What Alumni Hate Most About Private School: What Parents Need To Know Before Enrolling
Last Saturday, I stood in my brother’s backyard, burger in one hand, watching my 10-year-old son dart after his golden retriever around the picnic table, when my cousin Lila leaned in and asked what I’d decided for middle school. I’d been touring both the new public magnet and the private college-prep academy 20 minutes from our house, and I’d been complaining the night before that every private school brochure reads the same: small classes, amazing teachers, 95% college acceptance rate. Lila, who went to that same private academy K-12 and graduated college three years ago, snorted into her seltzer. “Yeah, they never put the part I hated most in the brochure.”
It wasn’t the homework, or the strict dress code, or even the insane tuition her parents took out a second mortgage to cover. It was the constant, quiet pressure to be someone you weren’t—financially, academically, socially. Lila’s parents were both public school teachers, they made it work with a combination of aid and monthly payment plans, but they couldn’t cover the extras that everyone just assumed you’d pay for. Sophomore year, the entire 10th grade was invited on a “cultural enrichment” trip to Paris over spring break. It was $2,400 per student, not including spending money. Lila knew her parents couldn’t swing that. Instead of telling her friends that, she made up a lie that her grandma was getting married in Florida that same week. She spent the entire break pretending on Instagram that she was at the beach, while she actually stayed home and helped her dad clean out the garage. “I was 15,” she said. “I’d rather have them think I was busy than think I was poor.”
It wasn’t just trips. Everyone had the latest Lululemon leggings, the new iPhone, cars when they turned 16 even if they didn’t need them. Lila got her first car when she graduated high school, a 10-year-old Honda Civic with 120,000 miles and a dented passenger door, and she always parked it three blocks away from school so no one would see it. By senior year, the pressure shifted to college. Lila wanted to study education, same as her parents. She got a full scholarship to the honors program at our state university. When she told her college counselor, the woman leaned back in her chair and said, “Don’t you want to aim a little higher? You’re smart enough for a top school.” Lila still gets tight-chested thinking about that.
I’ve heard the same story from three other alumni I know, all from different private schools around here. None of them say the academics were bad. A lot of them say they got a solid education. But almost all of them name this same thing: the unspoken culture of exclusion and constant performance that sticks with you long after you graduate. My friend Mia, who went to a different private high school, told me she worked 20 hours a week at a grocery store all through high school just to afford to go out to dinner or the movies with her friends after games. She never told anyone she worked there, because she was scared they’d judge her. She had panic attacks her first two years of college because she couldn’t shake the feeling she didn’t belong anywhere.
Everyone talks about private school as an investment in your kid’s future, but no one talks about this hidden cost to your kid’s self-esteem. If you’re a parent right now touring schools like I am, there are specific things you can ask that most guidebooks don’t tell you to. Instead of just asking what the average class size is or what the average test score is, ask two straightforward questions first: What percentage of your student body receives need-based aid? And do you ever organize class-wide or grade-level trips that cost more than $200? If the admissions person hesitates, or says “it’s optional but everyone goes,” that’s all you need to know. I toured the private academy last month, and when I asked that, the woman just laughed and said “most families can handle it.” That told me everything I needed to hear about who they think belongs there.
Another thing: when you visit, don’t only talk to the parents on the PTA or the admissions volunteer parent team. Find a parent who’s hanging back by the snack table, or join an alumni group on Facebook for the school, and ask point blank: Did your kid ever feel left out because of money? How does the school talk about students who go to state colleges instead of elite private schools? That’ll get you way more honest answers than any scheduled tour.
If your kid is already in private school, you don’t have to pull them out to make this better. Instead of just asking “how’s school going?” every few months, ask a specific question: “Was there any trip, event, or thing all your friends are doing lately that you wanted to do but we couldn’t afford?” And if the answer is yes, don’t dance around it. Don’t make your kid lie to their friends for you. Say out loud: “We can’t afford that this year, and that’s okay. We’re going to go camping at the lake that week instead, and that’ll be way more fun than a crowded school trip anyway.” Normalizing talking about money as a regular family choice takes the shame out of it, way more than pretending it doesn’t exist. For the college pressure, be clear with your kid and with the school: “Any school that fits your goals and our budget is a good enough school for us.” You don’t have to go along with the school’s obsession with elite college acceptances just because you pay tuition.
I’m still weighing my options right now. The public magnet has bigger classes, but it draws kids from every neighborhood and every income level. The private has smaller classes, but I can’t stop thinking about Lila parking her car three blocks from school. There’s no perfect choice, of course. Public schools have their own sets of problems. But it would be nice if more people talked about the thing no brochure mentions: that a great education doesn’t have to come with a side of shame that sticks with you for decades. Right now, I’m just glad I asked before I signed anything.
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