Well, it's not accurate to consider my kids "at risk," if you're addressing my comment. They're not, and they hardly come from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is why it would be a bit weird to use programs like this. On the other hand, you could look at it another way: DH and I have both chosen to work in fields that are not very financially rewarding because we feel we are of more service to the world that way. So maybe we deserve a break.
But I don't know. We both have expensive private liberal arts college educations and grew up in UMC families (in DH's case, on the lower end of UMC, tending more towards MC; in my case, in the middle of UMC). OTOH, both of us had scholarships, though mine (National Merit) was much larger.
My kids have a very good public high school available to them, so it's not as though we have no options. But DD is kind of a striver. Other than perhaps a lack of superb extracurriculars, which I guess we could work on, I don't really see why she couldn't get in to someplace like Exeter in 9th grade. But there is surely a lot I don't know about this. DH and I were talking about this semi-jokingly last night--would one of these schools mess her up more or less than we are going to in adolescence? (DD is HARD. The teen years will be HARDER. And she is a very, very independent kid. But of course, we would mess her terribly. We live far from New England.)
