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<p>With the possible exception* of the very top ones in NYC/NE and the rest of the country, not necessarily. There are plenty of average/mediocre/crappy private schools all across the USA…including at least two I know of with far weaker academic requirements than even a standard NYC public HS. I don’t know how those schools got away with requiring only two years of science…and non-lab “rocks for jocks” type science courses at that or only 3 years of English or history/government for graduation requirements. My HS classmates and I were also shocked to find a surprising number of even top private school graduates who were tops of their class who then floundered or in some cases, even ended up on academic suspension/expulsion. We made plenty of extra money tutoring such kids during our undergrad careers. </p>
<p>I’d also recommend you google “Segregation Academies” which many White southerners still popularly perceive as academically better than public schools…even when local educational statistics and many local friends’ accounts have shown that they are usually no better and sometimes, worse academically than their public counterparts. </p>
<p>In fact, my Mississippi relatives bought into that very generalization that private is always better than public school…only to find out the vast majority of their local private schools to be no better than the public academically because of the legacy mentioned in the previous paragraph. Ended up wasting the equivalent of what I paid** for 3 years at my private LAC after the near-full ride is taken into account before they wised up and sent an older cousin to a top NE boarding school and other to a better local Catholic private. </p>
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<li>Also, what constitutes “better academics” depends on a given student’s interests. For instance, my younger cousin’s private all-girls upper-east side school would have been considered worse academically by most female HS classmates because they emphasized the arts and humanities to the perceived expense of STEM fields.<br></li>
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<p>** And yes, I paid the full cost of that remainder through part-time/summer work and taking out a tiny loan as my low-income parents weren’t able to cover any of my academic expenses back then.</p>