Are the 'contacts' children make at private school really worth the expense of sending them there?

[Enid]

As someone said this at the weekend - that their children met so many 'well-connected' families through their schooling that it would make it easier for them to get a good job later.

Is this true? How does it work then?

I lived with four incredibly successful people when at uni but I have never needed them to get ahead with my own career.

Possibly at Eton or Harrow? I can't imagine most people would give someone a job because they knew them at school . I thought the point of private schools was smaller class sizes and more opportunities for team sports and music, rather than meeting the right sort of people. (Though for some, it's also about avoiding the wrong sort of people...)

no it wasnt eton or harrow

a minor public school

I'd have thought these days at private school their classmates would be just as likely to be the children of plumbers and accountants - though personally I'd say that was a more useful "connection" anyway . But there you go, people are weird...

I tend to feel my children are the good connections that other people ought to want to know . Although admittedly more for the sheer joy that contact with an Inferiorette will bestow rather than the career opportunities.

Was that said on Mumsnet, or in real life (eg throwaway dinner party remark)?

I wonder. I can see that there might have been a time when work experience of a certain, possibly otherwise hard-to-find, sort (summer in a law firm eg) could come via schoolfriends' parents; but I think the days are gone when a whole career could come out of just such a foot in the door.

I guess, though, that there might be a sort of value in being exposed, when you're a teenager, to your mates' parents having high-profilish jobs [obviously I'm making an assumption about private school users here] as it gives you a sort of horizon for ambitions that you mightn't otherwise have. Something to aim for, that you can really see is real. But that wouldn't help a feckless teenager, and presumably an astute & energetic one would get their ambition bearings anyway - at private school or not.

it was a dinner party remark

seemed quite convinced of it

Ah. If it was said on Mumsnet, I'd have given it some rational consideration. But dinner party remark, well

Does she actually have children in school yet? Or is it just wishful thinking?

they have 4 kids at private school at senior level

they know what they are talking about you would think

bleurch. "well connected", horrible phrase....

Well, shouldn't she wait till they've got jobs, eh? Doesn't stand up, her argument.

And I'd be tempted - rather strongly - to ask her why she has so little confidence in her kids' actual abilities. I'd hate to think my kids were so incapable that they had to pull strings.

Well I went to private school and it was bugger all use to me, on any level

Probably depends on the school imo, and the careers that the children's peers end up in.

Oh well, good luck to her I suppose, but I don't quite see how those connections are going to translate into jobs that the young people are not otherwise qualified/skilled to get on their own merits....

I remember reading an article once about a nursery in New York that EVERYONE wanted their children to go to as it fed the next school up which fed the next school up etc etc

so basically, if you child did not get into said nursery, they were doomed. At 3.

barking mad

its weird as they dont seem like particularly social climby types

their kids are lovely, not ambitious though

Of course it may be that whoever it was has values of such a kind that they are, by their own lights, right ... people who use the phrase "well-connected" (which is SO not one I would use) are usually getting at connected-ness in the sense of titled, or landed-moneyed - like that.

And I suppose if it is your aim that your child marry an earl it is an idea to send them to school with the children of.

Bink, do stop being reasonable .

they're probably right, seems to be it's who you know now rather than what you know

My DH went to one of the top Public Schools, I think 80% of leavers (after uni) go to Sandhurst and/or The City ('just like Daddy').

My DH was not interested in either career, dropped out of uni after one term (they had radically changed the course he had applied English with American studies iirc to English with Politics) and trained to become a journo which has lead to the job he has not (Owner/CEO of one of the UK's top 30 tech PR/Ad agencies).

I can hand on heart say that at no point has any contact he made at school helped him in any way.

Perhaps if he wanted to go into The City it may have done. He is still friends with many people he was at school with and they all work in City/finance.

although, I can see that if you were socialising with the children of parents who had good jobs then it may help you get in the door, so to speak, re work experience or whatever

iirc most people who work on Vogue etc as fashion assistants coffee makers are word of mouth "my mummy knows the editor" favours

pfft

as said below, unless Eton / Harrow / Ampleforth (in which case you obv know The Right Types already) it won't be much help.

Bink is slightly right re aspirational career prospects, but that can backfire. Girls in my class, without exception to be doctors, lawyers, journalists or vets. None had ever considered that their aptitude for art could make them a fashion designer, or their manual dexterity that they'd be a really good plumber etc.