In Part 1, I talked about how "best private school" isn't really one question, it's shorthand for a dozen different ones, depending on what your family actually needs. We covered academics, financial aid, athletics, the arts, faith-based education, and how your child learns. But those weren't the only ways Charlotte parents searched for "best." Here are a few more that deserve their own look.
Best for College Prep
This one overlaps with academics, but it's really its own question. A school can be academically strong without being built around getting students into competitive colleges, think dedicated college counseling starting early, AP or IB course loads, and a track record of where graduates actually go. If you're already thinking about your child's college list in middle school, this is the "best" that matters most to you. If you're more focused on your child enjoying childhood and figuring out their path later, a heavy college-prep environment might feel like pressure you don't want yet.
Best by Grade Band
"Best" changes as your child grows, and a lot of parents don't realize they should be asking the question separately for elementary, middle, and high school. The best private elementary school for a young child who needs a nurturing, play-based start might not be the right middle school once that same child needs more independence and a wider range of electives. And the best high school is often judged by a completely different set of criteria, course rigor, college counseling, extracurricular depth, than what mattered when they were five. It's worth asking "best for this stage" rather than assuming one school has to be best forever.
Best Montessori or Alternative Pedagogy
Not every family is looking for a traditional classroom model. Montessori, Waldorf, and other alternative approaches attract parents who want child-led learning, mixed-age classrooms, or a philosophy that looks nothing like the school they grew up in. If your child does better with hands-on, self-paced learning than with a traditional desks-and-lecture format, "best" for you might mean stepping outside the traditional private school model entirely.
Best for Gifted or Advanced Learners
This is the flip side of the learning-differences point from Part 1. Just as some children need extra support, others need to be challenged well beyond grade level to stay engaged. For these families, "best" means acceleration options, enrichment programs, and teachers experienced in keeping a gifted child curious rather than bored. A school with an excellent general reputation isn't automatically the best fit if it doesn't have a real plan for a child who's already reading three grade levels ahead.
Best Value
This is different from "best for financial aid." Financial aid is about how much of the cost a school is willing to cover for your family. Value is about what you get for what you actually end up paying, full stop: class sizes, facilities, teacher retention, outcomes compared against the tuition, whether or not you receive aid at all.
Value also means looking past the sticker tuition number to what it actually includes. Some schools bundle technology fees, books, and school supplies into tuition; others bill them separately, on top of what you thought you signed up for. The same goes for before- and after-care, athletics fees, and class trips, one school's "all-in" tuition can be genuinely cheaper than another school's lower sticker price once you add up everything that gets charged separately. Two schools can look identical on a tuition comparison chart and still cost very different amounts by the end of the year. Some of the most expensive schools in Charlotte are worth every dollar for the right family. Others aren't, even for families who can easily afford them. Value is its own lens, and it's worth applying deliberately and asking schools directly what's included, instead of assuming a lower or higher tuition number tells the whole story.
Best for Community and Parent Involvement
Some families care as much about the parent community as the classroom. A school where parents know each other, where you'll run into other families at church or the grocery store, where the PTA is a real social fabric and not just a fundraising committee, for some parents, that closeness is exactly what "best" means, sometimes even more than what happens academically. Other families prefer more distance between school and social life. Neither is wrong, but it's worth being honest with yourself about which one you're actually looking for.
Putting It Together
Between this post and Part 1, that's twelve different definitions of "best" and probably not even all of them. The point was never to make your search more complicated. It's the opposite: once you know which of these actually matter to your family, most of the noise falls away, and the real search gets a lot shorter and a lot clearer.
If you haven't already, go back and work through the reflection questions in Part 1, then add these to the list: does your child need to be challenged or supported, does the school's identity ( faith-based, alternative pedagogy) matter as much as its reputation, and are you evaluating the right grade band for where your child is right now, not just where they'll end up.
If you want help sorting through all of this for your specific child, [check out my guides] or [book a consultation] and come find me on Instagram, where I talk through real examples of how these categories play out for Charlotte families.
