The Question No One Asked Me Until I Graduated: Do Private Schools Just Let You Pass?
Last Saturday I was at my cousin’s end-of-summer barbecue, standing by the dented blue cooler holding a hot dog that I’d dropped in the clover a minute earlier, when her 17-year-old boyfriend leaned against the fence next to me and asked, straight up, “So is it true? Private schools just pass you no matter what, right? Because your parents pay tuition.”
I’d brushed the clover off my hot dog by then, but I still stood there for a second blinking, because I’d never been asked that outright before. I went to a small private day high school, the kind where parents scrape together second mortgages and tutor paychecks to get in, because the public high school three miles over has 40 kids per class and metal detectors at the door. Everyone I meet from public school assumes we all get handed passing grades for free, just for showing up and cutting a check. But it’s not that simple. Not even close.
Let me tell you about Jake, who I sat next to in 10th grade chemistry. Jake’s dad donated enough money to pay for the whole new weight room the year we started. Jake never did homework. He skipped every Friday to go golfing, slept through every test, and once turned in a lab report that was just a drawing of a fart next to his name. I was there when the principal called him into the office after midterms. Jake failed chemistry with a 42. They didn’t just bump it up to a 70 and send him on his way. They told him he either had to take the class again at the local community college that summer, or repeat 10th grade at our school. His dad didn’t throw his weight around to change it, either. I heard later he told Jake if he was too lazy to pass, he could pay for summer school himself with his allowance. Jake ended up getting a C in the community college class, just barely. That was that.
I’ve gotten the extra chances people talk about, don’t get me wrong. Junior year, my parents were getting divorced, and I was a mess. I skipped half my AP Bio labs, turned in only three out of ten problem sets, and got a 58 first semester. I cried in my teacher’s office after I got the grade, because I thought I’d have to drop AP and ruin my college apps. She sat me down, gave me a peppermint from the jar on her desk, and told me if I did 15 hours of extra credit over Christmas break—makeup labs, extra problem sets, a five page paper on cell division—I could pull my grade up to a 70. I did it, freezing in my grandma’s guest room while my parents fought downstairs, and I got the 70. Would I have gotten that chance at the public high school? My best friend Lila went there, and when she failed first semester algebra the same year, they wouldn’t let her do extra credit. She had to retake the whole class over summer, no exceptions. So yeah, private schools give you more second chances. That part of the stereotype is true. But a second chance isn’t the same as just handing you a pass. I had to do the work. If I’d turned in the paper half done, she’d have failed me. I know that for a fact.
There’s Mia, too. Mia was in the grade above me. She failed three classes her junior year, skipped more days than she showed up, and got caught selling vapes in the parking lot twice. The school kicked her out before senior year. Her parents were paying full tuition, same as everyone else. The school didn’t care. They said she’d had three warnings, she wasn’t holding up her end, so she had to go. She finished high school at an online program. So much for “always pass you to keep the money.”
I think the confusion comes from people seeing the soft stuff and calling it a free pass. My senior year, we had to write a 20 page senior thesis to graduate. I wrote mine about how Blink-182’s breakup reflected 2000s suburban alienation or whatever, it was total garbage. I turned it in two weeks late, it was only 12 pages, half of it was just quotes from song lyrics that I’d copied and pasted from Wikipedia. My advisor called me into his office and slammed it on the desk. He said, “I know your parents are still sorting out the divorce, I get you’ve been busy. But this isn’t a thesis. This is a blog post you wrote on the bus. Rewrite the whole second half, add eight pages, turn it in in a week, or you don’t graduate. I don’t care how much your parents pay every year, you don’t get a diploma for this.” I pulled three all nighters at the Starbucks downtown, lived on gas station glazed donuts, and turned in a barely passable version that got a C-. I graduated. But I earned that C-, it wasn’t given to me.
What people don’t get is that private schools need their reputation as much as they need tuition. I saw the budget once when my mom was helping the PTA sort newsletters, 70% of the school’s money comes from tuition, but if word gets out that your diploma is useless, that you pass anyone who pays, no one will apply. No one will donate. So they can’t just pass everyone. It’s bad business. They walk this weird line: they’ll give you a second chance if you’re going through a rough time, because they want to keep you and your tuition, and they want to say they’re a caring school. But if you’re not trying at all, if you’re gonna make them look bad when you can’t cut it in college, they’ll cut you loose before you graduate.
I still didn’t know what to tell that kid at the barbecue, after I thought about all that. I ate my half-grass, half-hot dog and said, “No, they don’t always let you pass. But they’ll give you more chances than most places, if you’re at least willing to try.” He nodded, like that wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but it made sense. And honestly? That’s all I’ve got. There’s no big secret, no conspiracy. It’s just a bunch of people running a school, trying to keep everyone happy and keep the doors open. Sometimes that means giving you a break. Sometimes that means failing you. It’s never as black and white as people make it out to be.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » The Question No One Asked Me Until I Graduated: Do Private Schools Just Let You Pass