FWIW, my kids went to private school up to high school, and went to public high school after that. The private school sure didn’t cost $41K a year, though.
It was a good school academically, but we pulled them out mostly because of the idea that those who went to the school were the elite. They (my kids) didn’t like how clique-ish it was, and the attitude that the public school students were inferior. And it was not my experience that the private school dealt better with kids with adjustment problems - just the opposite, in fact. Students who acted out or didn’t keep up academically tended to flunk out or leave.
Both my kids went on to college with rather marked success. (Insufferable bragging - my daughter got a 3.8 average, and my son graduated last Friday with a 4.0 average. I tend to stop random strangers on the street to mention it - consider yourself lucky that I am able to restrain myself here.)
‘Should I spend $41K to send my kids to a prep school so they can go to an Ivy League school’ is a question only you can answer. I wouldn’t, because of my financial situation (I make a good living, but come on!), my perception of the benefits to my kids, and the fact that the local high schools in my area aren’t bad.
That’s pretty much how my school (one of the top 2-3 private schools in Houston academically) worked- there was a handful (like literally 5-10 out of each class) of students who went to Ivy League schools, or Berkeley/Stanford, then the biggest chunk went to upper-tier Texas public schools(primarily Texas, Texas A&M or UH), with the next largest contingent going to private colleges like Georgetown, Notre Dame, William and Mary, Hampden-Sydney, Spring Hill, Trinity, Southwestern, etc… A very small contingent ended up going to other random schools like non-elite state universities (OU, LSU, UCLA) or service academies (West Point, Annapolis, AF Academy, Coast Guard Academy). Everyone generally speaking goes to college though; I think maybe one or two guys ended up enlisting in the military instead of going to college out of all the graduating classes during the time I was there.
My take on the OP is that he’s evaluating what’s best for his kids, not just based on what they want. But if he thinks the super expensive private school is best for them, he’ll find a way to pay for it.
I’m sure he understands that in the very unlikely event his daughter gets into Harvard (not a judgment on the daughter, just an observation of the fact that it’s unlikely for pretty much anyone to get into Harvard) he’ll have to find a way to pay for that, too.
All this talk about kids getting put down for not having a yacht or whatever is nonsense. Will that happen? Maybe, but it doesn’t mean peer pressure is going to result in the OP paying for extravagant vacations and yacht club memberships. There’s always some worse off than you and I’m sure his kids will survive even if they’re in the bottom half of their class in family income (if indeed that is the case).
I agree with this. If the public school is decent, I would need a much more compelling reason to send her to such an expensive private school. You could spend some of the money on instrument lessons or to be part of a service organization or something else that she would find worthwhile and would also sound good on college essays. And also could spend some money on PSAT and SAT preparation. That might have been the best money my parents spent, because I ended up being a National Merit Scholar and got some good scholarships through that.
And then you could put a lot more money towards her college fund. She might not thank you now, but she will definitely thank you when she graduates college and has a lot less student loans to pay then most of her friends do.
Not necessarily addressed to the OP directly. I hear this so often that I feel obliged to respond to it in general to “fight ignorance”. Sorry if I sounded scolding.
Not opinion, but cold hard facts. Unless the parent is a reclusive nut that locks up their kids the difference in socialization between home schooled and public schooled kids is such that there is certainly no deficit in the home schooled and quite often a benefit. cite
There are a ton of other cites out there but the first five pages of Google results were almost all homeschooling sites and I didn’t want to be accused of cherry picking.