<p>holocene ^^umm, precisely, the higher income students parents pay the sticker price, thus automatically get put in a different admission pool of students. I wouldn’t use the word, deserving, since I think its the wrong word for US schools, but historically that is who the schools were set up for, and currently that is still the larger population of private schools.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus - you bring up a good point about academically elite vs the socioeconomically elite. In my opinion, if people wanted only the academically elite, more schools like Thomas Jefferson in VA would open up, or NY parents would only send their kids to Stuy, Bronx Science and Bklyn Prep. I would even say (and actually do) that many of the BS that people on this forum call “the hidden gems” or some other name are academically not up to par with many good public high schools. If you think Im wrong go to a good ps teacher background and one of those gems teacher background and compare.</p>