Questions to Ask a Private School
Questions for families evaluating an independent or parochial school: what to ask on a private school tour, what to ask admissions during the interview, and what to check before you sign. They cover grade size and attrition, faculty stability, the real annual cost, what support exists for a struggling student, how the admission decision gets made, and the terms of the enrollment contract.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
How many students will be in my child's grade, and how many in the school overall?
Why ask it
Grade size decides the social world your child lives in, and small schools can have one crowded grade and one that barely fills a room. Ask about the grade above and below as well, since a thin cohort often means combined classes later.
How many students left last year, and from which grades?
Why ask it
Attrition is the number private schools track most closely and advertise least. Departures clustered at one grade usually mark a transition the school handles badly, and that is worth asking about directly.
How many teachers left last year, and how many have been here more than five years?
Why ask it
Independent schools often pay less than the local public system, so retention tells you whether people stay for the working conditions. High turnover in a small faculty also means your child may lose their strongest teacher between years.
Are you accredited, and when was your last review?
Why ask it
A checkable fact rather than a claim, and the accrediting body's report often lists the school's own identified weaknesses. Ask whether you can read the summary.
Who governs the school, and how are trustees chosen?
Why ask it
A board that renews itself by invitation behaves differently from one with elected parent seats or a religious body above it. Governance is what decides tuition increases and how a crisis gets handled.
What share of the budget comes from tuition?
Why ask it
A school covering nearly all costs from fees has little cushion if enrollment dips, which is how mid-year staff cuts and sudden mergers happen. Endowment income, giving, and reserves are the counterweight.
What does a full year actually cost, including everything that isn't tuition?
Why ask it
Registration, books, technology, uniform, trips, sports, instrument rental, lunch, transport, and the expected annual gift can add a substantial fraction to the headline figure. Ask for a typical total for a family in your child's grade.
How much financial aid do you award, to how many families, and is it reassessed every year?
Why ask it
The annual reassessment is the part families miss. An award that shrinks as your income recovers, against tuition that rises each year, can turn an affordable school into an unaffordable one by the third year.
What happens if our circumstances change mid-year?
Why ask it
Enrollment contracts usually commit you to the full year's tuition regardless, sometimes with insurance available. Ask what the school has actually done for families in that position, not only what the contract permits.
What happens here when a student starts to struggle academically?
Why ask it
Ask for the sequence and who initiates it. Small schools often provide excellent informal attention and no formal structure at all, which works until the teacher who was providing it leaves.
How do you support a diagnosed learning difference, and what can't you provide?
Why ask it
The second half is the part that decides things. Independent schools are generally not bound by the same obligations as public schools, so services such as speech therapy or a specialist teacher may simply not exist here.
Under what circumstances would you ask a student to leave, and how often has that happened in the last three years?
Why ask it
Private schools can decline to re-enroll a student, which parents rarely consider until it happens. A school that answers plainly, with a number and a reason, is one you can trust with a difficult year.
Who does college counselling, how many students do they carry, and when does it start?
Why ask it
A counsellor with sixty students writes different letters from one with two hundred. Ask when the first meeting happens, since a programme beginning in senior year is doing crisis management rather than planning.
What does an ordinary day look like, hour by hour?
Why ask it
Ask for a specific grade's real timetable rather than the general description. Where the day is short, or heavily broken up by chapel, assemblies, and transitions, the teaching time is less than the brochure implies.
How much homework would my child have on a normal weeknight?
Why ask it
Answers vary enormously between schools with similar reputations, and the school's answer and the parents' answer often differ by an hour. Ask both and believe the parents.
What's expected of parents in time and money beyond tuition?
Why ask it
Volunteering, committee work, auction attendance, and an annual fund ask are normal, and the social pressure around them is real. Better to know the expectation now than to discover it in November.
What has changed about who attends this school over the last five years?
Why ask it
Enrollment shifts explain a lot: a new feeder neighbourhood, a bigger aid programme, a religious identity loosening or tightening. It is also a gentler route to the question of who your child will be sitting beside.
Can my child spend a normal day in class here?
Why ask it
A shadow day tells you more than any tour, and most schools offer one. If they will only host on a designated visit day, ask why.
On the tour, can we see the rooms my child's grade uses every day?
Why ask it
Tours tend to route through the newest building and the best lab. The classroom, lunch room, and wet-weather recess space for your child's grade are where the year would actually be spent.
For a student guide: what surprised you most after you started here?
Why ask it
Student guides are picked by the school, but they answer with less polish than the admissions staff do. The distance between what they expected and what they found is a description of the place no brochure carries.
What are we not seeing today that you would show us on a longer visit?
Why ask it
An hour's route covers a fraction of the campus and almost none of the timetable. The answer gives you a list for a second visit, and a guide who names something unglamorous is being straight with you.
Why do families leave, and could I speak with one that did?
Why ask it
The first half will get you a fair answer more often than you expect: relocation, cost, a fit that did not work. The second half is a genuine test of confidence, and a school with nothing to hide sometimes says yes.
What isn't good enough here yet?
Why ask it
Every head of school has a list, since it is the substance of their job. Hearing a specific item, with what they are doing about it, is far more reassuring than a school that presents itself as finished.
What does the application involve, and what are the deadlines?
Why ask it
Testing, interviews, teacher recommendations, and a shadow day all have separate dates. Ask which pieces carry the most weight, because schools differ substantially on this.
How many families apply for my child's grade, and how many places are there?
Why ask it
The ratio helps you decide how many applications to file. Ask about sibling and legacy priority, since a small number of open places can be smaller than it appears.
What kind of student does well here, and what kind struggles?
Why ask it
Ask about both kinds of student in one breath, so the admissions office cannot answer only the flattering half. A school that can only describe its ideal student has either not thought about fit or would rather not say.
Who reads our application, and who makes the final decision?
Why ask it
At one school the admissions director decides, at another a committee of teachers or the head does. Knowing which tells you whose impression of your child, from the interview or the visit day, is the one that counts.
What are you hoping to learn from the interview that the application doesn't show?
Why ask it
A private school interview can be a friendly conversation or a real assessment, and the admissions office will usually tell you which if asked. It also lets you describe the day to your child truthfully instead of coaching them toward a guess.
Is there a separate interview for parents, and what are you listening for in it?
Why ask it
Parents are often interviewed too, partly so the school can judge how the family will work with it when something goes wrong. Asking plainly is fine, and the reply shows what kind of partnership is expected.
Is there anything in our file you would like us to explain while we are here?
Why ask it
It gives the interviewer room to raise a weak report, a gap in schooling, or a mid-year move while you can still answer. A doubt aired in the interview can be settled there, which is not true of one that first comes up when the committee meets.
Does applying for financial aid affect the admission decision?
Why ask it
Some schools admit without looking at need, and others weigh it once the aid budget is spoken for. Practice differs by school and can change from year to year, so ask how it works here this season.
How does the waiting list work, and how many children came off it last year?
Why ask it
A waiting list may be a ranked queue or a pool the school draws on to balance a class. Last year's figure for your grade tells you whether to keep waiting or commit to another school.
How large are classes, and how many adults are usually in the room?
Why ask it
A class of 18 with an assistant is different from 18 with one teacher. Published average class size often hides wide variation between grades and subjects.
How are reading and mathematics taught in the grades my child is entering?
Why ask it
Ask what program is used and what happens when a child is behind. A school that answers only with a philosophy of learning has not answered the question.
How much has tuition risen in each of the past five years?
Why ask it
You are committing to several years, not one. A pattern of increases well above inflation tells you what to budget for by the time your child reaches the upper grades.
How do you handle conflict between students, and what did the last case look like?
Why ask it
Ask about a real incident rather than the handbook. Small schools have nowhere to move a child, which makes the response process more consequential than at a large school.
What are the rules on phones and devices during the school day?
Why ask it
Ask what happens on a second violation. Policies that exist without enforcement tell you something about how the school handles other rules too.
Which sports, arts, and clubs actually ran last year, and how many sign-ups does it take to run one?
Why ask it
Published lists include activities that have not run in years. A program that needs twelve students in a grade of thirty may not exist when your child gets there.
How do families hear from teachers, and how quickly are emails answered?
Why ask it
Access is one of the things families are paying for, so ask what the school's own expectation is. "Teachers respond within one school day" is a commitment; "we have an open-door culture" is not.
Where do your graduates go next, and how do they do when they get there?
Why ask it
Ask whether the school hears back from the schools its students go on to. Placement lists show admissions; follow-up tells you about preparation.
Evaluating an Independent School
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
What to Do Before You Decide
Read the enrollment contract before the tour, not after acceptance
Ask the admissions office to send it early. The tuition refund terms, the re-enrollment deadline, the withdrawal date, and the school's right not to re-enroll a student are the commitments you are actually being asked to make.
Visit twice, once unscheduled if they allow it
The admissions morning is staged. A second visit at drop-off or pickup shows you how families and staff behave when nobody is presenting, and it is when parents will talk to you candidly in the car park.
Ask about the middle of the class
Schools talk about their strongest students because those stories are the easiest to tell. Ask what happens for a solid but unremarkable student, and for one who is behind, because that is where the school's real practice shows.
Look for the deferred maintenance
Roofs, boilers, and science labs are where a squeezed budget shows first. Combined with a high tuition dependence and recent leadership turnover, it is worth asking directly about the school's financial position.
Get the aid decision before you commit
Aid is normally decided after acceptance and on a different timetable. Ask for the dates in writing so you are not choosing between schools with one number missing.
Common Mistakes
Buying the reputation rather than the fit
A school that suits a self-directed reader may be a poor place for a child who needs structure, whatever its name is worth locally. Judge on the support your child specifically needs.
Budgeting on tuition alone
The extras and the annual increase are both predictable and both routinely left out of the family calculation. Model year three, not year one, before signing.
Assuming public school protections carry over
Entitlements around assessment, individualized plans, and services generally do not apply the same way in independent schools. If your child has or may need a plan, get the school's obligations in writing.
Only talking to the parents the school introduces you to
They are volunteers and enthusiasts, and their experience is real but selected. Find a family whose child had a hard year, and ask how the school behaved.
Letting your child's one-day impression decide it
A shadow day is valuable and it is also a single day with a friendly host. Weigh it alongside the attrition figures and the support structures rather than instead of them.
Sequences by Priority
If cost is the deciding factor
- 1"What does a full year cost including everything beyond tuition?"
- 2"How is aid reassessed each year?"
- 3"What has tuition risen by over the last five years?"
- 4"What happens if our circumstances change mid-year?"
If your child needs academic support
- 1"What happens when a student starts to struggle?"
- 2"How do you support a diagnosed learning difference, and what can't you provide?"
- 3"Under what circumstances would you ask a student to leave?"
- 4"Can my child spend a normal day in class?"
If you are weighing the school's stability
- 1"How many students and teachers left last year?"
- 2"What share of the budget comes from tuition?"
- 3"Who governs the school, and how are trustees chosen?"
- 4"What isn't good enough here yet?"
If you are on a private school tour
- 1"Can we see the rooms my child's grade uses every day?"
- 2"What does an ordinary day look like, hour by hour?"
- 3"How large are classes, and how many adults are usually in the room?"
- 4"What are we not seeing today?"
If you are in the admissions interview
- 1"What are you hoping to learn from the interview?"
- 2"What kind of student does well here, and what kind struggles?"
- 3"Who reads our application, and who makes the final decision?"
- 4"Is there anything in our file you would like us to explain?"