A new private high school makes big promises. Inside Higher Ed reports on a new and dramatic change in a private high school’s sell to families.
A private, for-profit high school in Orange County, California, Fairmont Private Schools, does not just “help” your child obtain admission or brag about prior graduates’ success. They actually guarantee top college admission, and even scholarships.
“Fairmont Private Schools, Orange County’s largest and oldest nonsectarian private school, is boosting the return on investment in education with the Fairmont College Promise, which guarantees that Fairmont Preparatory Academy graduates will be accepted to and receive scholarships for tuition at the Top 100 U.S. colleges or universities. The school also says it will convert up to 100 percent of tuition paid to attend its high school into a scholarship to the college of choice if the promise is not met.”
No private school in New York has yet followed Fairmont’s lead. But is this fortunate?
According to Inside Higher Ed:
Myra A. McGovern, vice president of the National Association of Independent Schools, … said she was troubled by any high school designating only a certain kind of college as appropriate.
“Does that serve students well?” she asked. “The idea of a school isn’t that it produces one outcome exclusively, but that it helps a student develop into an adult.” Defining success as being admitted to a college praised by U.S. News “is a relatively narrow outcome.”
She pointed to her association’s code of ethics, which has a provision that warns against any relationships that would have school officials favoring some colleges over others in admissions advising.