bilingual schools for kids in santa marta...expensive?!

dwr says on Apr 29, 2008, 08:04:

Come to Bogota and see how you like it. 600 dollars per child and some charge up to 15,000 dollar bono. Education in Colombia is a ripoff.

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Mononoke28 says on Apr 29, 2008, 08:27:

Being bilingual in Colombia is definitely a privilege that most upper class people take advantage of. But if I lived there I would save the $600 and teach my children English at home and they can learn Spanish in school. $600 a month is a lot of money, even here in the States.

Diana

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miamimike says on Apr 29, 2008, 10:00:

Way too much for Colombia!

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 10:05:

It depends on what type of school you're talking about. In the states $600 a month is not expensive for private school.

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bikesadhu says on Apr 29, 2008, 10:17:

$600 not expensive in the U.S.??
at the moment my kid goes to a private school near washington d.c.(montessori) and its only $8k a year,there are of course expensive schools around but i think the most expensive in my area of northern virginia is 5k more $13k (elementary level)... i would have thought colombia to be ALOT cheaper for education,especially the coast....i wasn't thinking of " top notch",only an average range for a "decent school"...how bad (or good) is the public system?

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 10:47:

I agree in there are much cheaper in colombia...but $15-20k a year...here in hawaii is standard...

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Cerealkiller says on Apr 29, 2008, 10:53:

Hmm I dont thnk 600 dollars is too bad for a private school. Its actually quite reasonable.
Compare the German School in Bogota to the one in London, simillar curricula: Bogota 400 dollars - London 2000 dollars
Lycee Francais: Bogota 650 000 pesos (360 dollars or so -I dont even know the xchange rate anymore) - London 1200 dollars (and thats after the subsidy) - New York: 1200 dollars

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:04:

$600/month = $7200/year is a good price if you ask me comparatively speaking. Can an average person living in Colombia afford this? Absolutely not.

Private schools here in the East Coast of the US can run upwards of $30k (USD) a year. No joke.

Don't believe me? $30k for PRE-SCHOOL http://www.ecfs.org/admission/tuition.aspx
That's just so your 4-year-old can occupy a few hours each day playing with blocks and finger painting in an organized setting.

Dalton: $29,250
Fieldston: $28,545
Geneva: $17,500
Manhattan School for Girls: $15,500
Fordham Prep: $11,360

Can an average person living in the US afford this? Absolutely not.

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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robi666 says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:08:

My experience:
600 USD pays a near the top school in Medellin. It would not pay it in Rome.

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present."

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lpdiver says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:11:

My daughter graduates in three weeks from a top private school in Louisiana. $15,000.00 per year. The payoff is her College is going to cost nothing. Would that be likely to happen from a top private school in Colombia?

t

"cook some rice!"

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:36:

Bingo LP !!....thats the point, isnt it???

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lpdiver says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:50:

But would a kid get from a highly regarded private school in Colombia get a free ride in Colombia. I don't know about scholarships and such in Colombia. Do they get scholarships to Universities in the USA etc?

t

"cook some rice!"

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 11:57:

I really wasn't referring to the scholarship....just the level of education that a good private school provides over public school. Which is basically a waste of time these days...

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:07:

at lpdiver and Frank Rizzo

Having come from an entirely public school upbringing here in the US is that Public schools versus Private (secular or not) in my opinion makes very little difference if there is adequate parental guidance and support for the student.

More educated parents raise more educated kids (FACT) -- charter, catholic, or public doesn't really matter. It's why smart people who go to non-elite colleges, end up doing just as well as those who to elite schools (FACT). Given this huge variable that cannot be controlled by educators, the next most important thing is the quality and tenure of instructors.

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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lpdiver says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:11:

Fact...the percentage of students at my daughters school is off the chart for scholarships. I would never could never pay the tuition she got a scholarship.

I agree about parental involvment.

t

"cook some rice!"

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:14:

I can't speak for all areas....and i'm definately no expert on this....

Just the number of financially successful people that i'm in business with, by and large come from private schooling. I think any parent tries to do the best he/she can for thier child and i also agree...parental involvent, as you say, is paramount.

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NataliaV says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:44:

A student can make the most of the education no matter where they go. Parental involvement is of course very very important. People pay top dollar for private schools in the US not only for a "better" education, but also for the connections that the school has. Such as counselors having relationships with top ivy leagues schools which in a normal public school most counselors do not have any type of relationship with the top admisions team. Also, looking at the numbers as to how many students from that private school went off to an ivy league school. Those with the highest percent of students can request the top tuition amount. Its not just the private school education....its the chances of your child going to a top university is far better than those students coming from a public school.

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miamimike says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:44:

Way Way Too Much for Bogota(or Colombia in General) and here is why: Here in Miami, one of the Premier Private Boys School is Belen Jesuit Perparatory School(Catholic) and the Tuition is about the same here. The Wages are much higher in Miami so if you adjust for that fact, the $600 monthly school is even way more. If you look at the USD:CP exchange, the same tuition in Miami would be like over $27,000 yearly! At Belen, the Tuition even includes an all you can EAT Lunch,,,Highway robbery is a better word,,,


On Belen: Tuition
Tuition for the school year 2007-2008 is $9,750. This includes an all-you-can-eat lunch. Additional expenses include books and uniforms. Upon acceptance, a payment of a $300.00 Activities Fee and a $350.00 Registration Fee is due. The registration fee of $350.00 is non-refundable. The amount of the registration fee will be applied toward the tuition
http://www.belenjesuit.org/administration/businessoffice/businessoffic...

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:49:

at miamimike
All you can eat lunch? Must be lots of fat kids there? =D

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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miamimike says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:51:

Look at the Website's Photos! Not really! But the subject is the disparity of the Prices!

Do these Belen Students look Fat?

http://www.belenjesuit.org/home_page_1.htm

Just looked at the OP and the ? was, is the $6100 expensive for Santa Marta and that being the case, that tuition would be like Armed Highway Robbery,,,

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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lpdiver says on Apr 29, 2008, 12:53:

But do students at a private school garner the benefits like they do in the USA as Natalia alluded to.

t

"cook some rice!"

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Frank Rizzo says on Apr 29, 2008, 13:09:

LP, all wealthy families that i know in colombia send their children to private schools and usually have a home tutor as well...

I can't imagine this even being a question for them.

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robi666 says on Apr 29, 2008, 13:13:

If you attend a private top school, as an example in Llanogrande, and, as an example, you go training to Club Campestre in Medellin, you'll surely have the right connections in your future life.

I'd believe more here, because of the close oligarchic character of the high society in Colombia.

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present."

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bikesadhu says on Apr 29, 2008, 13:39:

isnt there anything in colombia for the "middle"classes, and doesn't the different regions make up a big difference in the price?
when i graduated from my "top" level private school ( gonzaga,washington d.c.,high school ) the only payoffs for college were based on your athletic ability or race !

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Mononoke28 says on Apr 29, 2008, 13:44:

I'd save the $600 a month, put my kid in public school if I lived in the States or put my kid in a less expensive school in Colombia. Teach them at home the language they don't learn in school and we're all happy. I went to El INEM while I lived in Colombia and got a great education and I also went to a public school here in the US and had no problems getting into all the schools I applied to, plus I have a great job.

It doesn't matter where you go really.

Diana

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juicerbud says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:06:

It just boils down to money. Public schools in wealthy areas (US) send just as many kids to Ivy with Scholarships as private. As a teacher, I would not work in a private US school because the pay and benefits are so low. I have a friend that teaches Sarah Jessica Parker's kids in a private NYC school that makes less than I do at my public school and has fewer benefits. As a rule, the better, more educated, teachers, teach in public schools. On the East Coast, teachers who are out of work or just getting started go private until they can get a public job. Plus, the standards are not as high to teach in some private schools as far as educational background. I realize it is not the same in Colombia, and as such, I might be joining the ranks of private school teachers there in a year or two.

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Mononoke28 says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:08:

I didn't know that teachers in private schools were so underpaid. That is just wrong. Where does the money go then?

I had a friend in Vegas who got her teaching degree from our school, UNLV and then she told me that she was going to get her masters so she could earn $40k a year. At the time I was making $55k in telecom but I didn't want to break her heart so I didn't tell her how much I made.

Diana

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miamimike says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:10:

Another example to show posters just how far out of line that $600 monthly Colombian Tuition in Colombia is that the Tuition today at the College Prep HS I attended in Erie, Pa, my hometown, is less then what the $600 tuition charged in Colombia. MY cost then was $500 yearly including books, Lab Fees, Blazers. Today their website shows tuition around $5800. Pennsylvania, the state this school is located in, is not considered a low wage area or inexpensive state to live in BTW. Incidentally, ex Homeland Security Head Tom Ridge attended this school back in the 60s,,,


Tuition Costs for 2007/2008

$5,835 total tuition
This includes a tablet PC
An additional $310.00 per non-Catholic student.

The actual cost of educating a Cathedral Prep student is $9,200. This means that every student that attends Prep receives a $3,365 scholarship. A quality education is an investment in your son’s future. We strive to keep the cost of this investment as low as possible for the families that we serve. The difference between the actual cost and tuition is made up through continual development efforts.


http://www.cathedral-prep.com/cathedralprep.aspx?pgID=920

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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Mononoke28 says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:16:

$310 per non-Catholic student. That's hilarious. 'Cause you know, it takes an extra $310 to get them to learn on how to use a rosary.

Diana

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Cerealkiller says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:30:

I don't know how it works in private schools in the US. But in private international schools those fees cover learning a second and even third language, graduating with Colombian bachillerato, US High School Diploma, Abitur, IB, or EB (which require second marking from external examiners abroad).

I found my experience in private schools to be most enriching, not only in terms of the level of education (Got exempted from a lot of Gen-ed modules and overall kept a GPA above average) but also in terms of networking, and not just at the local level.

Someone mentioned kids could learn the language from their parents, or at home. I disagree, unless you just want your children to speak a language poorly then that is not the way to go. Most people cannot even speak their own language flawlessly. I have met many Colombians who are fluent in Spanish and learned their language at home (England). However, they are fluent in colloquial language, have very strong regional accents and have trouble with spelling. I don't know but I wouldn't want my kids to learn a language just to get by...I would want them to master the language.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives -John Stuart Mill

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 29, 2008, 14:31:

at lpdiver,
I'm not sure I understand your reasoning with respect to scholarships and the fact that your daughter received one for going to private school (I'm not even bringing up the fact that you said she graduated in three WEEKS, I'm going to assume YEARS). Did her the private school she attended in high school give her the scholarship? Were the scholarships she applied to only open to people that graduated from her private school or only open to kids who graduated from private schools in general?

I'm having a hard time linking the private school she attended to her having a better chance of securing a scholarship any more so than if she attended an equally good public school.

I guess what I'm saying is that the ultimate determination of where a child goes to college/university are SAT scores, GPA, the number of AP courses taken including scores on AP exams, SAT II scores, extra cirruc's, etc. This is of course not taking into consideration legacy applicants and the super elite private schools I brought up earlier that charge 30k/year.

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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Mononoke28 says on Apr 29, 2008, 15:07:

I know a lot of people who have learned Spanish very well at home and learned English in school. It's not a challenge, I did it, my sister certainly did it as she was younger than I was when we came here. I think there are a lot of lazy parents around who choose not to focus on teaching their children proper Spanish at home and that includes reading and writing. But it can be done, easily.

Diana

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NataliaV says on Apr 29, 2008, 15:11:

I agree with rhydewithdis to an extent. Yes, those things do play a major factor in getting into college. And every year students from public schools do go off to some great colleges. But to get into an Ivy, going to a private school is your best bet. Below is a clip from a recent article by the WSJ:

As college-application season enters its most stressful final stretch, parents want to know if their children's schools are delivering the goods -- consistently getting students into top universities.

It's a tricky question to answer, but for a snapshot, The Wall Street Journal examined this year's freshman classes at eight highly selective colleges to find out where they went to high school. New York City private schools and New England prep schools continue to hold sway -- Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., is a virtual factory, sending 19 kids to Harvard this fall -- but these institutions are seeing some new competition from schools overseas and public schools that focus on math and science.

The 10 schools that performed best in our survey are all private schools. Two top performers overall are located in South Korea. Daewon Foreign Language High School in Seoul sent 14% of its graduating class to the eight colleges we examined -- that's more than four times the acceptance rate of the prestigious Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, N.Y.

-The article does state that some public schools are catching up, so here is a list of the top ten public high schools which are extremely competitive to get into:

Rank School Name and Location College
Readiness Quality-adjusted Exams
per Test Taker
1 Thomas Jefferson High School Fairfax County, Alexandria, Virginia 100.0 6.5
2 Pacific Collegiate Charter Santa Cruz County, Santa Cruz, California 100.0 4.9
3 International Baccalaureate Program Polk County, Bartow, Florida 100.0 4.3
4 Oxford Academy Orange County, Cypress, California 100.0 3.8
5 International School King County, Bellevue, Washington 100.0 2.8
6 Pine View School for Gifted Sarasota County, Osprey, Florida 99.3 4.7
7 High Technology High School Monmouth County, Lincroft, New Jersey 98.8 2.9
8 Design & Architectural Senior High Miami-Dade County, Miami, Florida 98.1 2.3
9 Stanton College Preparatory Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida 96.2 4.4
10 Preuss School Ucsd San Diego County, La Jolla, California 95.8 2.3

I do believe that a student can make the most of their education no matter what type of school, but I do think to get into an Ivy your chances are better if you go to a top private school. (As the study by WSJ says though...that may be changing).

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miamimike says on Apr 29, 2008, 15:28:

dwr says on Tuesday April 29th, 2008 8:04:

Come to Bogota and see how you like it. 600 dollars per child and some charge up to 15,000 dollar bono. Education in Colombia is a ripoff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DWR-Completely agree with your above post; you said it very well,,,

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 29, 2008, 21:33:

at NataliaV, good article to bring up, I remember reading that. Can you post a link to the source?

the entire study is skewed toward these 8 schools: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins.

if the list were expanded to include us news's or princeton review's top 25 national universities, for example, i'm fairly certain a lot more top-ranked public schools would make the cut.

the uber-elite preps acting as factory mills for the ivies is old news. back in the day, their headmasters would simply have to make a phone call to a university admissions officer and said student would be in. today, that old network of elites has been supplanted by the more 'meritocratic' model of 30k-per year tuitions, 10k private SAT prep tutors, and 15k private college counselors. glad to be living in a class-free society.

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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juicerbud says on Apr 30, 2008, 00:08:

Natalia, Good article. I strongly believe that those same kids would have gone to the same colleges regardless of whether or not they went to those prep schools. I could be wrong, but those all of those seem to be high schools that are difficult and expensive to get into, thus accepting the same kids that would have gone Ivy anyway. I am not saying they aren't good schools with good reputations, but I am saying that they don't just take average kids and turn them into Ivy Leaguers. Rather they take Ivy Leaguers and keep them Ivy Leaguers. Plus, parents that send their kids there are already showing that they care about their kids education. Kids that come from homes where education is a priority are much more successful students.
Mononoke28 - the money for private schools (non-Catholic) gets spread around for the facilities and staff. Whereas taxpayers pay this for public schools with their taxes. School budgets, private and public, are huge.
Catholic schools are subsidized by the church and tend to be much less expensive than non-catholic private schools. That is the theory behind non-catholics paying more - they figure they aren't coughing it up at the collection plate.

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NataliaV says on Apr 30, 2008, 08:15:

hahaha I am in the business of 10k private SAT prep tutors. But here are the links to the articles:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/high-schools/2007/11/29/gold-...

And the WSJ article I will have to post because you can't view it unless you subscribe. Sorry it's so long:

How to Get Into Harvard

A WSJ study finds that certain high schools have a remarkable record of sending their students to elite colleges.

By ELLEN GAMERMAN
November 30, 2007; Page W1

As college-application season enters its most stressful final stretch, parents want to know if their children's schools are delivering the goods -- consistently getting students into top universities.

It's a tricky question to answer, but for a snapshot, The Wall Street Journal examined this year's freshman classes at eight highly selective colleges to find out where they went to high school. New York City private schools and New England prep schools continue to hold sway -- Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., is a virtual factory, sending 19 kids to Harvard this fall -- but these institutions are seeing some new competition from schools overseas and public schools that focus on math and science.

The 10 schools that performed best in our survey are all private schools. Two top performers overall are located in South Korea. Daewon Foreign Language High School in Seoul sent 14% of its graduating class to the eight colleges we examined -- that's more than four times the acceptance rate of the prestigious Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, N.Y.

No ranking of high schools is perfect, and this one offers a cross-section, rather than an exhaustive appraisal, of college admissions. For our survey, we chose eight colleges with an average admissions selectivity of 18% and whose accepted applicants had reading and math SAT scores in the 1350-1450 range, according to the College Board: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Williams, Pomona, Swarthmore, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins. Some colleges that would otherwise have met our criteria were excluded from our study because information on their students' high-school alma maters was unavailable. All the colleges in our survey received a record number of applications last year.

We tracked down the high-school alma maters of these colleges' current freshmen -- nearly 7,000 kids in all -- and made a list of the high schools that had graduating classes of at least 50 students. We then calculated what percentage of last year's graduating class at each high school had gone on to the colleges in our survey.

Despite the fact that many people who went to state schools or obscure liberal arts colleges lead happy, successful lives, high-school seniors and their parents are routinely terrorized with alarming and now familiar college-admissions statistics. There are more high-school seniors going on to college in America now than at any point in U.S. history. Last year, Harvard admitted an all-time low of 9% of applicants after receiving a record 23,000 applications.

In a sign of the shifting global economic food chain, students from abroad now take up a growing number of spots. At the University of Pennsylvania, 13% of the class of 2011 is made up of international students, up from 11.8% the previous year.

And coming from a prestigious suburban public school or elite private school may not offer the same advantages it once did for students. Many Ivy League schools say they're going after low-income students more aggressively, making it harder for middle-class kids to stand out.

"It's scary," says Jessica Assaf, 17 years old, who's waiting for word on her early application to Brown University. Ms. Assaf, whose parents send her to the $29,800-a-year Branson School north of San Francisco, is highlighting her work with an organization that focuses on the health hazards of cosmetics. But she worries her activism won't be enough to get her in, especially given Brown's record-low acceptance rate of about 13.5% last year. "A 14% acceptance rate isn't a good statistic," she says. "If someone said you had a 14% chance of living, that's nowhere near being reassured."

WHO'S GETTING IN

Among public schools, those that specialize in math and science fared well in our survey, in part because some top universities are focusing more on drawing high-caliber science and engineering students. Last year, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a magnet school in Alexandria, Va., sent 9% of its graduates to the colleges on our list -- with 14 students, or 3% of its graduates, going to Princeton.

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, another public school for kids who excel in science and engineering, last year sent graduates to Harvard, MIT, Duke and Cornell, and 14 went to nearby Johns Hopkins. Kids see that list of colleges every time they walk by the guidance office: It's written on a 10-foot board to give students inspiration, the school's director says.

Good neighbors make good feeder schools. Princeton High School, a public school down the street from Princeton University, sent 19 kids to the college last year, up from 12 four years ago. Jeff Lowe, the high school's college adviser, says the numbers are so high in part because the children of Princeton professors are more likely to attend the high school, and they're also likely to be good students. He says the school typically sends between 10 and 20 kids to the university every year. (The university subsidizes up to half the tuition for the child of a faculty member.) Two years ago, the high school began accepting kids from outside the district for $15,817, after parents requested it.

THE POWER OF THE COUNSELOR

Still, many parents enroll their kids in private schools for the trump card that top prep schools have long held: the powerful, highly connected college counselor. The college counselors at many private schools have spent years building relationships with college admissions offices. Some have inside experience in the admissions process.

Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, is a former senior associate admissions director at Stanford University. Mr. Reider says his former colleagues are no longer working at the university -- he left seven years ago -- but he still thinks having worked in an admissions office gives him an edge. "Because I've been on the other side of the desk, I have some idea how an application reads and what goes through an admissions officer's mind when they read it," he says. Last year, he says, Stanford admitted 11 of his students -- more than any year since he took the high-school job.

Nancy Siegel, head counselor at Millburn High School in northern New Jersey, says that when an applicant vows that he or she will attend a particular college if accepted, she'll often let the school know. That can help a student's chances -- but if the child has a change of heart, she says, the high school is in trouble. "You talk to kids ahead of time and say, 'Don't you dare say that unless you mean it because the high school's reputation goes down the tubes,"' she says.

Samantha Broussard-Wilson promised to attend Georgetown if the school accepted her early application. It did. But later that spring, the student from Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, Calif., got into Yale. When she decided to go to New Haven, she says some teachers at her high school turned hostile. "I actually did get a lot of negative comments," says Ms. Broussard-Wilson, 18, now a freshman at Yale. "Teachers told me, 'You may have taken one of the spots from someone else at our school.'"

Richard Bischoff, director of admissions at the California Institute of Technology, says parents overestimate the importance of a high-school name. He recently received a letter from a parent of a toddler wanting to know where the child needs to go in order to get accepted at Caltech. Mr. Bischoff wouldn't indulge the question. "I don't have the formula," he says.

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NataliaV says on Apr 30, 2008, 08:18:

Although as rhydewithdiss said things may be shifting in the way private schools held the advantage....although I still believe they are a better choice.
Clip from the above article:

And coming from a prestigious suburban public school or elite private school may not offer the same advantages it once did for students. Many Ivy League schools say they're going after low-income students more aggressively, making it harder for middle-class kids to stand out.

Juicebud...good points.

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rhydewithdis says on Apr 30, 2008, 09:24:

yay I graduated from a Top 20 High School (at least according to the US News List in that link).

They said I couldn't play football I was too small / They say I couldn't play basketball I wasn't tall / They say I couldn't play baseball at all / And now everyday of my life I ball.

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lpdiver says on May 3, 2008, 14:55:

rhydewithdis...ok a clarification, My daughter will graduate three weeks from today. Does that suit you better?

No she did not get the scholarship because she went to a particular private school. She got the scholarship because the counselor happened to have an ongoing relationship with the people at the particular university where my daughter applied to school.

My daughter applied and did not even get a reply. The counselor called and urged them to take a closer look at my daughters qualifications. She did slightly above average on her standardized testing and had a 4.8XX cumulative GPA. There are quite simply way too many outstanding students in the system.

Had she finished at the public school where I enrolled her she would have had to pay 34,000 dollars per year to attend the university.

Is it fair...no. Is it right...no. It simply is what it is.

t

"cook some rice!"

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durito says on May 3, 2008, 15:29:

Public schooling in the US is all about your particular school district (which generally corresponds to in how wealthy of an area you live in).

I went to a private high school, and it absolutely makes a difference in getting into a top college. 83 kids in my graduating class, all went on to 4 year colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford, etc, etc. They have students that get into all of the top colleges every single year. Having gone there, I don't believe these kids to be any smarter than your average teenager, so surely the reputation of the school helps out a ton.

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lpdiver says on May 3, 2008, 15:32:

My point exactly durito. It isn't right and it isn't "necessarily" wrong, just inequitable and unfair sometimes.

t

"cook some rice!"

0 funny, 0 helpful.