push themselved academically and to live their daily lives with people resembling the full set of people they will live their lives with post college … and for us our public high school very near Boston provides the best environment for trying to get both. Then at 18 hopefully they are mature and grounded enough to go to a highly selective school and with better odds of coming out the other side and not being an a**hole.</p>
<p>Of course YMMV.</p>
<p>I never said there was not substance use/abuse at private schools. Of course there is. My experience with a number of schools and familiarity with many, many more is that if a kid is caught ON campus WITH drugs, out they go. Alcohol may result in suspension first, but drugs are a ticket out. You have to be caught, of course.</p>
<p>In our case we wanted our kids to be exposed to the top academics and peers who all have college aspirations from families that value education and with uniformly high standards while they were still more impressionable and when their foundation can be built. We felt that as a family, we could provide the diversity and exposure to that in other ways, whereas we wanted the academics covered as thoroughly as possible at school. </p>
<p>At age 18 and adults, they hopefully go to any college, selective or otherwise and take advantage of the academics and offerings as they were trained to do and not get distracted with other things in college life. I was hoping that the college graduation stats that their high schools had would work on our side. Now in our case, we were taking chances since our kids were not the top grade academic kids in K-12 that are at these private schools and were in the bottom half and even quarter of their class in high school. They needed every bit of positive push we could give them. And, yes, it happened with one of ours that he was able to go to a very large, public school and not get bogged down with the extras in college life to not graduate in 4 years. For a kid like he was, it was a real risk, believe me, as he was not academically wired. I think he would have been equally prepared to get though a highly selective college had he chosen to take that path and he did have that choice. In our kids’ case, they would not have had those advantages and choices from our public school. They would not have gotten into the top classes there that are gate kept (I checked), they could not get the number of ECs in terms of performing arts, and they would not have gotten the athletic opportunities. Their peers would not have been the kids who were assuming they were going to go to college as our high school is very diverse in socio economic situations and since they would not be in the classes where college is the main goal. </p>
<p>The way to get into these private schools, by the way, is the test scores. If you can train your kid to get a 9 average on the ISEE, the chances of them getting in if their grades are decent, not top grade, but decent, is pretty high, nearly certain, in fact. It’s not so much the connections as those test scores that they eyeball.</p>
<p>As for substance abuse, the studies that were done in our county showed very clearly that there are far more problems percentage wise at the public schools and specifically our public school than at the private. That is an area that I did a lot of work for about 6 years, and whatever the perception is, the facts are there. Of course, the private school would flush out anyone who was caught with any drugs or contraband in an instant whereas the public school was not only stuck with those kids but had to take the ones that the privates flushed.</p>
<p>I am beginning to feel like I am extolling the private schools, when truly, I do not feel that way. I wish that our public option were closer to what the privates could have provided with our children and am envious of those families with kids who can get such great educations from the public system. The money we spent on the privates have put us really at risk and limited our kids college choices is what it came down to. But for us when we examined this up, down and all around, and even in retrospect, it was the right choice, and bear in mind we had the choice of nearly any public school among the best in the country in the well regarded lists. It does me no pride having to say this as it was at great cost to us. </p>
<p>It is also no great salute to these privates as to how they get their results anymore than it is for the selective publics in NYC. They cherry pick the kids, and have the most able to work with and flush out any trouble rather than having to deal with it. Of course they can be better in their goals. Our public school is stuck with every single kid in the district who wants to attend. Almost impossible to get rid of them and they have to use their funds to accommodate every disability, problem, gifted kids, so the spectrum is quite wide. So I don’t give these privates any tribute whatsoever. They had better succeed with the material they have and with the ability to simply throw out any kid that doesn’t meet the mark with no reason having to be given.</p>
<p>I am not going to take extensive time replying to cptofthehouse, because he/she is just so ignorant. How are you saying that public school students are not driven to go to college? At least 3 kids out of a class of 120 get into an ivy league every year. I think you are just going hard to justify wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars on your child’s education. I do not go to a specialized high school, yet at my school we have many state ranked athletes. Students that are athletes can take drama, band, or whatever other program they may fancy. You say that 5% of your child’s high school is on scholarship from some type of outreach program. Wow, that’s great! Those 5 or 6 kids really add suitable diversity to your child’s school. I know students from elite private schools who have told me explicitly that they look down upon those who get scholarship money. And you say you provide diversity from home? What are you doing, adopting kids from different countries? Also, when did I say anything about private school graduation rates?
You say students can’t buy their way into Horace Mann, Trinity and the likes. I have babysat for many upper west side elitists who would beg to differ.
Then, you talk about how there is less substance abuse at private schools. What world are you living in? What students are openly participating in a survey claiming they do drugs? Please cite your sources, if they exist at all. I have first hand been to both public school and private school parties. Some public school kids may dabble in weed, which I’m not saying I support, but private school kids do very hardcore drugs. Every time I or friends of mine have been to private school parties, there are crazy amounts of cocaine. Many private school students have money to blow, which they are using on drugs. I don’t think your child would be the best source on the serious drug problem private schools have, being that most teenagers don’t run home to their parents and discuss the drugs they did over the weekend.
I will not be commenting on this post any more. The elitist attitude that I talked about so frequently in my first post I sense in you. I apologize for being rude, but I can’t stand how private school parents/students openly patronize public school students. That is the worst thing about going to a public school. It isn’t my “below par” education, it’s the fact that private school parents/students assume they are better than those who attend public school. It is obviously very frustrating that students working just as hard if not harder as private school students are looked down upon because their parents are not blowing $800,000 on an education they can get for free.
Lastly, what did your stereotype of a public school student cause you to believe I am? A poor hispanic living in the Bronx? If I failed to mention, I am a white female. I have a high ranking position at an established 501c3. I am a top 20 ranked golfer in New York City. My father and mother are prominent lawyers and I live in a multi million dollar Midtown Manhattan apartment. You didn’t expect that, did you? Thanks to going to a public school, I will forever be open minded. I don’t think you can relate.</p>
<p>I did not have any expectations as to who your are? Who do you think I am? You might be surprised. I don’t think you are open minded at all with your two posts here. You are making very statements that are absolutely wrong. I am giving opinion only when it comes to our personal situation but using absolute stats for everything else. If you look at the test scores of the kids at Horace Mann and other such schools, you will find very few outliers that are not from outreach programs. I know because I have seen the data. I know kids from very prominent and wealthy families who have donated historically to these schools who were not accepted, because the schools truly feel that the kid is not best served, nor the school to accept them. I know this personally. Their brothers, sisters, parents and maybe grandparents went there and they are rejected even though money is not the issue. I know at least a dozen such cases off the top of my head. The admissions at these schools is pretty danged fair from what I can see.</p>
<p>I’ll be a senior in the fall, and I’ve attended both public and private schools. It all depends on the kid, IMO. I personally loved going to public school, and I’ll be graduating from one next year. It also does depend on where you live. The private school I went to was very small. The graduating class this year was about 5 kids. Therefore, it does not prepare a child to enter the real world. A classmate of mine went to that same private school, switched to public school, & ended up graduating from NCSSM (science and math school…and very exclusive). That would be a better fit, IMO. There are also some kids that graduated from public schools heading off to very good schools (Duke, University of Chicago to name a couple). At the end of the day, getting in is one thing, staying in is another thing entirely. And either can prepare you adequately.</p>
<p>A private school with a graduating class of 5 is not exactly what we are talking about here.</p>
<p>leah-Your rudeness is not helping your case, by the way.</p>
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<p>To quote this poster, this ^ is some of the biggest bs I’ve ever read.</p>
<p>You have serious and insulting stereotypes about public vs. private. You have no idea about regional differences. (Despite your self-proclaimed wide exposure to life) The world is not The Upper East Side. Even the fifty states are not The Upper East Side. In my State, you will rarely get into a private based on money (without achievement & good behavior). If you manage to “buy” your way in, good luck if you are a discipline problem. You will be shown the door immediately if not sooner. The competition for the excellent privates is so stiff in some states whose publics are atrocious that they have several full classes of outstanding, well-behaved students ready to learn independently – just in case one spoiled brat decides to flaunt the family’s money and expel himself/herself. Very famous case locally of one such rather famous celebrity whose children were “invited” to exit, despite his mega-millions, including his recent past-and-intended donations. They have absolutely no need to tolerate self-importance, disruptive behavior, or a refusal to learn independently. </p>
<p>EricLG described well the situation which exists in my state (regardless of which one he is in), which is that generally only the privates teach high school students to think critically – with the exception of much fewer publics located in somewhere between well-to-do and fabulously well-to-do areas. There are some exceptions; they are increasingly fewer. </p>
<p>This statement was the most laughable of all:
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<p>…showing how utterly sheltered you are that you believe that private schools have no economic diversity. In my region, it is the privates that have the most economic and racial diversity. The publics are homogeneous. (But wait, I wouldn’t expect you to actually read the rest of the posts on this thread which discuss regional differences. Nah. After all, you
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<p>No. I expected more class, open-mindededness and willingness to obtain information, from someone with such a privileged background.</p>
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<p>…Whenever “forever” begins. 
(It hasn’t yet.)</p>
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<p>Well thankfully, my deserving, achieving, non-rich daughters on serious financial aid at a premium private (vs. their violent local public) will never be able to “relate” to the attitudes you exhibit here. Nor can anyone in my circle of adults relate to you. We treat each other far nicer. Hmmm.</p>
<p>I don’t think there really is a difference between the education offered at public and private high schools. I’ve attended both over my 4 years, and feel it depends on the students at school. A private school may appear to have higher test grades because it has fewer students who are generally richer and care more about schooling. These types of students are also found in public schools but it is generally the lower income students who care less about education that are bringing the school’s testing scores down. The private school’s scores are inflated because there are far less people bringing the academic scores down. If the students were switched, that is all the private schoolers went to public, and vice-versa the scoring differnce between the schools would also change.</p>
<p>tl;dr it depends on how interested you are in your education. A public school could provide just as much preperation as a private school.</p>
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<p>I don’t think you understand what a public school is, Leah.</p>
<p>PS. I’m sure all your achievements had nothing to do with your parents and your fancy Midtown apartment, right? ;)</p>
<p>This topic is amazingly polarizing. My kids came from the public high school down the street from the private catholic monster in orange county , cal. I just went to my son’s academic awards nite for seniors this week. 98/668 over a 4.0. Mit, cal tech, stanford, Cal, uc- u name it, lots of ivyes. My son had a 3.8. 8 ap’s and a 31 act. that got him 188/668. My Daughter just graduated in 3 years from UCSD with 2 minors from the same h.s. Now athletics! My kids conference has produced Mark Sanchez and Carson Palmer. The qb backing up andrew luck at Stanford is from my kids publis high school. The tennis team does not have the services of Jack Sock ( won the junior U.S. open as a 16 year old and lost in the first round of the mens open, and Mika De Costa, ranked 22 in the world) Do you really think a top public high school that offers 32 ap’s and is a brutal, competitive enviorment both academically and athletically is any match for a private “bubble school”? Good luck to all the private school kids when you hit “reality” in 10 weeks and have your coddled butts handed to you in the classroom.</p>
<p>"Hey Broadway-
“A public school could provide just as much preperation as a private school.” Spell check please. When a public school offers 32 AP courses do You think they are at a disadvantage?</p>
<p>The question the OP asked was how private high schools prepare kids better than public ones. The problem with the question is that there are many different private high school and many different public ones. And the comparisons can differ depending on which ones you have in mind. There are public high schools near me that are considered the best in the country. There are some in NYC that really operate like privates in their admissions that also have very high academic standards. Those sort of publics, and apparently your high school, Popeyoung, are better than most private schools. No question about it.</p>
<p>When you look at the top private prep schools that have many qualified applicants and are able to pick the top kids out the batch, the same way that selective colleges do, it is no surprise to see that these schools have a lot of advantages over the public schools that have to take everyone. The group they have is truly homogeneous in terms of ability, interest, goals,etc. They also can kick out anyone who does not fall in line. Those advantages allow them to focus on preparation for college, and it is no surprise that they do prepare their students well, as do the best public schools.</p>
<p>When the conversation here turned to what is better, it seems to me, that it depends on the kid. A given student could do better at a certain public or a certain private. Or it may not make one bit of difference. Some kids will excel where ever they go to school. Others will have problems anywhere. But there are kids who have some issues that are better addressed at some schools than at others. </p>
<p>Public schools that offer 32 AP courses, I would think, have a lot to offer their students. But if you have a kid who does not qualify for the AP track in that school, it isn’t going to do him/her any good. Or if the courses are not taught so that most of the kids do well on the test, it isn’t going to help either. A school with a top notch football team is great for the school spirit but if your kid really wants to play but half the kids are cut and he is not up there in ability level, it isn’t going to meet his wants. Better he go where he can play. Better the kid who is capable of AP work but cannot get into the classes at a given school, go where he can take the courses. My son at his private school played 4 years of football which he loved doing, one an award for it, contributed much to his team, and took about 6 AP courses and 2 college course which he would never have been able to do at our public school or may not at your public school. </p>
<p>One thing that bothers me is that it is not true that these top independent schools produce kids who cannot function in college. Absolutely untrue. These schools have the absolute highest college completion rate. That I know. That is one of the things for which they take pride. Once upon a time, these schools had an almost automatic pipeline to selective colleges, which is no longer the case, and the ones I know will stress to parents who say they are putting their kids in such a school to get them into top colleges, that this is not the case. What they do is prepare the kids to do college level work, and that they do well. They also get a lot of kids into the top schools, but a lot of that is due to the pre selection that their admissions procedure allows them to do and that they can kick out kids that do not do what they are supposed to do. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why anyone is taking such umbrage to these facts and making mean spirited remarks that are not true. Though the most selective schools in the country do have more public school kids than private, when you take percentages, certain private schools are way over represented statistically. There is no question that there are private prep schools whose graduates comprise a disproportionate number of students int the top colleges in this country. And they accept a lot of these kids because they do have a track record of succeeding in college.</p>
<p>But as I have repeatedly said, even such top privates are not for everyone, finances not even taken into consideration. Some kids do not do as well in that environment. It all depends on the student. </p>
<p>The initial posts on this thread did address the ways that these top privates prepare their kids for college better than the average public school. That is not to say, that there are not public schools who dont do as well, or better. But the answer was in response to the original question with proper caveats in place.</p>