NYC private school tuition now higher than HARVARD

jonri
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:15:54 +0000

First, I shall reiterate that if I had a child who couldn’t get into one of the top public high schools in NYC AND I lived in an area where my “zone” school wasn’t good, I’d pay for private school. I don’t blame parents who make that choice at all.

In fact, I don’t blame parents who spend the $ for private school. If they want to do so, that’s their privilege.

BUT, when I see messages like MCHang23’s I see red. Ever heard of Hunter College High School? Townsend Harris? These are NYC public schools which have a humanities focus. They are great schools. (Hunter ranked 26th of all schools in the nation on the Worth list of feeder schools into HYP, which is better than most NYC independent schools. This is despite the fact that there are fewer legacies and fewer recruited athletes. )

And the private school kids aren’t as competitive as the Stuy kids and are more intellectual and sincerely interested in learning? Please, you’ve spent too much time reading your private school’s propaganda.

And no drugs in the private schools? This year, two 10th graders at one of the 3 most “prestigious” girls independent schools were kicked out, reportedly for using cocaine and leaving traces of it in the restroom IN SCHOOL. (My source is the parent of a classmate.) The anorexia rate at one of the private girls’ schools is UNREAL. A few years ago, one of the local Madison Avenue stores allegedly took a videotape of girls from one of the private schools which clearly showed a group of about a half dozen of them shoplifting while wearing their school uniforms. Rather than calling the police, the store owner is said to have invited the headmistress to view the tape and said if the merchandise weren’t paid for, the film would be given to a local TV station. The reports are that it was immediately “purchased.”

And anyone who has ever looked at that abysmal series “Gossip Girls” knows EXACTLY which NYC independent school is being portrayed.

I’m not saying these problems don’t exist in NYC public schools. They definitely do. ALL I’m saying is that they exist in the private schools too.
Don’t think that by paying $30,000 a year you can buy your kid a free pass to avoid any problems. You can’t. Life doesn’t work that way.

NYC is really a unique place because it has so many outstanding public schools with selective admissions. I don’t blame any parent who chooses a private school alternative–but don’t feed me the malarkey that the choice was made because you can’t get a quality public high school education if you live in NYC. You CAN. Since MCHang23 attends Princeton, I shall prove my point by quoting an excerpt describing the feats of a recent Princeton grad who won a prestigious Marshall scholarship. The quote is from the Princeton Alumni Weekly:
“Geltzer, a New York City native, has twice received the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence and was awarded the Haarlow Prize for the Best Paper in Humanistic Studies.”
He’s a Hunter College High School grad–doesn’t seem to have been a problem for him to compete with the kids from the private schools.