UPDATE 3/16/16: I decided to go to public school, because I was tired of all the little annoying stuff at my current school--especially the entitled kids and the entitled attitude in general. Everybody acts like they deserve something. It's very irritating.
The other reason I came to that decision was "exploration value". By moving to a new situation I learn whether I really am better off in the kind of environment offered by the public high school; even if it ends up being worse for me, at least I know what to avoid. If it's good, I know it's good; and if it makes no difference, I know that, too.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I attended public middle school with the same group of kids, so I won't have to worry too much about getting to know new people. I am still in occasional contact with my old friends. I talked to one of them for several hours just yesterday.
(I'm new here, though I've lurked, so if I break any rules or otherwise do something detrimental, please let me know and I will try to correct my mistake)
I currently go to a rather nice independent high school. I'm on significant financial aid, so I can afford it. The academics there are outstanding. However, being a boarding school (I go as a day student) it requests a lot of our free time. We are required to participate in adult-sanctioned activities at least six or seven hours a week, in addition to normal classes. This means that 1. I get home from school around 6pm and 2. (more importantly) it's very hard to socialize when you don't board at the school, and there's really very little besides drama or sports (neither of which I like very much) that people do after school and actually enjoy/make friends in.
I'm strongly considering transferring to my public school, which is unusually good for a public school, as a junior next year. The academics are not as great (classes are less discussion-based and there are not as many APs offered) but there is a strong amount of participation in stuff I might actually enjoy after school (math team, etc.) because we're not required to do anything after school. I've noticed that when people tell me I have to do things, I enjoy them much, much less. Also, I won't have a commute, which would be nice.
Everything else about the schools is more or less comparable.
I'm sure when I think about this decision I am biased in some way. I'm probably succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy (sometimes I think if I'd been at the public school the last two years, I'd rather be at the private school) or something like that. If not, I'm facing the problem of Buridan's Ass.
My question to you: should I transfer or not? I have thought very hard and consulted several intelligent people, and have not been able to come to any sort of conclusion.
I have several recommendations.
First things first, I strongly recommend reading this blog post by Siderea on the possible values of attending University. The difference between a public and private high school for you may very well be similar to the difference between a lower and higher status university. This article will expand your list of possible benefits and detriments to the two (and more) options. Spending lots of time around higher status and higher income people has a lot of benefits that aren't immediately obvious. (I'm assuming the private school is higher status here. I don't know your area and there are certainly low status private schools out there.)
I recommend adding these ideas to your considerations, reading what ScottL describes below, and then doing Goal Factoring on the entire question. Goal Factoring is a very useful CFAR technique that works well in this exact type of situation. I don't see a great write-up for it online and I'm not sure how great that link is at describing it. However, if you'd like to hear a more thorough explanation and practice the technique after you've looked into this stuff you're welcome to PM me your skype username and we can chat about it sometime soon. (I'm decent at debugging, but if you get any other offers you should definitely take those up as well as or instead of mine.)
And I also recommend going and meeting some people who actually attend the public high school or just taking a day off and wandering into the place to see what it's actually like in person. You may be slightly dissatisfied at your current location but would absolutely hate the public high school. (Bullying isn't a myth, the grass is always greener on the other side, etc.) The year you're in will also have a lot of consequences in what your experience is like since many friendships are already formed and group boundaries defined by the end of the 2nd year (if not the 1st).
Last but not least, if you don't already have a clear answer and want a hundred other things to consider (or you've decided on an answer and are ready for your next challenge) you should take a look at the Starting University Advice Repository thread. One of the primary values of High School is preparing you for and enabling your progression in University. This includes socially (for relationships), academically (for knowledge), building study habits, developing your writing, developing interpersonal skills, acquiring culture (acculturating), making use of the high school's prestige, and more (as described in Siderea's post linked above).
That seems like really useful advice. One of things I actually don't like about the private school is that on the one hand it's rather high status, but on the other hand a lot of the people there are not very smart and most of them are quite superficial in a weird, ironic way (our school has an obsession with racism that borders on hysterical considering that the vast majority of students are white, a substantial minority are boarders from China, and as far as I know there has been only one isolated case of actual discrimination against anyone.)
I'm going t... (read more)