Prep school for your child is/was it worth it?

[Zeze]

I'm talking about general private HS that are either day-school or boarding. Their tuition can be more expensive than colleges (30-50K/yr), wtf.

Growing up nearby in semi-rich MA neighborhood (my family was poor), lots of my church friends went to Central Catholic, Philips Academy, or Brooks.

I know a few that going to Prep school did nothing for them - one is a teacher in Amherst.
Also I know plenty friends that went to public and ended up going to Harvard (like my ex), or go to BC/MIT/Tufts/Brown just fine - some are doing well in Google in lower senior director roles.

Of course you want every bit of the best for your kid. But is that worth 150K per child?

Did you go to one? Did your kids go to one? Or planning on it?

 

[Red Storm]

I went to a private school, but it was the small, poor kind. We used to be in awe of all the tech and facilities that public schools had.

If I had the money, I would definitely put my kids in the best schooling I could reasonably afford. Maybe after VEN goes to Mars...

 

[IronWing]

@Zeze, I went to a private (Catholic) high school and I have five times as many posts as you. I think that says a lot about the value of a private education.

Sadly, my school was not well endowed.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I went to private school for 2 years in my life... I did probably the worst things (behavior wise) in private school vs. public heh. It was never anything my parents pushed for - it was actually me who wanted to go to private because my friend was. I honestly stopped and went back to public because my friend moved and I was tired of bullshit like bible class.

It ultimately will hold no real significance on your childs outcome. It might give you better fee-fee's thinking to yourself that it's better for them.... but in reality it's most definitely not. Maybe less of a chance of peer pressure, but it's avoidable in public as well as private depending on how much self-confidence you have. You can easily maintain a good environment for your kid by pushing them to get into AP classes and get out from classes with the dumb kids, it would have the same effects as putting them in private school.

Believe, tons of dumb bitches I'm still Facebook friends with from private school that don't exactly lead stellar lifestyles working retail and other stupid-grade jobs.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If you fail as a parent, it won't really matter how good a school you send your kids to.

If you succeed as a parent, you can send your kid to a pretty mediocre school and they'll be fine.

Does not apply to super-rich kids doing professional networking in 10th grade before they launch their startups.

 

[lxskllr]

Imo, money is better spent on elementary school. Build a foundation of excellence, and that can take them through highschool+

 

[Thebobo]

I'm talking about general private HS that are either day-school or boarding. Their tuition can be more expensive than colleges (30-50K/yr), wtf.

Growing up nearby in semi-rich MA neighborhood (my family was poor), lots of my church friends went to Central Catholic, Philips Academy, or Brooks.

I know a few that going to Prep school did nothing for them - one is a teacher in Amherst.
Also I know plenty friends that went to public and ended up going to Harvard (like my ex), or go to BC/MIT/Tufts/Brown just fine - some are doing well in Google in lower senior director roles.

Of course you want every bit of the best for your kid. But is that worth 150K per child?

Did you go to one? Did your kids go to one? Or planning on it?

Ask yourself besides the basics what do you remember from all your years of school.

Get a real world education

 

[PowerEngineer]

Well, I think that answer to that question depends quite a bit on how good your public school options are. We made the quality of public schools a top consideration when house hunting, and I suggest it may make more sense to pay more up front for a home in a good school district rather than to pay for private schooling later on. Our kids were able to attend elementary schools with accelerated learning programs and high schools with the AB program or many AP classes. Better IMHO to save your tuition money for college, which is expensive for both public and private colleges.

My two cents...

 

[Scarpozzi]

The schools can make a difference, but more importantly, the individual teachers, AND parents and peers of the student make a difference.

My high school English class ended up being a mix of kids that went to Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Emory, Dartmouth, etc....then a few state schools (including myself)... I just wasn't interested in aiming high. I wanted to enjoy my college experience and stay relatively close to family. I turned out ok, I guess. I agree that education starts early. I was identified as being "gifted" when I was in the 3rd grade... I'm not sure how/why they tagged me, but I suppose I was ahead of the other kids and got put in a special program for the next 6 years until I changed school systems going into High School.

As long as the smart kids don't get bored and are continuously challenged, they'll be alright.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Ask yourself besides the basics what do you remember from all your years of school.

Get a real world education

A "real world" education looks different depending on what you want to do.

It's easy to say in hindsight, "Hey, I don't use calculus, why did I go to that effort? That sucked." but did you know at the time that you were never going to use it?

Well, heck, maybe you did. Does everybody?

Making a one-size-fits-most educational system is not without compromises.

 

[Thebobo]

A "real world" education looks different depending on what you want to do.

It's easy to say in hindsight, "Hey, I don't use calculus, why did I go to that effort? That sucked." but did you know at the time that you were never going to use it?

Well, heck, maybe you did. Does everybody?

Making a one-size-fits-most educational system is not without compromises.

True but in the future I see no schools past middle, Learn the basics and get out there. Unless you wanted something specific. Even so you can always go back and lean. My dream education would of been with parents who were wildlife filmmakers out living in the bush or the steppes in mongolia. Or traveling all year, learning adults things. As such I was a gov agency family bratt dragged around the world until I started High School. I wish I would of appreciated it more.

 

[NetWareHead]

IMO, for the career I decided on, catholic school was a waste. I knew I liked computers and wanted to do IT even in high school. I always noticed how much our computer lab and classes sucked in comparison to the public schools. We just could not compete with a state funded school and buy and maintain cisco lab in a catholic school. My buddy got an internship with level 3 in high school and already had the beginnings of a ccna while we had outdated shit to work with. The public high school also had a great wood and metal shop along with an auto body program, mechanic shop along with other vocational programs while my catholic high school had none of that.

The quality of kids was supposed to be better and in a way that was true. We didnt have as many or really any hoodlum students. No gangs to speak of. We never had any violence or need to call police like the public high school often did. But I can promise there were plenty of white kids who were moving alot of ecstasy, weed and even some coke in the parking lot.

My dad placed alot of emphasis on religion and wanted us to grow up catholic. You do get a catholic education and if a certain theme of spirituality is important, this will be taught to the student. We did have some highly educated priests, brothers and sisters teaching the classes. We did have time for masses on specific religious holidays or days of observance. We also did have to take theology for 2 years and I thought it was interesting and gave me perspective.

If sports are your thing, some private schools have outstanding sports programs that recognize and out-compete the surrounding public high schools.

 

[Thebobo]

IMO, for the career I decided on, catholic school was a waste. I knew I liked computers and wanted to do IT even in high school. I always noticed how much our computer lab and classes sucked in comparison to the public schools. We just could not compete with a state funded school and buy and maintain cisco lab in a catholic school. My buddy got an internship with level 3 in high school and already had the beginnings of a ccna while we had outdated shit to work with. The public high school also had a great wood and metal shop along with an auto body program, mechanic shop along with other vocational programs while my catholic high school had none of that.

The quality of kids was supposed to be better and in a way that was true. We didnt have as many or really any hoodlum students. No gangs to speak of. We never had any violence or need to call police like the public high school often did. But I can promise there were plenty of white kids who were moving alot of ecstasy, weed and even some coke in the parking lot.

My dad placed alot of emphasis on religion and wanted us to grow up catholic. You do get a catholic education and if a certain theme of spirituality is important, this will be taught to the student. We did have some highly educated priests, brothers and sisters teaching the classes. We did have time for masses on specific religious holidays or days of observance. We also did have to take theology for 2 years and I thought it was interesting and gave me perspective.

If sports are your thing, some private schools have outstanding sports programs that recognize and out-compete the surrounding public high schools.

I went to a large predominantly wealthy white public high school. Only time the cops were there were to bust people for weed or streaking :O

 

[Exterous]

Depends on the schools in your area. There are great and shitty public and private schools. If its a good school with lots of academic programs, extra curriculars and reasonable class sizes public vs private doesn't matter much. In areas with shitty public schools private would be a huge benefit over public. From our experience with private school kids they tend towards slightly worse social adjustments and are more likely to have helicopter parents

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Depends on the schools in your area. There are great and shitty public and private schools. If its a good school with lots of academic programs, extra curriculars and reasonable class sizes public vs private doesn't matter much. In areas with shitty public schools private would be a huge benefit over public. From our experience with private school kids they tend towards slightly worse social adjustments and are more likely to have helicopter parents

Unless it's a terrible private school. A lot of those around, too.

 

[TXHokie]

It was worth it for elementary and part of middle school for our kids since the kids started to learn to manage their time with heavier workload and a more solid foundation. The smaller class of 12-15 kids with a teacher and an assistant meant less disruptions and more one on one and faster lessons. But around midway thru middle school, we found our local public school had way better resource and higher level of advanced math/science/languages/sports vs the smaller private school that couldn't provide all the different programs. So we took them out to public around 6-7th grade and onto high school to take advantage of the various magnet/IB programs. While we heard about other kids struggling with the advanced workload, ours seems to breeze through since they were used to the workload. So I'd say it was worth it for us.

 

[Rumpltzer]

My nephews are in private Catholic school (K-12) where there are two classrooms full of kids in each grade.

My nephews are mid-level performers in their 2nd and 5th grade classes.

My nephews are complete morons as far as I can tell.

I think that the small population is creating a small pond effect that will ultimately be detrimental to them when (if?) they choose to go to college.

But, not my kids... so I don't care.

 

[IronWing]

It was worth it for elementary and part of middle school for our kids since the kids started to learn to manage their time with heavier workload and a more solid foundation. The smaller class of 12-15 kids with a teacher and an assistant meant less disruptions and more one on one and faster lessons. But around midway thru middle school, we found our local public school had way better resource and higher level of advanced math/science/languages/sports vs the smaller private school that couldn't provide all the different programs. So we took them out to public around 6-7th grade and onto high school to take advantage of the various magnet/IB programs. While we heard about other kids struggling with the advanced workload, ours seems to breeze through since they were used to the workload. So I'd say it was worth it for us.

Yeah, the catholic high school I attended had no shop, antiquated science labs (some of the physics equipment was built in the 1890s), and all sports were pay to play with really lousy facilities.

It was hard to judge the computer lab against the public schools because they were all primitive at the time. Schools were trying to figure out what to teach wrt computers as machines schools could afford were such a new thing.

The science labs got a complete make over a few years after I graduated when a donor stepped up with a big bag of money. The high school was affiliated with a grade school and a small liberal arts college so the new labs were a shared facility among the three schools.

The school offered AP English, AP Biology, and had an agreement with the local public university that allowed students to take 2nd and 3rd semester Calculus for college credit at the university.

I agreed with the school's policy that no tuition or general donation funds would be used to support sports. Some donors gave specifically to the sports program which was fine.

 

[rh71]

Around here, the only people who go to private school are the ones who live in a town known to perform poorly. Because good performing schools means stupid high taxes by default (we pay $10k/year for school tax alone). What then doesn't make sense is, why not just buy into a good town (typically means safe too) to save the money from having to pay for private school? Who knows how people think. This whole island is corrupt & backwards - nothing makes sense.

 

[bobeedee]

Zeze, my son went to BC High, the heavy homework load really prepared him for college. The guidance department was terrible however Had a 3.8 gpa National Honors officer, community service, and on and on... Got into Fordham, Umass, Loyola, Holy Cross, did not get into BC, Georgetown, Villanova, Notre Dame, Tufts. Would send him there again if only for the workload prep for college