If money is no concern, it’s best is to find the right match for the kid. If you have a kid who is really into Theater or sports, they might be better off going to a public high school where the theater program is the best or the sports teams are more competitive. If you have a kid who wants to do drug design, you send them to Nueva. If you have a kid who wants a top-notch computer science program, send them to Harker. If you have a math genius, send them to Proof School. If you have a kid who wants to get their associates degree by the time they graduate high school and then transfer to certain UC’s, send them to public and then Middle college.
PS: Downside is harder to get into UCs if you’d otherwise be in the top 5% of the public.
Private school kids are at a disadvantage to get into UC?
Most kids at private schools can’t get into top 10 or even top 20 colleges. If they can’t get into UC, what other comparable colleges can they choose from?
I think stress level at private school might be better at private school because of less problem kids and more teachers to help. For the same kid, a private school education may help them learn more academically and build better alumni connections.
There are two problems. The first is fitting into the mold of the UC application. Kids who are highly accelerated may not be able to fit the application. For example, UC application wants high school Geometry to be taken 7th grade or after, so a kid who took it in 6th has more difficulty satisfying the U-C reqs.
Second is simply that you have that 5% guarantee for public. Maybe that’s not really a big deal if the other 95% are admitted from privates. I just don’t know how that would play out.
Connections will certainly be better at a private, but how many people retain those connections? The biggest question is whether it’s easier to get into Ivy league/top tier colleges from a private than from a public. Evidence that I have says that this is most likely, but I can’t tell how much of that is just that privates have better academics vs. colleges focussing on admitting from privates more than publics.
Many super high end families at Menlo can get their kids into Ivy using their legacy or money. Not sure how much it can help a regular kid from a regular family.
Also top high schools are actually hard to get into. If you go to a second tier private, the admission stats might be similar to above average public high schools
You have to really be careful not to lump all privates together. There are some privates in the Bay Area that offer multiple years of classes at the college level. You simply cannot get that kind of an education at the public schools without having to either travel to a nearby college campus (which in mid-pen is SJ or SF), or getting online classes which make lab and group work harder.
Places like Menlo and Sacred Heart do not offer more classes than Gunn or Paly or even Woodside High School. But Nueva/Harker/Proof School have multiple years of college level classes available to high schoolers (and in some cases middle schoolers). These are two very different categories of private.
You hang out with Atherton elite? I don’t honestly know.
I know people who moved from Sacred Heart to Nueva though because the program was too easy for their kid. After that I stopped wondering if I should have sent my kid there.
True that Gunn and Paly are pressure cookers. M/A though is probably not that bad, and probably as good as Sacred Heart.
PS: The private schools are smaller? For some kids, that’s important.
By the way, isn’t Saint Ignatius better than Sacred Heart??? I had a very pretty female staffer who went there (SI) after it changed from the all boys format. Def was a rich kid…
John and Sally have a son and a daughter who are both wicked smaht. Let’s say they both want to be in Tech later in life.
The son goes to one of the top-tier private schools starting in 6th grade. He will most likely get into a top-tier college because he’s done college level classes starting in 9th grade. Cost for these schools is $40-50K/yr=$440K-$550K. He goes on to work for Google. He makes tons of money. After 4-5 years at Google, how much does where he went to college matter? How much does the tuition matter?
The daughter has a choice–go to the same top-tier private school and end up in Calculus in 9th with college level math after, or stay at the local public GATE program which isn’t as good where she’ll finish Calculus by 11th or 12th grade because the publics don’t like to accelerate kids. One way she’s as competitive for college as her brother, and the other way she isn’t. She wants to take time off when she has kids, maybe 5 years. When she goes back to work after that break, how much does it matter what college she went to?
Would you send a girl to a private over a boy simply so that it’s easier to get a job later in life after taking a break for parenthood?
Sacred Heart is in Atherton, and definitely pulls from the mid-peninsula moneyed crowd. Like all private schools, there will be kids who go there on a scholarship.
It’s not all that Catholic though. So I’d consider it just a regular private like Menlo.
No idea how much the admissions differ between the two.
I don’t know. I’ve heard St. Ignatius is on par with Bellarmine. I don’t know how Bellarmine compares to Sacred Heart. I think Bellarmine admits a bit more of a low-income crowd, but my understanding is that the top-level education is like Sacred Heart/Gunn. They might all be same level, but Bellarmine is cheaper. Only reason I’ve heard to send kids to Sacred Heart instead is that A) Bellarmine is boys only and B) they don’t want the commute to either SJ or SF.
