When comparing private schools in Orange County, parents quickly notice a gap: public schools have extensive public data on test results, student-teacher ratios and college outcomes, while private schools often have only the descriptions on their own websites. This is not because information is being hidden; the two types of schools are simply subject to different disclosure requirements.

What Is Available at the Federal Level

The Private School Universe Survey (PSS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), is the only federal data collection that covers all private elementary and secondary schools. It began in the 1989-90 school year and has been conducted every two years since.

PSS collects the following information:

  • Religious affiliation
  • School level and size
  • Calendar information, including the length of the school year and the length of the school day
  • Total enrollment from kindergarten through grade 12 and the number of high school graduates
  • Whether the school is coeducational
  • Number of teachers
  • Program emphasis and type of kindergarten program

As the list shows, PSS provides basic structural information about schools and does not include academic results, admission rates or college outcomes. Because it is updated only every two years, it is also of no use for information that changes annually, such as tuition.

Data Available Only from the School

The following information does not appear in any federal or state public data and must be obtained from the school website, admissions information sessions or the admissions office directly:

  • Current tuition, fees and financial aid policies
  • Admission test requirements (ISEE, SSAT or HSPT) and deadlines
  • Actual class sizes and student-teacher ratios
  • College outcomes for graduates
  • Whether the school accepts international students and can issue a Form I-20

The last item relates directly to immigration status: a school must be certified by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) to issue a Form I-20. The relevant rules are explained in F-1 Student Status and the Form I-20.

How Parents Can Build Their Own Comparison Table

EDUBUS advisors recommend organizing the information into three categories:

First, structural information (grade levels, size, religious affiliation), which comes from PSS and the school website and changes slowly.

Second, current-year information (tuition, deadlines, test requirements, open houses), for which only the version the school publishes on its website for that year should be used, and which must be rechecked every year.

Third, information that is available only by asking (actual class sizes, the faculty in a particular subject, support for international students), which should be raised item by item at open houses or interviews.

The EDUBUS profiles of Orange County private schools follow this structure, and each school lists its data sources and verification dates; see the school directory. The application process and timeline are covered in Private School Admissions Planning.

EDUBUS Recommendation

The view of EDUBUS advisors is that private schools cannot be compared using the same method as public schools. With public schools, families can look at the data first and then at the school. With private schools, families must first decide what they need (day school or boarding school, whether religious affiliation matters, what kind of support the student requires) and then use the data to narrow the list. Reversing that order makes it easy to be misled by a single measure.

Sources

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