Why private school?

Half the kids in private schools would never get in. And what do you do about K-8?

Putting the qualifications aside. If you are rich, top private schools definitely offer better education than public magnet school with small class size and individual attention and extracurricular activities

Of course, for most middle class parents who have problems in saving money for college, free public magnet school is a much better choice.

Are there selective public K-8 schools?

Also, many neighborhood schools in Manhattan appear to be well-ranked. Are they really not good enough?

For example:
https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/2227-Ps-59-Beekman-Hill-International/
https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/18125-River-School-The/
https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/14158-Peck-Slip-School-The/

Private schools seem to have SAT scores similar or higher to those at public magnets. Why wouldn't those same kids get into the magnets?

Actually, those were all elementary. Seems like midtown east does not have any middle schools, but with a bit of a commute, I suspect one could find a decent one.

Private schools parents spend a lot of money coaching for SAT pushing the average up and they weed out underperformers in some cases as in Trinity and take the top performing students from public schools in 9th grade.

Why not spend coaching $$$ earlier to get into a magnet? I feel like admissions to magnets is not the full story..

How do magnet public vs private HS students fare in college admissions?

If you send your kids to private, you can humble brag about how much your kids schooling costs you.

It's a luxury good, it doesn't have to make sense.

My previous comments are on the high schools only.

For K-8, the difference between top free magnet (G&T) and top private school is not as much, though the top private school is till a little bit better if money is not a issue (upper middle class or the very rich).

Top private high school fares better than top public schools, possibly due to the reasons I mentioned previously (small class size and individual attention and extracurricular activities). The private schools know to play the game into top colleges and also that top private high school have parents with the legacy priority or other things that they get a leg-up for college admission.

Private school parents (and some public school parents) of course coach for SAT. If they want, they don't have problem coaching to get to top magnet public school. Some of the upper middle class parents just do that, but not the very rich parents.

Compared with the top private college costs (about $300-400K with no financial aid), the cost of all of the coaching (SAT or getting into op magnet public school) is nothing.

> Are there selective public K-8 schools?

There are the G&T programs and the screened programs that requires good grades to get in.

It is indeed a luxury good made highly desirable by iffy quality of public schools in NYC. Is the education in private uniformly better? No. There are many also ran private schools.

But top private in NYC on an AVERAGE will beat out in combined (education, soft thinking, political/people) skills NYC top public high school any time. And if the kid is bright, they will do well public or private. Not so bright may do better in private as they need additional help. That is just my opinion. Not every one agrees. There are plenty of rich parents sending their kids to public schools.

I know many NYC public schools are iffy quality on average, but I just assume the people who could afford private school are also the people that would have the option of going to the good ones.

How do privates play the admissions game better than public? I am wondering if it is a matter of size? If a graduating class is larger (publics are typically larger), does it disadvantage the kids than now have to compete with hundreds of students for class rank? Do colleges limit the number of admits per HS?

>If you send your kids to private, you can humble brag about how much your kids schooling costs you.
It's a luxury good, it doesn't have to make sense.

LOL! That's what I thought!

Regarding public school gifted and talented, the kindergarten admission is based on recommendation of the pre-K teacher. As such, too many kids are recommended and it essentially becomes a lottery to get into G&T. Additionally, non-G&T schools are admission based with a priority on school zone. This means that even if you live at 80th and Park you aren't guaranteed to get your kids into PS6. I think this influences some city parents who view the public school placements as unreliable.

approx 25,000 kids take the SHSAT (the test that determines placement into NY specialized high schools) and ~5,000 get placements. For the other 20,000, if parents show up with $60K and a smile, there's a private school *somewhere* for them.

So public magnets are the top choice for most, and private schools are the second best option for those that did not get in?

These discussions seem to always be missing a critical component that everyone leaves unspoken: what is your goal? How can someone opine on the best choice if they don’t know your goal and simply use their own unspoken goal, which may be totally different, as a proxy?

Krolic,

I don't think a big percentage of people in NYC get to make that choice due to the cost of private school which goes beyond $60k + annual donation plus + "in-school after hour activities" ($60k is really $75k).

Then on the other end, NYC has so many wealthy people that a large percentage of them do not even consider public schools. But there are certainly wealthy people who do at least for K-5 in select school districts such as Tribeca. As Nada points out, it is about the parents goals for the child and their values when it comes to a 5 year old if money is not a concern.

Middle schools is where you get fxxked in NYC. Choices are not great and then you have to test to get into a good high school. Once you take out Stuy, Bronx high, and perhaps one more school, the drop in educational standards is steep if one were to go by National public high school rankings such as by Niche.

The biggest issue is constantly reapplying and worrying to get into good schools for people in the middle who can somewhat stretch to pay private school tuition. Many do K-5 or K-8 public and then private. But the seats are fewer in private once you miss K entry. Remember the kid is not going to High School straight.

I know you like absolute answers and condensing every thing to a one or two variable regression, but there is no equation, which applies to every family and child, to whether private or magnet public is better in NYC. There are plenty of kids from both NYC private and public who make it to top colleges, which is the goal a majority of the parents. There are also some wealthy but not so smart kids in top private schools as their parents write big check every year.

Contrast the above overall situation to a suburb of NYC/NJ with high property taxes and high-rated public school system. You are guaranteed a spot in the good school from K-12. So why think about private schools close by which may not be as good as Top 10 NYC private schools. It is much easier to have a single variable answer there.

inonada, I think the overall goal is fairly obvious - quality education at a price I can afford

I am currently pregnant, so decided it is time to study the topic :-)

Congrats on your pregnancy!

It doesn’t seem obvious at all. Your goal is quality education at a price you can afford. 300’s advice is centered around “make it to top colleges, which is the goal a majority of the parents.” Those are two completely different goals.

You could also study charter school options.

Thank you all for the super helpful comments!

A younger relative of mine moved to NYC when s/he was in the middle of 5th grade (did not speak English on arrival). S/he went to a B-rated (Niche) middle school in Brooklyn, did no special test prep that I know of, and got into Brooklyn Tech, which was fantastic (even though i think it is "only" ranked 5 or 6 out of magnets). So I was under the impression that admission to magnets was not that hard. But the posts here indicate otherwise.

Where I grew up, I went to the same building from first grade to the last grade in high school. The constant reapplying every few years in NYC that I am now learning about is really tough. The lottery systems for many schools, also tough. I don't believe my home even has a zoned middle school.

On the other hand, private school tuition would put a strain on my upper-middle class budget and set back retirement saving goals. Remember, we were a couple that was denied an opportunity to purchase a 2br 30%-down coop for an undisclosed reason (likely having to do with partner being brown, but also not having "enough" assets despite high incomes). We purchased a 25%-down less fancy coop instead. Also, I really believe in public schools in principle, and I am already paying for them in taxes, so unless there is a very compelling reason, would prefer to have my child attend a public. Also a luxury good of sorts, in a weird way it would help me feel superior to my prestige-obsessed private-schooled colleagues.

My family has mobility issues (one of us cannot drive for health reasons), so we cannot really move to Scarsdale/NJ. I have to figure out a NYC schooling plan. Suburb RE taxes by the way are not that high and very comparable with taxes I pay on a much smaller NYC apartment.

> “make it to top colleges, which is the goal a majority of the parents.”

For me it is an important and related secondary goal. Hopefully a good education helps the kid get into a top college. I am seeing first-hand at my current employer how kids get a preference in recruiting based on colleges they attend, so a school name is definitely an important aspect.

However, a good education is a much more universal good. In many professions, from engineering to arts, college matters a lot less for success, what matters is the ability to think, learn and be creative. And not spending on tuition is going to free up funds for extracurriculars/family vacations/quality of life, which are also important secondary goals.

I am not really differentiating between public and charter schools , but I am modestly opposed to any religion-affiliated school. I have seen what it has done to people (whose parents were completely unsuspecting!).

Krolik, Congratulations!! Why not do K-5 good public/G&T and decide after if you are looking for good value? I think most on this board will agree that Private Schools are a luxury good. And the concept of value doesn't apply to luxury goods.

If the parents are willing to spend 5-10 hours per week educating their primary schools age child at home in the matter they deem fit, you can more than make up for any difference in resources between private and public K-5 schools.

Krolik: As you mention, you're already paying taxes for public school. Think about sending the kid to public schools, enhanced by some targeted private tutoring on an as-needed basis for those areas where the kid isn't doing well, or where their classroom learning is sub-optimal. I'm sure that will cost you less than $60k/yr.

The other reason, not mentioned above, for private school is for the development of the social set - both to separate themselves from 'the rest of the crowd', and to develop future connections -- all those private school events that parents contribute to are a way for other parents to judge who their kids should get to know, and who might be useful in the future. Academic standing is only a part of the plan.

Thanks Aaron2. Now, that is a practical reason to pay for an education that one could get for free! I used to have a boss that would mention his Eton connection to a former British Prime Minister every chance he got...

So, to summarize the reasons one would pay for a private school instead of sending a kid to a public magnet:
1) Easier to get in, so a good option for students that miss the cut off for magnets/G&T; in particular, it is easier to get into privates if starting there from early grades
2) Some private schools are K through 12, so save yourself the headache and stress of reapplying every few years, waiting for lottery results, etc.
3) Ability to say that kids are going to a private school and humble brag about the cost of education
4) Having the kids establish life-long friendships with kids from rich families
5) More resources and hand holding than at public magnets for kids that need extra help, allowing parent to be more hands off

Also mentioned: 6) Better chances at a top college - however, I am not sure I understand the mechanism for this. Is there grade inflation at privates that helps GPA statistics? Are there niche sport athletics that help claim recruited athlete spots? Do colleges have "reserved" spots for kids from these schools specifically? Are college counselors better than those at publics? Or are private schools just taking credit for some parents' legacy connections to top colleges?

It seems that for a kid that is very smart and independent, publics are the way to go. If the kid is slightly less smart however, parents need to be very hands on, or spend extra on a private school.

Krolik, congratulations!

The only thing on your list I would have issue with is #5 -- public schools are "forced" to educate everyone, and that means they have social workers and reading specialists and occupational therapists, etc. Some private schools (and some charters) will meet a kid wherever that kids happens to be, but others will "counsel out" a kid that they don't want to bother to provide supplements for.

Congrats Krolik! I just read through this thread and was glad to see Aaron2 mention the network thing. I went to private schools and the network effect is huge. Everyone who is in school with you is smart and/or rich. It is a generally more competitive environment where it is cool and valued to be smart and good at sports. And, not only do you have network effect with those you actually go to school with, you also have the alumnae network that is stacked with generational wealth and privilege. I think that is what many who send their kids to private school are paying for - entering the world already a few rungs up the ladder.

I’ll give you the flip side of that.

I went to public school in places “known” to have good public schools. The quality of educators is important, but in the end the level of education must target the peer group. Parents who flock to “good public school” locations, as mine did, place high importance on education, are more intellectually inclined, etc., and all that rubs off on the kids. The top tier is exceedingly smart, capable, and driven, because they end up with classes stacked with similar kids. Unsurprisingly, they all end up with positive outcomes. More interestingly, even the second- and third-tier kids ended up with very positive outcomes. I was a top-tier kid and friends with all of them, but most of my closest friends were the second- and third-tier “misfits”, most of whom went on to build happy families and impressively successful careers even though they were never destined for top colleges.

My experience with private school mainly came from interactions in college. I went to a top college, and for the most part, the private school kids were overconfident in their capabilities but outclassed by the public school kids. While they were plentiful, few sorted into the top tier in college. Why? I’m not sure. Perhaps they lacked the raw talent. Perhaps the private school peer group was just too weak. Perhaps they were coddled too much. Perhaps they learned to live on connections & schmoozing, which can only get you so far. Regardless, it ended up being a rough adjustment. They thought they were the shit, being a top kid at a top private school. But they were getting their asses handed to them by public school kids from “nowhere”. They were fine kids & mostly ended up adjusting to the new world order, but it was a tough transition for many. I remember running into one of them years later, and he said “Looking back to freshman year, I was such a schmuck.” He wasn’t a schmuck, he just didn’t have context for what the real world looks like when you don’t get a constant leg up.

Yeah I think I'd agree with the consensus of the last few posts that you are mostly paying for the network, and to make of that what you will.

I know a few people in NYC who went to highly prestigious private schools but then normal "top 50ish" non-Ivy type college like me. The difference between a nowhere public high school experience and these friends prestigious private is mostly the network.

Despite being in the same income range now.. they have famous, (though mostly nepobab) friends, that take them on holidays on private jets or let them use the guest wing of their 4th home for a week, that kind of thing. And the network effect is huge. A lot of their friend network now is 2nd/3rd order connections through siblings/spouses who also went to the same privates.

It doesn't seem to have changed their career trajectory for the better, and I'm not sure the education had any impact on the people in their network as their riches/fame came through inheritance/media/entertainment stuff.

These friends & I had similar outcomes, for where I came from this was a 1% outcome, for where they came from this was a median outcome.

Take from that what you will.

The way I understand it works in NYC, the non-selective public middle and high schools are mostly not very good. However, the few selective ones are some of the best public schools in the country, they admit students based on a test score (I think there were some proposals to change this to GPA + lottery). In these schools, all kids are top tier smart (I think it is ~top 8% of all NYC students) and learning opportunities are amazing. Many magnet school kids go on to Ivy or other great colleges, (but not as many go to Ivy from public magnets as from private schools, due to legacy advantages that private school kids tend to have, or maybe some other factors I do not yet understand).

MCR, I have not attended either in NYC or the US, but my sense is that top 8 private high schools in NYC do NOT offer a MORE competitive environment than the 8 public magnets. Magnet admission requirements are strict, and publics enrollments tend to be much bigger, so there is more competition for positions of class president, newspaper editor, athletic team member, valedictorian, anything else.

My interactions with private school kids primarily comes from interviewing job candidates at my current and past employers (many of them put their private high school on their resume).

Steve123 and inonada, the network (and especially parents' connections) does change the career trajectory for the better (on the margin). I see some unexceptional private school kids get amazing jobs that they would have never gotten without a referral, at the expense of potentially more gifted but less connected and less coached peers. I have also seen quick promotion tracks for some young people unexplained by any special talent in the craft or even office politics, and I am pretty sure connections are the main factor. Obviously this is industry dependent, as some trades are more meritocratic than others.

@Krolik - yes I think this is where things take a turn into the statistically unknowable.
Private to Ivy pipeline vs magnet is absolutely overstated due to legacy admissions.

For a given Ivy-parented kid, how much is their admissions to Ivy increased by going private vs magnet?
For a given Ivy-parented kid, how much is their admission to Ivy increased by going private vs magnet?

Ivy is such a crazy filter to me given how tiny their enrollment in total is, compared to total admissions applications nationally.. and % change vs 10/20/30 years ago. We're talking about like 25k seats out of 2.5 million here. The literal 1% of college admissions. Only 60% of kids go to college, and only 60% of them finish. So graduating with an Ivy degree puts you in the top 0.36% in practice.

It's a very high target with low hit rate lot to pin on a kid for 18 years.

I agree that top public schools in the US (and in NY) are extremely competitive. There is one in Virigina (Thomas Jefferson?) that is better than any of the private schools in DC, which are really good.

Steve, why do you think the career outcomes for the private schoolers is no better despite the advantages? Maybe any leg up they get from their privilege is cancelled by a lifetime of de-skilling created by seeking those advantages? I don’t have much interaction with that crowd, so that’s why I ask. My peer groups have been formed from a life trajectory involving several filterings of “Top 10%? Congrats! Let’s see where you sort in this next pool…” Only one of those filterings had me rubbing elbows with nepobabs. OTOH, I’ve come to know an improbable number of would-be nepo-parents along the way towards their self-made success. Many go through great lengths to hide their wealth from the kids for as long as possible.

>> There is one in Virigina (Thomas Jefferson?) that is better than any of the private schools in DC, which are really good.

Yeah, it's probably Thomas Jefferson. From my understanding, NYC is the same. I know of a pair of talented twins who were deciding on Stuyvesant vs. Trinity for high school. One chose Stuyvesant while the other chose Trinity. Why? Stuyvesant kid: "Smarter kids, better education." Trinity kid: "I just don't want to have to work that hard." Both ended up at Harvard, then onto tech careers. The "lazy" one is now enrolled in a top-5 CS PhD program, and they are clearly both very talented. But to them, it was clear that the real action was at Stuyvesant (ranked #17 in NYC area according to Niche or some such nonsense), not Trinity (ranked #1).

>> Ivy is such a crazy filter to me given how tiny their enrollment in total is, compared to total admissions applications nationally.. and % change vs 10/20/30 years ago.

I don't think the filter has changed over the years. It's always been the same number of seats as a fraction of population. What's changed is that more & more kids with no chance of admission have been applying. Why? I think the schools encourage it, because nowadays a low headline acceptance rate helps their ranking. And with the Common App, it's become trivial for parents/kids to apply everywhere. For $50 a pop, why not roll the dice? The cost used to be filling out 10 custom pages and answering 8 asinine essay questions per application. Each would cost you a weekend, so sure, a kid might put in one stretch/dream school where they didn't stand a chance. But now, for a mere $1000 from the privilege fountain of mom/pops, you just click on all the top-20 schools -- just in case one of them thinks your 20th-percentile high school performance deserves a shot at a 1st-percentile college slot.

>> It's a very high target with low hit rate lot to pin on a kid for 18 years.

I agree. Parents often think they can turn the kids into something they cannot become. At least, that was my experience in high school. No amount of super unleaded will turn a Honda into a Ferrari, and if you insist on jamming jet fuel in there, you'll eventually bust the engine.

> The "lazy" one is now enrolled in a top-5 CS PhD program, and they are clearly both very talented. But to them, it was clear that the real action was at Stuyvesant (ranked #17 in NYC area according to Niche or some such nonsense), not Trinity (ranked #1).

Just curious.

Where is the hardworking one now? How do you infer the real action was at Stuyvesant?

So true: "Parents often think they can turn the kids into something they cannot become. "

I do believe that you can help change a 85th percentile kid into 95th percentile kid with education, resources, competition, parental focus, and kid's hardwork. Can you turn at 95 percentile kid into 99.9 percentile? I think that is very hard even if the kid is trying. At 99.9 percentile, you are talking about some innate abilities.

Lastly, NYC school system is very different from Suburban school system due to selection bias in Suburbs due to real estate prices where suburbs with top schools have a minimum entry real estate price and tax combo. Real estate taxes are spent in that small 5000-10000 suburb where local community has a huge say in how schools are run. In NYC, all the real estate and local income taxes go into a single pool for NYC. So a rich zip code doesn't get any more funding per student than a poorer zip code.

In fact, Stuy doesn't get any more funding than a lesser performing high school per student. Stuy is Stuy due to selection process, competion amongst students, and ability of the teachers to teach at a higher level due to generally highly motivated students who had a pass a difficult entry exam.

>> Where is the hardworking one now? How do you infer the real action was at Stuyvesant?

Continues in tech, not interested in more schooling at this point.

This isn’t me inferring anything, that was their take. The both of them agree that Stuyvesant provided a more rigorous education, because it had the better students. One of them decided they preferred the rigor while the other decided they preferred the easier environment at Trinity. They didn’t want to be educated / compete with the best — all work & no play.

The Trinity one has always been, and continues to be, the better schmoozer, as one would expect ;).

One big problem with public schools on NYC is the Special Education mandate. Special Ed is enormously expensive. But what has happened over the last 40 years is that the Board of Education turned it into a dumping ground for all problem kids when they stopped expelling them for certain behaviors and just socially promoted them totally graduated high school. But as a result of this bloating of Special Ed classes school's budgets are being robbed of resources for regular classes. This is what's behind the Charter School movement because they get to spend their budget more on education since they aren't forced to take every problem kid.

Example: When I went to Cardozo Highschool it was one of the top schools in the city just behind schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Now it's a low ranked nothing.

@nada - I dont think its accurate to say the filter hasn't changed over time in terms of seats vs population
The population has gone up a lot in 30 years, as has foreign enrollment in US universities, while Ivy seats have been fairly fixed. They treat their product as a luxury good, why would they decrease the scarcity?

Harvard-
"About 2,200 high schoolers were admitted to Harvard’s Class of 1982. That number was 2,147 in 1992, 2,074 in the mid-2000s, and just 1,980 for this year’s freshman class. Because the yield rate — the percentage of admits who choose to enroll — has risen steadily since the 1980s, the freshman class has stood virtually unchanged at approximately 1,600 students for more than four decades." - https://www.thecrimson.com/column/a-new-day-at-harvard/article/2021/2/12/berger-increase-undergrad-enrollment/

Yale-
1982 - 20% admit rate / 1300 admitted vs 2018 6% admit rate / 1573 admitted
https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/w033_fresh_admissions.pdf

NOTE: We've added 100M people (+44%) since 1982, a higher % apply & go to college now, and the number of foreign students has surely increased dramatically... while Ivys have had down/flat/slightly up enrolled class sizes

Meanwhile my college increased admitted class size by 30% since 2000.

Trinity vs Stuy comparison is interesting because - Stuy actually gets higher % of kids into Ivys than Trinity, 24% vs 20%, despite having near-zero legacies compared to Trinity

For example, Harvard general acceptance rate is 6%, but legacy admissions rate is up to 34%
You could use these stats to argue that Stuy kids outperform by 18% (6% -> 24%).

In all these stats one must not forget that even if your kid gets into a Stuy or a Trinity, there remains an 80% chance they will NOT go to an Ivy, vs a kid in nowhere having a 94% chance of not getting in.

So maybe the value in the privates is that you can buy your kids into having a network, regardless of if they get into an Ivy where they would even further build a network? Less for strivers than for putting a line under a potentially downwardly mobile offspring?

Agree with steve123 - it is now harder for non-legacies to get into a top college due to all the reasons he mentioned. Many alumni say they would not have gotten in now!

Ivy or bust mentality makes no sense to me. Passing extreme filter after filter after filter (and you don't even know what some of those filters are) is not for everyone, not even for some of the brightest kids. One could become a successful engineer or musician without having done extremely well in history or literature classes. Or vigorously pursue a passion at the expense of other subjects, and later change their mind (I did this). They would still benefit from being in a rigorous academic environment with other driven kids in a good high school. Parent's job is to help uncover each kid's unique interests and talents and help craft an academic path and a career path accordingly. Most of the top 50 colleges in the US are wonderful!

I think the key reason why some of the private school students might not do as well despite all the advantages is that they don't have to. Immigrant (or just less wealthy) kids at Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech have limited other options in life, no trust fund to fall back on, and they have seen hardships that they desperately want to escape.

Also, rich parents does not equal super educated. Queen Elizabeth famously got no formal education aside from some home schooling, for example. On the other hand, many middle class parents that are engineers or educators might be able to offer more homework help to their kids and help instill good study habits and help cultivate curiosity.

Steve, I think you’re misreading the stats. While the population has increased a lot, the college-aged population hasn’t really. Look at the population pyramids of 1982 vs now, and you’ll see very little growth there. Overall, I’d guess there’s been more growth in class size at the top colleges than college-aged population.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/1982/

College-aged population enrollment rates are certainly somewhat higher (50% => 70% at its peak, now coming down), but it’s mainly applicant volume that has gone through the roof.

You talk about the product as a luxury good whose scarcity is controlled, but I think you’re missing that the product’s quality is a direct function of its scarcity. Sure, you can start letting the top 10% into these institutions, but then you fail to educate the top 1% properly.

@Krolik - this is exactly the mentality to have I think
"Parent's job is to help uncover each kid's unique interests and talents and help craft an academic path and a career path accordingly. Most of the top 50 colleges in the US are wonderful!"

@nada - Your pyramid link shows 10% growth in population cohort.
But you are completely discounting the dramatic increase of participation rate.
Google & some simple digging will tell you college participation rate in the 80s was under 30% vs more modern 60-70%.
It was pretty stark seeing in my own family which was more median working class across 3 generations pretty closely track with national stats on this.
Google also tells me 2022 we had 1M foreign students in US universities and 1980s number was 250k or so.

So 10% more domestic population of age X double the participation rate, + 4x the foreign students.. probably doubled college enrollment since 1980s nationally.

Talking about diluting the Ivy's by forcing them to take the top 10% is a bit of a large jump / putting words in my mouth there.. you're strawmanning a 10x enrollment increase. Structurally most of the Ivy's are in old city campuses they couldn't expand that much even if they wanted to.

I am simply pointing to them being a shrinking percent of enrolled college students, not demanding they 10x their share.

So, I haven't read everything since I posted on this thread earlier today, but if I could post a video of the wedding party I am viewing in Bermuda at
this moment with names attached, the network effect would be perfectly illustrated. A swarm of mediocre-not-overly-talented-arguably-no-talents living in great material comfort. Only 1/20 actually accomplished - why? Because only "the real deals" went on to achieve; others not driven because they did not have to be and still landed with jobs above their natural talent levels.

So, I haven't read everything since I posted on this thread earlier today, but if I could post a video of the wedding party I am viewing in Bermuda at
this moment with names attached, the network effect would be perfectly illustrated. A swarm of mediocre-not-overly-talented-arguably-no-talents living in great material comfort. Only 1/20 actually accomplished - why? Because only "the real deals" went on to achieve; others not driven because they did not have to be and still landed with jobs above their natural talent levels.

Steve, here is the BLS showing the college enrollment rate at 50% in 1980:

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2010/ted_20100428.htm

And 62% in 2021:

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2022/61-8-percent-of-recent-high-school-graduates-enrolled-in-college-in-october-2021.htm#:~:text=Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics%2C%20U.S.,visited%20April%2029%2C%202023).

I would guess that the extra 10% hasn’t come from competitive top-percent students — pretty much all of them were college-bound in 1982 just as they are now.

International, here’s what I could find. Harvard in 2021 has 12.5% from other countries:

https://admissionsight.com/international-students-at-harvard/#:~:text=What%20Percentage%20Of%20Harvard%20Students,the%202021–2022%20academic%20year.

In 2004, it had 10% or so — see page 10:

https://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_fact_book_2004-2005.pdf

It just doesn’t seem like a material source of difference either.

>> I am simply pointing to them being a shrinking percent of enrolled college students

That’s true, but it’s just not as extreme as people make it out to be. I don’t have a preformed opinion about this, but looking at the actual numbers there is a wide gap between perception & reality. For example, in searching for Ivy school enrollment by year, it’s virtually impossible to find the data you’re looking for — instead one is inundated with site after site of how low acceptance rates have become and, BTW, here’s some college prep / counseling / etc. you should buy. I ended up doing some spot checks, and Harvard seems to be the exception in not growing their class size. This is in the article you quote. Most have grown their class size, perhaps by 20% on average? That is somewhat more than the college-aged population increase but somewhat less than overall college range enrollment (~50%) over the past 40 years. That just seems on the margins, even if you think they should be increasing class size at top-1% institutions to account for increasing amounts of sub-50th-percentile college enrollment.

@nada - Agree the data is scattered, and mostly presented by people with something or a narrative to sell you. Admissions data itself is protected like the nuclear codes..

Agree from your last post that college enrollment is +~50% in 40 years as well, Ivys have grown some amount slower than that.

Harvard stands out growing slowest / shrinking their class size.
Standing out in the other direction Columbia has grown +50% from the 2000, partially driven off NYCs increased sense of safety/wealth coming off the 80s/90s.

Dartmouth seems more like the median Ivy - grown, but slower than total college enrollment. +19% since 2002 /but only +10% on the undergrad side- https://www.dartmouth.edu/oir/data-reporting/factbook/enrollment.html

Re: source of 50-60% growth number
BLS % of HS grads going to college going from 50% in 80s to 62-70% in 2020s is thrown off by % of population that graduate HS growing. 14% dropout rate in 1980 vs 5.5% now - https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/high-school-dropout-rate/

1980s 50% of 86% of HS kids went to college => 43%
vs 2020 ~65% of 94.5% of HS kids went to college, ex-COVID noise => 62%
+2020 era also has ~10% higher population in the age cohort => ~58% more college kids in 2020 era.

2nd source - https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
Depending on how you want to slice it ..
"undergrads in US college" went from 10.5M in 1980 to 15.9M in 2020, which is +51% growth.
"Historical Full-Time College Enrollment" goes from 7.1M to 11.6M, which is +57%

Good point on the effect of HS graduation rates. Also, I am guessing some of that 50-60% has also been driven by an increase in international students.

>> Admissions data itself is protected like the nuclear codes.

I think enrollment counts are pretty public & openly-disclosed information. I’d bet there’s a website or paper somewhere that has actually complied and graphed “Ivy League enrollment by year” for us, but Google has become absolute shite over the past 25 years for finding such information. Too busy serving up pages that are fronts for ads.

>I would guess that the extra 10% hasn’t come from competitive top-percent students — pretty much all of them were college-bound in 1982 just as they are now.

I don't think this is right. The college-bound population grew partially due to the addition of a number of demographic groups to the pool that were previously excluded, making it harder to get admitted to top colleges (that have not proportionally increased enrollment) for everyone.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/4/12/class-of-84-boasts-lowest-sex/
Here is an article from 1980 that details that women were under 40% of the class (now they are over 50% of the class), and minorities were 21% of the class (today they are over 60% of the class). Crimson article notes that women in the applicant pool were more qualified though applying in lower numbers.

1) In 1980, Crimson noted: "There are still many families and guidance counselors who will not encourage women to apply." With those barriers gone, women now go to college in greater numbers than before, and represent more than half of the class at almost any top college (except the technical ones).

2) Minorities (including Asians) were ~20% then and are about 60% of Harvard class now. Given quite low starting minority participation rates decades ago (especially black and hispanic populations), I am sure talented kids were added to the population, and not all deserving kids were already in the pool.

3) Ivy Leagues only guaranteed to cover the entire tuition for low income students in late 2000s (following an inquiry from the government as to the purpose of the huge endowments if they still charge needy kids high tuition). This was a game changer and I imagine it increased the number of smart but poor kids applying to Ivies quite a bit. Prior to that change, the very commonly given advice in immigrant communities (that I received and followed for example) was to "go to state school for undergrad to save money, get top grades, and then do an elite graduate program". I was a Pell grant and a merit scholarship recipient, graduated with a small loan, and never applied to any top college undergrad program.

> I am simply pointing to them being a shrinking percent of enrolled college students, not demanding they 10x their share.

I would be strongly for top colleges increasing their share 2-3x. These schools are really good at what they do and many more students could benefit. How much have the endowments grown?

1) Taxes not paid on endowments are a gov't subsidy. This subsidy at Ivies are much-much greater per student than the amount of subsidy that state schools receive. I think tax exemptions have to be in proportion to the societal mission delivered, measured in number of students being educated. Anything above that is a benefit that goes to a select group of well-off individuals (legacies etc) - and they do not need to be subsidized. The marginal dollar would be better spent elsewhere.

2) While space constraints exist, they are solvable, especially given the amount of money these schools have.
Columbia recently managed to built a new business school campus, freeing up space in five buildings on old campus that previously housed the program.
Harvard has many dorm buildings that offer sizeable apartments to grad students. Those could easily be converted to more dense undergrad housing, and grad students could live off campus.
Cornell was granted by the city tons of brand new space in NYC and received support from Bloomberg Foundation to construct new buildings.

3) I have seen Harvard admissions officers say in interviews that many decisions are random between equally qualified applicants and that they could fill multiple equally qualified classes from the pool.

I would guess these schools could grow to 2-3x capacity over time. Being “good at what they do” is largely a function of their student population, so I think they’d need to lower standards or else bifurcate the level of their education. I don’t have much hope for the latter, given the ongoing compression trend in grade inflation. Harvard’s average GPA is now 3.8 out of 4.0. So I imagine it would involve further dilution of the level of education so that 2-3x can achieve a 3.8 GPA. It puts a squeeze on quality at the top. Might be right, might be wrong — I dunno.

Here’s a fun graph of GPA inflation at Harvard:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/10/3/barton-grade-inflation

@Krolik - yes, I think we are extremely far from Ivies admitting underqualified candidates at the margins just to hit some numbers.. given I've seen the same comments from admissions officers that they are basically picking at random from large pools of equally qualified.

Your point re: women & minorities is well noted, and for example the college participation rate amongst women far outpaced men from 1980->today, to the point that women now participate at a higher rather than lower rate than men.

The endowments & money management staffing around them sometimes make the Ivys look like hedge funds with small liberal arts schools attached. Harvard's is big enough to cover full ride for 4x the undergrad students just off a 5% market return per year, without eating into capital, if I did the math right.. lol. When a school make $2.5B/year market return against tuition income of ~$600M/year, you wonder what it's all for, right?

Better still, apparently their inception to date return is 11%, so I am off by a few billion/year!:
"The annualized return on the endowment, since HMC’s founding, has been approximately 11% per year"

>> The college-bound population grew partially due to the addition of a number of demographic groups to the pool that were previously excluded, making it harder to get admitted to top colleges (that have not proportionally increased enrollment) for everyone.

I’ll let someone else speak for 1982, but by 1992 it sure wasn’t like this. Just like today, these universities had fewer admission slots than there we high schools in the US. At my university at least, admission was need-blind, low-income was fully covered by scholarship, and immigrants & women were heavily represented. No one in the top 1% of a high school class even remotely thought to skip college. My high school had something like 14 people with perfect GPAs and 99th percentile SATs. Something half got into one of the top private schools, the other half were “relegated” to the perfectly good public school. I’m not saying this is good/bad/otherwise, just that it’s an storyline that’s been going on for some time.

Krolik, on the private vs public school thing in NYC, I imagine privates will outstrip publics in the area of training kids for schmoozing. That might be a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective.

> At my university at least, admission was need-blind, low-income was fully covered by scholarship, and immigrants & women were heavily represented.

Admissions were need-blind in the past (sort of, with preferences to wealthy donors, legacy, early decision applicants etc.), but low income kids often did not bother to apply because scholarships were NOT guaranteed until late 2000s and kids from low income families are often very debt-averse (kids and parents often cannot imagine how much more they can possibly make with an elite degree). You need a certain amount of confidence to take one six-figure debt. So, pre-common app, low income kids often did not bother with time-consuming applications to the most expensive schools. I already wrote above what the wisdom was among immigrants.

> No one in the top 1% of a high school class even remotely thought to skip college.
In a well-resourced public high school.

> Krolik, on the private vs public school thing in NYC, I imagine privates will outstrip publics in the area of training kids for schmoozing. That might be a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective.

That seems to be the consensus, and it is an important skill (though possible to acquire elsewhere). Plus it is a private club membership. I learned a lot from this thread.
In the first post I asked a genuine question I had, which demonstrates how clueless immigrants may be about things that are obvious to wealthier locals :-)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-harvard/harvard-overhauls-financial-aid-to-cut-tuition-costs-idUSN1042997120071210

2007 was the year when Harvard started covering costs for low income students (other Ivies followed shortly; the overhaul was driven by pressure from Congress). Prior to that financial aid packages for the neediest included lots of loans.

>Being “good at what they do” is largely a function of their student population, so I think they’d need to lower standards or else bifurcate the level of their education.

They wouldn't. They can fill multiple equally qualified classes from the pool. Many admissions officers explained it in numerous interviews (and during the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard law suit). As one officer explained, they mark way too many kids as admitted as they read
through applications, then go through the list of admitted kids again, looking just at five data points, including demographic and regional info, and change status to deny on random kids in order to achieve a desired demographic profile and size of the class. This process is called "Shaping".

The GPA point is hilarious, I am not sure if it is at all related to admissions.

The state school I went to curved large classes (like calculus, physics, or organic chemistry) around a C average. The honors versions of these classes were curved around C+ average. I learned the same material as those studying organic chemistry at Harvard, but I am sure Harvard students got overall much better grades, and without a fight one had to put up at a state school to get one of the 10% quota A marks.

State schools reasoning is, they don't have the greatest brand, so employers won't believe every student is equally smart. Let's make selection of the brightest easier for employers that recruit on campus via brutally honest grading resulting in large GPA deltas. This approach shoots graduates in the foot then applying to graduate schools or elite jobs, because their GPAs are much lower than those of private school peers for the same work and achievement!

A few private schools, like UChicago, have non-inflation policies (at UChicago all larger classes are curved around a B+ maximum), but such policies are rare.

Just few days ago, a colleague of mine was trying to argue that a connected applicant from Harvard who did not ace their technical interview was deserving of a job offer because of 3.9 GPA, over another candidate from Indiana that did well on technicals but had a 3.5 GPA. No one bothered to look up what the average at each school was. It is a tool that works to give kids another leg up.

There is an interesting initiative in Texas where schools include class average grade on transcripts next to the grade received. That would help equalize grad school admissions, but probably not job applications.

> There is an interesting initiative in Texas where schools include class average grade on transcripts next to the grade received. That would help equalize grad school admissions, but probably not job applications.

Interesting idea, but they'd need to include more than just average.
For example one could inflate grades while keeping average artificially low by managing the drop outs timing / scores carefully. Medians and percentiles would expose this better.

Example 8 kids - 100, 95, 95, 95, 80, 75, 70, 0
Average - 76.25, almost a perfect C.. looks like the curve is perfect.
Visually we know that is wrong, and the median captures this by showing 87.5, a solid B+ and obviously curved too easy.

There's a LOT of games with grades in HS & college.
The university I went to, at the time, did not do +/-, but only whole letter grades for courses. This created a lot of jump risk because if you got like an 85, you were solidly in 3.0 territory and might as well have scored a 78. If you scored an 87, and schmoozed well, you could talk it up to a 4.0, effectively the same as having scored 100.

I was too much of a public school dolt to realize this was going on until sophomore year when all 3 of my roommates had perfect 4.0s across the first 4 semester, as did a few of our neighbors.

Maybe an added benefit of private school is that kids learn earlier its not WHAT you do, its HOW you sell it & you only get what you ask for in life.

Wow, it looks like there is a serious discussion going on here, but to report in on this wedding party that has taken over the club we are ar in Bermuda (we are not part of it), one of the groomsmen is one of the aggrieved Duke lacrosse players. One of his buddies last night who drunkenly cornered Mr MCR as we were trying to escape the invasion was lamenting how it awful it was that said aggrieved Duke lax player only took at $10 million settlement; he should have held out for $110 million! I replied, "wow, I hear you. How do you feel about Central Park Five and what they walked away with?" His response: "Central Park five? I have never heard of them. Is that a band? Did Duke screw them over too?" Again, we are not dealing with the best and the brightest in the private school set. It offends me on a daily basis how so many private-school-no-talent-ass-clowns are doing better than so many incredibly talented children of immigrants and others who work hard and believe in a meritocracy. It is hard to get to "the top" no matter where you start; putting that aside, if you want to assure your offspring's ability to compete in the general marketplace, I believe the private school network is worth the price.

>> This approach shoots graduates in the foot then applying to graduate schools or elite jobs, because their GPAs are much lower than those of private school peers for the same work and achievement!

It kinda sounds like your colleague is somewhat clueless, and your employer does not deal with it institutionally. At my work, everyone quickly learns which GPAs / awards / etc. are meaningless — partially from being told, but also from interviewing. Once you see the third Harvard 3.9 lacking proficiency, you learn to discount it appropriately. I guess Harvard is trying to lay claim to “Well, a 3.8 at Harvard would have achieved 3.8 at Indiana, and we don’t want to disadvantage them” but ends up (IMO) diluting the brand. The top 10% / top 1% at Harvard are really different from the rest, but GPA becomes an indicator of above-average performance rather than exceptional outperformance.

Sometimes state school seem to have an advantage too. Acceptance at my top grad school seemed like the following function of undergrad school and rank in major. Top-50 school & #1 rank => accept. Everyone else => reject. So #2 at Harvard would get rejected while #1 at UC Davis would get in. Was #1 at UC Davis likely to prove better than #2 at Harvard? Probably not. OTOH, was #1 at UC Davis was more likely to end up at the top than #2 at Harvard, who had already demonstrated themselves as “not the best”. FTR, I am neither endorsing nor objecting to the approach — just explaining how it functioned.

I don't know about now, but 40 years ago it seemed everyone recruiting at Cornell understood Cornell Engineering had much tougher grading standards and accepted significantly lower GPA from us than other schools.

inonada, what if you knew that the Harvard candidate is known to us to be a legacy admit (we know their parents)? My employer goes to 30 target schools + accepts resumes from non-targets. On interview days, candidates from 10 or more schools are mixed together. Who can keep these GPA's straight in their head given the circumstances? Quick impressions are everything for these entry-level roles.

State schools are huge, many are over 20k undergrads. Some state schools have exceptional programs in specific subjects, even if mediocre in everything else. Certain popular majors (computer science, for example) are very competitive. Also, while top colleges admit based on all around academic record and extracurriculars, some kids have narrow interests in specific subjects, or had idiosyncratic circumstances that did not allow them to apply to private colleges. They might be excellent grad school candidates in those subjects. Well-rounded liberal arts college education is a very American thing. Most other countries train specialists (and there are pros and cons to both approaches).

Another hilarious story: my partner has two direct reports with the exact same amount of experience (software engineers). One is a graduate of a top engineering school (Caltech/MIT/Carnegie Mellon type), the other did a non-engineering major at a lesser school, and then a coding camp. By work performance, one is average and the other is a rising star, but if you tried to guess which is which based on school brand, you would be wrong.

What I am saying, school brand is not everything. Neither is GPA. Life is complicated.

>I don't know about now, but 40 years ago it seemed everyone recruiting at Cornell understood Cornell Engineering had much tougher grading standards and accepted significantly lower GPA from us than other schools.

When you recruit at a handful of schools, when recruiters know the school well, and when you have few spots reserved for a school every year (which is how these programs tend to work), all you need to do is compare applicants in front of you, grade inflation/deflation not an issue at all as all candidates have the same classes and grading standards, very easy to compare.

But if you try to open up to a broad set of schools, there is just no way to get to know all these schools at a detailed level. Pros and cons for each method, of course. It is cheaper to go to fewer schools and screen fewer resumes.

Random anecdote: One of my nieces is a freshman from UCLA. She is as blonde-haired-blue-eyed-fair-skinned as the come and one of her friends literally said to her "I didn't think UCLA factored legacy in." My niece was confused because nobody in our family attended or has any connection to UCLA. She then realized that the prejudice in her friend: White people can't possibly get into UCLA on merit. How the worm has turned . . .. I shared this story with friends whose son is at Harvard. He is a legacy and is defensive about it despite the fact that he was valedictorian at the top-ranked private school in DC. Both my niece and said young man at their respective universities hang out with diverse friends from both public and private school (nieces and young man both attended private HS).

The point of the above: I think this generation is different. Everyone beats up private schools for their "woke" agendas, but I love the humility that I see in all the kids I know coming out of these schools these days. I feel that my generation of private school kids had a sense of entitlement and arrogance that the schools reinforced.

MCR, your niece probably shouldn't be friends with that particular person.

I am picking on the legacy Harvard kid because 1) he put his private high school on his resume (most people don't list high school) 2) he was so-so at answering technical questions and 3) but the second interviewer was pushing for him anyways because 3.9 at Harvard.

After three interview days, I supported my employer extending offers to a handful of US-born white male candidates and one international student who was a male person of color (not US minority). Some might have been legacies (i did not check). They were most prepared.

Agree it is totally lame to put high school on resume.

Krolik,
I have to confess I have oddly limited experience with this because I got accepted to all 4 universities I applied to (Cornell, Princeton, MIT, SUNY Binghamton) and I got job offers from the 4 recruiters I interviewed with before graduation.

Krolik, it sounds like your employer runs recruiting very differently than mine. It feels like you’re describing a “XyzCo Class of 2023” type program where you’re recruiting 100+ people each year. We just need to be a lot more deliberate than that. But your experience helps provide me context for what you said.

MCR, you jadedly (sarcastically?) seem to be saying, “If you believe in your kid, they’ll be fine in public school. However, if you think they are destined for mediocrity and don’t mind them becoming douchey, give them a leg up by sending them to private school so they can network their way to the top of mediocrity.” What do you think this means dollar-wise? Fill in X & Y for the statement: “On average, it takes an otherwise Xth income percentile person to Yth percentile.” I’m trying to determine an ROI ;).

>Krolik, it sounds like your employer runs recruiting very differently than mine. It feels like you’re describing a “XyzCo Class of 2023” type program where you’re recruiting 100+ people each year. We just need to be a lot more deliberate than that. But your experience helps provide me context for what you said.

Yes, and we have multiple programs like these for different types of roles, recruiting from undergrad and from grad schools depending on the roles. Some programs are less than 50 people, and some are 100+. It is a brand name employer, and a lot of people want in because it is the next prestigious filter after their top undergrad/grad school (and the pay is also very good). A good part of this recruiting process is actually just luck-based (supplemented by connections/referrals). Those that get an offer are generally better qualified than an average person in the pool. However, there are equally or sometimes even better qualified candidates in the pool that don't get an offer.

Obviously, recruiting process for experienced professionals is completely different at my firm.

This is the largest firm I have ever worked at.

>I’m trying to determine an ROI ;)

Yes, please. I just had a conversation about this with my partner last night, as we were also trying to calculate returns. Our thought process was, it depends on how important schmoozing and connections are in the chosen future field of employment. For example, if the kid decides to be a doctor or an engineer, s/he is better off at a good public school, but if s/he decides to be an actor/musician/movie director/financier or another career requiring connections to get noticed and get business, s/he would be better off in a private school cultivating a network.

We concluded that our ROI calculation attempts and whole conversation were very middle class...

@nada - I do not think private school kids today are douchey thanks to corrective action these schools have taken to make up for earlier attitudes, but I agree with the rest. If your kid is Muhammed Ali, it does not matter where they go to school; if you want your kid to be able to punch above their weight, private school helps. Same with going to an Ivy after high school or any top-tier university.

P.S. - I don't have kids, but if I did I would absolutely think in those terms if I did not already have a pre-determined bias towards private school (which I do). The world is a far cry from what I would like it to be. If I had kids, I'd want to give them every advantage (mentality of my family), and I do believe private school is a tremendous advantage.

Thanks for explaining the process, Krolik. In my world, it’s just done very differently. We’re looking for a different caliber of hire. On the margins, those who focus on brand- or connection- or grade-grubbing probably hurt their own cause, because it cumulatively takes time & energy away from the stuff that matters.

>On the margins, those who focus on brand- or connection- or grade-grubbing probably hurt their own cause, because it cumulatively takes time & energy away from the stuff that matters.

My takeaway, if I have an academically gifted kid, I will advise the kid to target public magnets.

If I have a kid that wants to be an artist or a financier or anything else that requires connections and schmoozing, I will think about private schools.

> In my world, it’s just done very differently. We’re looking for a different caliber of hire.

You would be surprised, but Google, Facebook, Bloomberg, consulting, investment banks etc all hire new grads in this way! Then they all go through some training bootcamp as a class, and only later get placed into specific roles. I personally would be so frustrated that for the longest time I would have no clue what role I was hired for and who I would end up working with...

At my work, most of these kids don't stay super long term. We weed out a lot, promote a few, and hire very differently for experienced roles. No one cares much about schools and GPA at that point.

And let's not forget, Mark Zuckerberg is Exeter/Harvard. Even if you kid is Muhammed Ali, learning how the world really works at the earliest opportunity is an advantage.

MCR, its not like kids learn nothing useful at the public magnet schools.

At Cornell one of my professors was adamant that we not go to any jobs with "training programs" because all that would do is lessen our existing competitive advantage.

That theoretically makes a lot of sense, but life gets in the way. Firstly, competitive advantage consideration might take a step back, if the company is paying you double or triple the average college grad salary (or even more!!!). Secondly, some of the world’s most attractive brand name employers run things this way, so you would rule out a lot of good jobs.
Professors live in a more theoretical world than the rest of us ?

From company perspective, I think there are a few reasons why they do this
1) Most majors are not pre-professional training (engineering is much closer to pre-professional training than most). Some jobs, like “product manager”, are extremely multidisciplinary and there is no specific major that even remotely prepares for it, so companies hire generally smart and interested folks and train them
2) Much of new grad training programs focus on internal tools and internal processes (for example, internal process of committing and reviewing code, or marketing materials brand guidelines at the specific company) or prepare folks for required licensing exams
3) Some of the training is intended to close any gaps that people whose majors are not matching the job might have that might have been missed at the interview stage. Large companies with large workforce needs like to be more open minded about majors, driven by the reality that many people don’t work in the field they studied, as well as shortage of grads in certain in-demand fields (such as computer science).
4) Some of the training is certainly repeating material many trainees already know from school or interview prep, but it is worth the extra time for the company in order to minimize gaps and lessen burdens on managers

Some of the time is wasted if you already know majority of the material, but most people are advised to relax and enjoy the downtime/settle in/meet and befriend fellow colleagues.

And the technical interview bar is typically not any lower for kids from "lesser" schools or "wrong" majors.

>And let's not forget, Mark Zuckerberg is Exeter/Harvard.

And Sergey Brin is public magnet high school / state college.

@krolik - any chance you work at McKinsey? That was the only prospective employer I recall giving me a technical interview as an undergrad back in the day.

Consulting firms, investment banks and tech firms hiring for software engineering positions all give students technical interviews.

My partner is in tech, and they give students two hard technical interviews that last a full hour and require candidates to write code to solve a problem.

That is a beautiful thing about being an engineer. You can always prove your worth with paper and pencil by solving problems efficiently. Your code either works or it does not, there is no ambiguity, and it does not matter if you are public school / state college educated, or Exeter/MIT - your skills are easy to test in a controlled environment. I am oversimplifying to make a point, of course.

You still need schmoozing skill to advance to top management positions, or to get VC financing for your startup.

I interviewed primarily with Ibanks back in the day (1990); tech was not a thing on my campus (Duke). Mckinsey was not on my list; for some reason, they asked me to interview (hmmmm - someone pushing me up the ladder?) In any event, none of yhe Ibank interviews were technical - they were all “Are you one of us?” interviews. McKinsey interview was different. My comedy skit based on that interview gets laughs to this day.

>> We concluded that our ROI calculation attempts and whole conversation were very middle class...

That’s very funny. Try as I might, I couldn’t resist. You can take the inonada out of middle class, but you can’t take the middle class out of inonada…

Assume the following:

- Private school can mold a 95th percentiler out of your 85th percentile kid, as 300 posits

- As a result, the kid’s income falls into the 95th percentile rather than the 85th percentile throughout their lifetime

- Income at those percentiles, by age, are whatever they are today but grow at 3.5%/yr for inflation + productivity

- The cost is $75K/yr for 17 years (K-12 plus 4 years at private university), and that increases at 3.5%/yr too

- Tax rates are the same as today, but brackets move up at 3.5%/yr

I get a 6%/yr ROI on an after-tax basis. If you bump the cost from $75K to $100K for the kid’s lifestyle-creep (“Mommy, mommy — why do we always fly economy to Jamaica when all my friends fly business to St Barts? Is it because we’re poor?”), then it’s 5%/yr ROI.

I’m not sure I agree with the whole premise, but is a 5-6% after-tax ROI worthwhile? Not horrible, not exceptional, very… 85th percentile.

Ha. Good one. If you believe the private schools give your kid better political/people skills and connections to your 85th percentile kid, then 5-6% is the baseline. I was afraid the above math was going to give 2-3% return as private school is a luxury good which typically have low ROI.

There is an important element missing in the whole discussion (not the post immediately above). Parents: Their involvement, values, and time spent on child's education outside of school. That is the reason for success for many kids regardless of the school.

But that takes work, dammit!!!

>> I do not think private school kids today are douchey thanks to corrective action these schools have taken to make up for earlier attitudes

You seem to have been raised in a culture of cronyism advantaging mediocrity, so I can understand the lens from which you view it. 300 focuses on the improved education, you on the connections. I do wonder, however, whether the “woke agenda” that has reduced the douchery in your view would also reduce the cronyism. The two seem like they’d go hand-in-hand in the mind of the crony/douche.

Maybe I need to update my ROI calc and add that as a risk factor ;)…

Indeed. I have some friends with high level of education who send their K-5 kids to public school in good school districts. They all spend fair bit of time on their children's education despite being busy in their professions. I have no doubt that their kids will do well and realize their potential. I know it is very hard to put that in any ROI calculator.

"300 focuses on the improved education"

Education including better people/political skills in my opinion some of that is learnt via other rich kids who in turn learn it from their parents.

It is all in context of NYC public school system. Rich suburbs already have pre-selected parents due to high real estate prices. So public vs private matters less there.

@nada - I don't think the "corrective actions" have necessarily changed the self interest of the private school educated, it just changes the words they use.

I think people might disagree on the level, meaning and benefit of the "woke agenda" but cynically you can observe a lot of hypocrisy.

Certainly some of the biggest nepobabies in Wburg will scold you on various social issues of the day, like climate change (while taking private jets and-or 4 international trips/year) / about inequality (while living in a daddies-money condo) / like racism (while having exactly 0 friends outside their socioeconomic-racial bubble) / like DEI (while being a legacy Ivy and-or having a nepobaby job), like capitalism (while wearing Prada). etc etc.

It's sort of like the "luxury ideas" concept.

>> You would be surprised, but Google, Facebook, Bloomberg, consulting, investment banks etc all hire new grads in this way!

I’m not really surprised — more enlightened about the precise process. At the end of the day, these “brand” employers cannot be that selective despite the aura — collectively, their entry-level hiring demand probably equals the entire output of the top-50 colleges combined. There was a time Google was looking to hire 10, 100, or even 1000 new grads per year. That’s probably gotten to the range of 10K nowadays. So the haphazard “Lets make a guess and see what sticks” approach might be the best option.