patrick.net

js27 says

It is nonsense that the top public schools send as many kids to the Ivy leagues. Harker sends a third to a half of its class to the top tier schools (Ivies+Stanford+MIT), which is 50+ kids. THe best high schools rararely send over a dozen to these schools, in spite of graduating classes three times Harkers' size.

But how much of that is correlation and not causation? The old money families would get into the Ivies wherever they went to high school.

It's not like W. was a top notch student...

Why not do both? What good is a great education, if you're ashamed of your slouchy parent picking you up in a used car, then driving you back to the extended stay Quality Inn?
Or check your White privlege and send an inner city kid that "Good School" disctricts rob of an equal education.
Did I say it right Marcus?

You folks have excellent income. In your scenario the best option is to go with whatever option gives you comfort. Raising a child is not an easy task, they require a lot of time and attention and expenses, and stability. As a parent who has raised a family, I would recommend to go with whatever you can comfortably do with single income, just don't stretch yourself thin. Because unexpected expenses will come, a lot of new stress will arise. Having to not worry about mortgage will keep your relationship a lot more stable and you much happier as a family.

If you can buy and be comfortable, buy, with family that is a much easier in a long run than renting. If you were single that would have been a different story.

Hope this helps.

Option 2 could be much better than option 1, it is a smaller mortgage with a $12,000/year for private school. You can look at it as you are investing 12k into your child, instead of paying it to the bloodsucking bank in interest over next 30 years. Because if you are going with a loan, your entire payment for first 20 years will be interest only for most part.

Now I'm curious. So what option did Menya go with? I'm hoping option 1.

Edit: Never mind. Read the posts above after making this comment.

FortWayne says

Option 2 could be much better than option 1, it is a smaller mortgage with a $12,000/year for private school. You can look at it as you are investing 12k into your child, instead of paying it to the bloodsucking bank in interest over next 30 years. Because if you are going with a loan, your entire payment for first 20 years will be interest only for most part.

Not saying buying is better, but I think the above logic is flawed. At current low mortgage rates, the payment is not all interest--not by a long shot. It's more like 50 principal/50 (interest + property tax).

I'm adding your story to my long list of reasons not to have kids.

They said "pay", not "borrow".
So with that kinda cash they can do whatever.

Not all Ivy leagues are alike. They are tier-1 Ivy leagues, they are called HYP (harvard, yale and princeton). If you are looking for a job at McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, KKR, yes, HYP is the stepping stone. The proportion of tier-2 Ivy admits to that of total Ivys that a school has sent is very high at schools like Harker. So, don't pay top dollar for "Ivy": look for tier-1 Ivies that a particular school has sent.

BTW, Cornell, an Ivy league, is called poor man's Ivy on the east coast.

Same with companies: there are tier-1 companies. Tier-1 companies love to recruit students from tier-1 Ivy schools. It is true that McKinsey recruits from tier-2 Ivys like Duke, Columbia, etc. Tier 1 companies recruiting at tier-2 Ivies is like Harker sending to tier-2 Ivys.

Tier 1a Investment Banking(IB): Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley
Tier 1b IB: JP Morgan
Tier 2a: Citi, Barclays, credit suissie
Tier 2b: UBS, Duetsche Bank
Tier 3: Wells, HSBC, Nomura, etc.

Just working at Citi does not make you a top tier IB guy, any more than going to duke does make ya top tier Ivy. Yes, there are outliers; even these outliers have to do with the family pedigree. For instance, Brown used to recruit kids of famous hollywood actors, actresses, dumb kids of billionaires. And Goldman Sachs love to hair that dumb kid from Brown; this is an outlier.

Consulting:

Tier 1: McKinsey, Bain, Boston/BCG. Even here, McKinsey > Bain/BCG

Private Equity:

Tier 1: Blackstone, KKR, etc

MBA schools:
Tier 1: Harvard, Stanford
Tier 1.5: Wharton, which is called MBA Factory these days.
Next tier: Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia, MIT

Law Schools:

Tier 1: HYS: Harvard, Yale, Princeton
Next tier: T14 schools minus Tier 1.

When you don't have any pedigree beyond the school--and this is the case with the majority of American population including immigrants, you have to scheme to top tier Ivies, top tier IB/Consulting/PE, etc. This is a very hard game. Most of the time, most of us don't know how this layered system works. From the outside, every Ivy appears to on par with every other Ivy; every IB job appears like every other IB job.

Just go to collegboard.com, wallstreetoasis.com, to see how some kids/parents have been trying to scheme to get to the top (the top money making potential. not so much of learning/intellectuality).

Tier 1: ASSHOLES!
Tier 2: ASSHOLES!
Tier2a: ASSHOLES!
Tier 14: ASSHOLES!