Former Private School Students Share What They Hated Most (And What Parents Should Know Before Enrolling)
Last month, I hosted a backyard BBQ for my 16-year-old’s cross country team, and ended up hovering by the soda cooler with my 24-year-old cousin Lila, who went K-12 to the private prep school 20 minutes outside town that half the local parents are desperate to get their kids into. She was picking cheese puffs out of the mixed chip bowl when a mom from the team asked Lila if she’d ever send her own kid there, and she didn’t even hesitate. “No way,” she said. “The thing no one tells you before you sign up is how much it feels like you’re always performing.”
Before I could ask more, two other former private school kids lingering nearby chimed in. Jake, my brother-in-law, went to an all-boys Catholic private school for high school, and Mia, our neighborhood 22-year-old babysitter who graduated from the same prep as Lila, added her own two cents. For the next 45 minutes, we stood by the grill and went through the top things they’d hated most about their time there, and none of the answers were the things I expected. I’d braced for complaints about strict dress codes or too much homework, but what they listed were quiet, systemic frustrations that stuck with them years after graduation.
Lila’s biggest complaint was that every part of your life had to be a resume line. She played varsity volleyball, ran student government, volunteered at the local animal shelter every weekend, and spent spring break on a school service trip to Guatemala all four years. None of it was because she cared, she said. She did it because if your activity list wasn’t three pages long by junior year, teachers pulled you aside to ask what your “plan” was, other kids joked you were “wasting your tuition money,” and even your parents acted like you were throwing away the opportunity they’d worked so hard to give you. The year she decided to quit volleyball to take extra art classes, her mom cried for an hour. It wasn’t until after she graduated college that her mom admitted she’d only been upset because she didn’t want other parents at the country club to ask why Lila quit.
Jake’s biggest hate was the lack of space for anything outside the expected path. Everyone he went to school with was from wealthy families, and everyone was expected to go to an out-of-state private college, then become a doctor, lawyer, or investment banker. When Jake was a sophomore, he told his guidance counselor he wanted to be a landscape designer, and the counselor laughed and said he “could do that as a hobby after business school.” No one talked about kids who wanted to go to community college, or become electricians, or stay home to raise a family someday. If you deviated from the path, everyone acted like you’d failed, even if you were happier doing something else.
Mia’s frustration was the double standard for wealthy kids. She was on a full scholarship, so she saw it more clearly than anyone. A boy in her grade got two DUIs and assaulted a freshman at an off-campus party, and the school only gave him in-school suspension. His dad had just donated $2 million for the new football stadium, so the whole thing got swept under the rug. The year before that, a scholarship kid got suspended for a week for skipping a pep rally to take care of his little sister when their mom got called into work. Mia said she always felt like she was one mistake away from being kicked out, while the rich kids could do whatever they wanted with no consequences.
I’m not here to say private school is bad for everyone. A good friend of mine has a kid with severe dyslexia, and the private school she attends has the resources to support her that our local public doesn’t, and it’s changed her life. But that conversation by the grill made me realize most parents going through the admissions process never ask about the things these kids cared about. We’re too busy asking about test scores and Ivy League acceptance rates to dig into the daily experience of being a kid there.
There are a few concrete things any parent can do before enrolling that take five minutes and don’t cost anything. First, when you sit down with the admissions director, ask them to name three recent graduates who went straight to work after high school, or to community college, or into a trade, and tell you how the school supported them. If they can’t do it, that’s your answer. Second, ask what the last serious disciplinary action was against a student whose family donated to the school in the past five years. If they avoid the question or say they “can’t share that information,” that’s also your answer. Third, if your kid is on scholarship or you’re paying tuition on a tight budget, ask what free, local extracurricular and volunteer opportunities the school provides. A lot of schools require 20 hours of volunteer work a year, but only count expensive school-sponsored international trips, which leave low-income kids scrambling to meet the requirement on their own. If the school doesn’t have a list of free local options it accepts, that’s a red flag.
If you already have a kid in private school, one small thing you can do this week is ask them at dinner: “What’s one activity you’re doing right now that you only do because you think you have to?” If they name something, help them cut it. It doesn’t have to be a big fight. You can email the coach and say they need more time for their other work this semester. That one small change can take a ton of pressure off.
I still get asked all the time why we keep our kid in public school. I don’t have anything against private school, I tell people. I just haven’t met any former student who said the resume pressure and double standards were worth the Ivy League acceptance letter they got out of it. Some of them are still unlearning the habit of performing for other people, years later. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s not something any parent would wish on their kid if they knew it was waiting.
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