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Froggy1789 t1_jaceuay wrote

Reply to comment by WahWahBaby in Is germantown friends school as good as they say? by snooloosey

What you pay for at GFS more than anything is it’s reputations and connections to college admissions. It’s easier to get into the school when you are younger so the longer you send your kid there the easier.

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WahWahBaby t1_jaci4w3 wrote

Lol, I have no real opinion here, as I could never afford to send my son there or anywhere comparable, but what you are saying is true of every private school in the country and not unique to GFS.

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swampyankee22 t1_jacnnma wrote

Used to work in admissions, including with GFS, and the advantage is true at the margins and for private schools with good academics whose profile kinda fit the college. So we were kinda crunchy, and GFS students were a good fit, so if a kid were at the margins we'd take them bc we wanna keep getting GFS kids and they probably know what they're applying to.

But it really made no difference if a kid was clearly over the bar or not, there were other ways of getting in if they were borderline, and we wouldn't lay out for just any old private school.

In short, I would not spend 50k a year from middle school on to "game" the system. Just get your kid to study and they'll be fine.

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Series_G t1_jacx8w3 wrote

Thanks for those last two sentences. That's really where it's at, for me.

Even at our very challenged public school, the kids who have grit and drive end up at Harvard, Brown, and so on. The amount of money people are spending to stay in their bubble is a headscrstcher to me.

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psuedonymously t1_jaciurt wrote

> but what you are saying is true of every private school in the country

No it isn't. Not every private school in the country has the same reputation and connections to college admissions.

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WahWahBaby t1_jacjnis wrote

I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, but as someone who can’t afford private schooling I see them all as not merit based and solely people paying for the best long term outcomes for their children. There is no judgement, I get it.

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oliver_babish t1_jacot1l wrote

These schools may be sending their top students to Ivy-level schools, but they're still also sending graduates to Penn State, Villanova, and Temple every year as well. You still have to perform well at these schools for college admissions purposes.

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psuedonymously t1_jacjz47 wrote

> but as someone who can’t afford private schooling I see them all as not merit based and solely people paying for the best long term outcomes for their children

Ok, fine, but that's a completely different thing from what you were saying a second ago.

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monoglot t1_jackbnx wrote

Do you think this about neighborhood Catholic schools, for example?

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WahWahBaby t1_jacln40 wrote

I do, while it might be an exception, this Jewish kid was sent to nearby catholic school by his parents for 3 and 4 grade till they moved to a better catchment.

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monoglot t1_jacm7g7 wrote

Did going to Catholic school for grades 3 and 4 help you get into college? Would it have if you'd gone through high school? Just not sure I understand the argument that any private school gets you the same level of connections and reputation for college admissions.

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WahWahBaby t1_jacrh90 wrote

I can’t say for sure obviously, but I loved going there and kept in touch with a couple of friends who both went to prestigious catholic universities.

Edit: to be clear my parents didn’t send my brother and I there because they wanted us on a college track of some kind, my brother was in several fights in our public elementary school and they pulled us out and it was the quick option I guess.

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