The Everyman Goes To NYU - The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

NBC News has a piece asking whether the cost of private schooling (K-12) is worth the cost. This part jumped out at me:

Despite a strong r?sum? that included solid grades and entrance exam scores, and an enviable list of extracurricular activities, Assaf ? who attended the private, $29,800-a-year Branson School outside of San Francisco ? failed to get accepted to Brown. {?}

?Not getting into Brown was the best thing that?s ever happened to me,? said Assaf, a vice president of sales at S.W. Basics of Brooklyn who ultimately ended up studying at NYU and has been accepted to the Harvard Business School.

The private school environment, according to Assaf, too often tended to engender in her and her classmates ?an entitlement mentality.?

?At NYU, in a city like New York, nothing happens for you,? she said. ?You have to earn every opportunity.?

When I think of a scrappy, nothing-is-free school, I can?t say that NYU is exactly what comes to mind. Later in the article:

Smith often advises his students to make nontraditional college choices ? such as one student he encouraged to attend USC over an Ivy League school. However, he says he?s concerned with the dejection that students like Assaf experience, when the substantial investment in a high-priced secondary school education doesn?t yield the return they expected.

I suppose in one way, any non-Ivy school is a ?nontraditional college choice? over any Ivy League school, and while USC is a private school, it?s larger than most state schools. Even so, I can?t help but find it interesting that in an article about the virtues of public versus private, it basically focuses on people looking at top-flight private schools for college.

As for the content of the article, given my aversion to private college, I have a stronger aversion to private school for K-12. At least, sending a kid to private school for the sake of ?eliteness? (getting into the best college). I would consider a private school if there was something wrong with the local public school. Ideally, there?d be some measure of school choice where we end up and there would be an alternative public option, or a statewide math & science school as mentioned in the article (and like the one my wife went to).

Source: http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/burtlikko/2013/05/the-everyman-goes-to-nyu/

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