What your private school says about you
The school you went to says a lot if you ask Sydneysiders. But the private school circuit is exclusive and elusive, and we’re here to help decipher it.
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The debate over private versus public schools has been raging since God invented the first straw boater but what does a private school education actually deliver?
In fact it varies widely, depending on the school you went to.
Here, in the first ever scientific study of Sydney’s most elite private schools, I can finally reveal the exact type of citizen that each produces.
The only exceptions to this exhaustive forensic analysis are any or all of my employers who have graced the hallowed halls of these institutions.
They comprise a unique subset completely exempt from the findings below and are instead united by the uncanny qualities of high intelligence, impeccable judgment and perfect bone structure.
Abbotsleigh
You love the outdoors and spent your childhood riding for hundreds of miles on end
— and could have gone even further had Mother not said to stay on the property.
You are a strong believer in tradition but also no stranger to activism, including your letter-writing campaign demanding Ku-ring-gai Council give right of way to horses during the off-peak.
Barker College
You are a strapping young man so secure in his masculinity that you were able to endure six years of co-ed without once falling into a committed relationship.
As a tearaway youth you scandalised your parents by choosing basketball over water polo
but such independent-minded instincts went on to serve you well in your decorated
career in broadcast media and motorcycle collecting.
Cranbrook
You’re a CEO who’s the son of a chairman who’s sent his son to Cranbrook so he can be a CEO who’s the son of a chairman.
You learnt much about the western suburbs of Sydney after visiting Pyrmont and seeing a confronting number of boats powered by motors.
King’s
You are so old money that the only people who don’t acknowledge you’re old money are the dirty Papists at Riverview.
You are the only ones secure enough to send your boys to Parramatta and know they’ll come back without an accent.
Some may well still be wandering around the grounds rappelling down oak trees and arm-wrestling polar bears but they’ll all be home safe for cocoa.
Kincoppal-Rose Bay School
You are a strong and independent woman with a focus on dinner parties and Winsor pilates.
Unkind Protestants call you a “passenger princess” — whatever that means — but you know that your true calling is to marry a barrister and find the perfect textured marble for the second bathroom.
Knox Grammar School
You are a self-made man whose parents barely had room in their driveway for the boat they worked so hard to buy.
But thanks to their sacrifice you went to the best school ever with the best stuff ever and now you have the best boat ever which is in Rushcutters Bay where it belongs.
Also you have a Porsche SUV and you’re not afraid to use it.
Loreto Kirribilli
You’re Catholic with aspirations of High Anglican — and why not? You can do anything!
After all, just because you shaved $10k a year off the top end sticker price before you became a Supreme Court judge doesn’t mean you deserve any less respect.
The reason you chose Loreto is the same reason you chose Loreal: Because you’re worth it.
Newington College
You are a socially progressive and climate aware professional in the academic space who believes that a quality education doesn’t mean you should be forced to commute outside the Inner West.
You are also a strong supporter of equality, and will fight to the death for the right of rich girls to go to the same school as rich boys.
PLC
You have excelled in every endeavour of your life, including your gold medal at the Oratory Eisteddfod for “Bred to be the Best”.
At times you worry that other people might be better at being the best than you are — like that b**ch Susan — but you won’t let it hold you back. You look down on losers who drive BMWs.
Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview
You are a bastion of morality and virtue who believes that every family fortune since the Reformation is new money.
You go to Mass every Sunday to pray for the poor and for the exemption of the primary residence from future pension means testing.
You have a picture of Tony Abbott above your fireplace and a picture of Malcolm Turnbull on the dartboard in the den.
SCEGGS
You are an affluent inner-city intellectual who believes that the path to enlightenment runs past a Kings Cross junkie on the nod.
Only by having a campus in such a hotbed of electrified gentrification can we forge the next generation of Belvoir St Theatre directors.
You aspire to return to the badlands of the Cross in order to get a penthouse suite in the Horizon building.
The Scots College
Aside from the endless existential dilemma about where to put the apostrophe — SPOILER ALERT: There isn’t one — The Scots College has been a bastion of educational excellence since at least the 1980s and possibly earlier.
They are so old money they don’t even know they’re old money.
Sydney Grammar School
You have an enviable assortment of camelhair jackets and while you have not yet mastered the art of reverse parking you are fluent in Ancient Greek.
Your staple dinner party conversation starter at the Royal Automobile Club is a mistranslated adjective in Act III of Euripides’ Medea.
Listen to The Real Story with Joe Hildebrand wherever you get your podcasts
More Coverage
Stupid signs of our times: Sure you’re not pregnant, boys?
We used to rely on common sense to stay safe but that’s been replaced by stupid, offensive and expensive visual pollution, writes Jess Adamson.
Suddenly, the haters are losing the Australia Day fight and that’s great
At a time Australians have are increasingly being pitted against each other over everything from housing to the Middle East any sort of societal glue is not just welcome … it’s desperately needed.