Downingtown STEM Academy. Courtesy of Downingtown STEM Academy
A slew of excellent public and private schools call the Main Line region home. Which one is best for your child?
The decision between public and private school can be a challenging one. As parents, we want to do right by our children, giving them the opportunities and the experiences that will lead them to become well-rounded adults. We can’t know what the future will hold for them, but we can do our best to set them up to thrive.
In that respect, we’re doubly blessed. Woven throughout Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties are some of the best public schools in the state. Our region boasts 10 of the top 25 public high schools in Pennsylvania, and 24 of the top 100. Bolstered by a healthy tax base, union-negotiated teacher salaries and proactive parents, the programs, college admission results and graduation rates at public schools here often meet or exceed those of private schools in other parts of the country.
Like plenty of parents in our region, Lisa and Scott Hughes made the decision to go private in preschool, enrolling their oldest son, Ryan, in kindergarten at Saints Peter and Paul School in West Chester. “He was my first kid, and he was more anxious,” Lisa says. “I just thought he needed a little bit smaller class size. I felt like he would get more individualized attention.”
There were other factors that made the choice attractive for the couple—particularly the full-day kindergarten, which the West Chester Area School District had yet to implement. But when their son hit fifth grade, his feelings changed. “Ryan said, ‘I just need bigger; I need different; I need diverse,’” Lisa says. “It was trying to fit him in a box that he didn’t really want to fit in. He wanted to go to public school.”
At West Chester’s Peirce Middle School, Ryan became heavily involved in the performing arts, continuing along that path to Henderson High School. He’ll be a vocal performance major at the University of Michigan this fall.
Ryan’s brother Shane had the opposite experience. In his brief flirtation with public school after five years of elementary at Saints Peter and Paul, he found himself cut off from his friends and ready to return to his “posse,” as Lisa put it. He finished out middle school at Saints Peter and Paul. This year, he’s a senior at Bishop Shanahan High School.
Casey, the Hughes’ youngest son, was looking for a more challenging environment as he wrapped up his fifth-grade year at Saints Peter and Paul. He moved to Peirce and is now a 10th-grader at Henderson. “Just parent the kids you have—it’s not a one size fits all,” says Lisa. “It might be that you have two kids thriving in private and one that’s not. Maybe it’s time to look at a different angle. I definitely consider public schools strong if you have a kid who’s on the top or bottom of the scale—the high end or the low end, needing resources.”
If you’re a parent considering the merits of saving money by sending an academic high achiever to public school, research is in your favor. Studies over the last decade suggest that a higher college acceptance rate comes down to family background and home environment, rather than whether a student attends private or public school. In 2018, Robert Pianta, founding director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia, found that a student’s success depended more on income level and a parent’s schooling.
“When you compare children who went to private school (for an average of six years) with those who only went to public school, any apparent benefits of private schooling—higher test scores, for example—are entirely attributable to parents’ education and income,” he told U.S. News & World Report. “The fact that they went to private school does not account for any differences we might see.”
“What’s the value of a Shipley education—or what’s the value of a Baldwin or Haverford education? In some ways, that’s an individual question for families to ask themselves.”
—Kris Ryan, head of the Shipley School’s Upper School
It’s also worth noting that, while public schools offer advanced placement classes, counseling and a wide variety of support for the college-bound student, kids aren’t obligated to use those resources. Nowadays, most any motivated student with an internet connection can maximize the college application process by researching schools, majors, scholarships and honors programs. Platforms like Naviance perform many of the same functions school counselors once did, determining where a student might have the best chance of being admitted based on SAT or ACT scores, grades, extracurricular activities, volunteerism, and work experience. When it comes to preparations for standardized testing, what was once a pricey luxury for those willing to take time after school is now available for free through websites like Khan Academy.
Zach Marsden believes his success hinged less on which high school he attended and the guidance he sought there and more on the creative outlets he pursued on the side. Headed to Drexel University this fall as a music business major, Marsden is a talented musician who posted two original songs to Spotify as a student at Henderson High School and briefly performed onstage with Green Day at Delaware’s Firefly Music Festival in 2022. Aside from Drexel, he was accepted at Temple University and Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music—and he’s convinced that his side projects won him the most attention from those schools. “Part of it is that my major is kind of out of left field—and it’s a relatively new major, which made it more difficult,” says Marsden. “You search music business colleges, and you get the same five schools. There isn’t a whole lot a guidance counselor could necessarily do.”
For many students in private school, the goal is Ivy League acceptance. Some institutions—Andover in Massachusetts, Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire—are still known as “Ivy League pipeline” schools, says admissions expert Eric Eng. But even they can’t guarantee everyone admission to the nation’s top schools. As CEO of the California-based AdmissionSight, Eng provides counseling to high school students throughout the country. “There’s a lot of great schools outside of the Ivys,” Eng says. “For the most part, pressure comes from the parents. A lot of times, the student may not be super keen on going to an Ivy. But once they hear from the parents and their friends, these schools carry a lot of weight.”
Aside from Drexel University, Chester County’s Zach Marsden was accepted at Temple University and Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music. A talented musician who posted two original songs to Spotify in high school, he’s convinced that his side projects won him the attention of those schools.
For administrators at two of the Main Line’s top private schools, it’s less about the potential for collegiate success and more about how the school’s mission informs every facet of the student experience. “There are so many great options for families who live in this region, both public and private,” says Kris Ryan, who heads the upper school at the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr. “Ultimately, I think it comes down to what value those places present to families. What’s the value of a Shipley education—or what’s the value of a Baldwin or Haverford education? In some ways, that’s an individual question for families to ask themselves.”
That value can come down to something as simple as a faith-based education, a single-gender student body or a laser focus on college preparation. “Each private school is trying to deliver excellent education in unique ways that’ll be appealing to families for one reason or another,” Ryan says.
For Shipley, that appeal lies in three things: “One is delivering an education that attends to the individual well-being of a student,” says Ryan. “Two is an appreciation and an attempt to further the collective well-being of the community that’s a part of that educational excellence model. All of that [needs to be] in balance with student achievement.”
For students at the Haverford School, achievement can mean branching out in areas they might avoid in a coed environment. “Without girls around, it gives boys permission to do things that they otherwise might not,” says Tyler Casertano, head of the all-boys private school, which will be 140 years old in 2024. “For us, a lot of that is things like the performing arts or the humanities—or developing their emotional intelligence, helping them to become kind and thoughtful and sensitive and reflective, self-aware. More and more, these are capacities the world needs, and they sometimes come a little bit earlier and more naturally to girls in their maturation.”
Some institutions are still known as “Ivy League pipeline” schools, says admissions expert Eric Eng. But even they can’t guarantee everyone admission to the nation’s top schools. “There’s a lot of great schools outside of the Ivies,” he says.
Building strong relationships with teachers and administrators also allows for more focused guidance during the college search process. “And that might be through our own nuanced understanding of what certain schools are looking for, or certain relationships we might have with schools where we can glean some of that information,” Casertano says.
Along with the increased focus on educating the whole child comes the more intentional policy of diversifying the student body. “I’m not from a privileged background, so when I think about my own connection to these schools, it’s really important to me that we invite and include families from all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds,” says Ryan. “That’s part of how our community grows, and it’s a more realistic picture of the world.”
A 1998 graduate of Malvern Preparatory School, Marvin Pittman spent his elementary years in Catholic school. He was attending a public middle school in West Philadelphia when a friend’s mother suggested the all-boys Augustinian private school. When Pittman arrived, he was one of just a few Black students. That was no problem for him. He’d grown up in a primarily white neighborhood, attending mixed-race schools. Many of his classmates, he notes, “had to get used to me more than I had to get used to them.”
A quarter century after graduating, Pittman is a Harvard University alum with an Emmy-winning career as a sports journalist at NBC. More involved than he’s ever been with helping his alma mater pursue and embrace a more diverse student body, he likes what he sees at today’s Malvern Prep. “These kids are more culturally attuned, and things culturally are less segregated,” he says. “The time that I was there, you had to have your hair cut a certain way, you had to be clean-shaven, you had to be this and that. [Black] students there now can wear their hair naturally in braids and twists, and you may see a mustache or two.”
It’s progressed to the point where Malvern now supports a Black student union and other diversity-related groups. “While there’s a vocal minority opposing some of these changes, there has been widespread institutional support,” says Pittman. “Students are teaching parents—and I think that’s very cool.”
Top 10 Local Public Schools
- Downingtown STEM Academy, Downingtown School District (#2)
- Radnor High School, Wayne, Radnor Township School District (#3)
- Conestoga High School, Berwyn, Tredyffrin-Easttown School District (#4)
- Unionville High School, Kennett Square, Unionville-Chadds Ford School District (#6)
- Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, Lower Merion School District (#16)
- Great Valley High School, Malvern, Great Valley School District (#19)
- Strath Haven High School, Wallingford, Wallingford-Swarthmore School District (#21)
- Harriton High School, Bryn Mawr, Lower Merion School District (#22)
- Haverford High School, Havertown, Haverford Township School District (#23)
- Renaissance Academy, Phoenixville, Charter (#25)
Based on U.S. News & World Report’s Top Public High Schools 2023. Order reflects local ranking; state rankings in parentheses.
Top 10 Local Private Schools
- Episcopal Academy, Newtown Square (#2)
- The Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr (#3)
- The Hill School, Pottstown (#4)
- The Haverford School, Haverford (#5)
- Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, Bryn Mawr (#6)
- The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr (#9)
- Westtown School, West Chester (#10)
- Germantown Academy, Fort Washington (#12)
- The Agnes Irwin School, Rosemont (#16)
- Abington Friends School, Jenkintown (#17)
Based on Niche.com 2023 rankings of Pennsylvania private schools in Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties. Order reflects rankings in Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Rankings for the entire Philadelphia area in parentheses.
Related: What’s New at the Main Line Region’s Independent Schools
