Choosing a Private School

What are private schools like anyway? Even if you're starting your private school research, there's a good chance you already have an impression of private schools. Perhaps you have read The Catcher in the Rye or A Separate Peace. Or maybe you saw Dead Poets Society or School Ties. These stories, while entertaining, offer a picture of private schools that is quite different from what you will find today.

Just as universities and colleges in the United States have evolved in the past several decades, private schools have also evolved. But unfortunately, while the perception of private schools is changing, there are still some lingering myths that can make you mistakenly think that you wouldn't fit in at boarding school:

Myth 1: You must be very wealthy to go to a private school.

Approximately a third of all private school students receive financial aid. Financial aid grants can represent a significant portion of tuition, depending on the school and your family's situation. Students now increasingly come from public schools and a wider range of family income levels. In general, boarding schools do their best to make their programs accessible to your family through financial aid grants, loan programs, and merit awards/scholarships. In the past ten years, the emergence of K-12 private school loans has also made boarding school education more accessible.

This video offers a look at the German International School

It's very easy to get side-tracked as you work your way through the process of choosing the right private school for your child. That's because there are so many considerations for you to ponder. Consequently, you can detour into many sidebars as you explore schools online. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with getting side-tracked. Indeed, you may find answers several levels down from the top page. Just make sure that you get yourself back on track after scanning that granular information. So, I will show you how to stay focused and organized while you look at schools.

First, develop a shortlist of three to five schools for you to explore in-depth and visit to confirm your findings. This shortlist will generate lots of observations, evaluations, assessments, and questions. So, make sure that you have checked all the boxes listed below.

1. Location

The location of the schools on your list is essential simply because travel these days is never easy. For example, getting your child to school can involve driving her to school and picking her up at the end of the school day. Or you may be able to contract with a transportation service to handle that. Or you might want to carpool with another family.

Review the logistics involved carefully. Ideally, you don't want to be more than a 20-30 minute drive from the school. So draw a circle 3-5 miles out from your residence. Use the search engine on this website to find

We parents who send our children to private school have a lot in common. Most of us want our children to think critically, analyze information, and read widely. For example, Nancy and I wanted to stretch our girls academically. That's why we sent them off to private school. Those poor kids never stood a chance because my late wife read to her daughters almost from birth. She was a voracious reader. She read real books made out of paper, not books on an iPad or Kindle. She had an honors degree in French language and literature and Spanish language and literature. She attended private schools in New York City. Academic excellence was simply a given from her point of view. I was passionate about music and made a career in church music as an organist and choir director. I mention these facts about us because I know you have your upbringing and educational experiences that have shaped you. Those will shape how you plan your child's schooling at every level.

Many of us also have public schools that are considered very good or excellent. In our case, we were fortunate to have excellent public schools. But we didn't like the large class sizes and the limited curriculum that they offered. So those were among the reasons we started looking for other options for our girls' elementary and high school educations.

Here are seven cases that look at some of the reasons parents choose a private school education for

Because you and I are not professional educational consultants with an intimate knowledge of private schools, we often waste time and make mistakes as we search for a private school for our children. For this article, we will be discussing private K-12 schools that do not focus on special requirements, such as therapeutic schools and schools for students with acute special needs. Read When Should You Consider A Therapeutic School? and When Should You Consider A Special Needs School? for suggestions about choosing those schools.

Here are some of the pitfalls you and I tend to encounter as we look at private schools.

1. Only looking at ranks
2. Thinking you can't afford it
3. Waiting until the last minute to submit applications
4. Thinking that schools are elitist
5. Not visiting schools
6. Not preparing adequately for the standardized admissions tests
7. Not hiring an educational consultant

Only looking at ranks.

I know what you're thinking. You want your daughter to attend a highly-rated school, the best school, a top-ranked school. Trust me. I get it. I wanted the same things for my daughters. But here's the hard truth: rankings have very little to do with finding the best private school for your child. Find schools that fit your requirements and her needs as best as possible. You are looking for schools that fit her best. She will be happy there. You certainly don't want an unhappy child, do you?

Thinking you can't afford it.

Yes, most private schools are expensive. Indeed,

Editor's Note: I will disclaim upfront that my eldest daughter went to a Waldorf School in the primary grades. Being creative people, we were impressed with the creative side of the curriculum. Our daughter's two years at a Waldorf school were overall a good experience. ~Rob Kennedy

On the fringes of traditional K-12 education are movements like Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia. They offer parents different approaches to early childhood education, and in the case of Waldorf schools, they continue on through high school. Searches on Google and YouTube will yield a lot of information to help you explore the subject of this article, a Waldorf education.

The founder

Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) established what we now know as the Waldorf or Steiner schools. He opened his first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany Emilia 1919. A hundred years later, there are over 1,200 Waldorf schools worldwide.

According to the Biodynamic Association, "Long before many of his contemporaries, Steiner came to the conclusion that western civilization would gradually bring destruction to itself and the earth if it did not begin to develop an objective understanding of the spiritual world and its interrelationship with the physical world. Steiner's spiritual-scientific methods and insights have given birth to practical holistic innovations in many fields, including education, banking, medicine, psychology, the arts and, not least, agriculture."

This video describes the Waldorf education.