Catholic schools academics are vastly overrated due to the fact they don't have hardly any poor kids, mentally handicapped kids, etc, etc, etc that bring down their overall achievement scores. It also drastically helps their graduation rates as well. But you knew that, right?
People want to put their kids in private schools because they don't have to deal with the "riff raff" that are in the public schools. You know.... the underprivileged, the minority's, the single parent kids, etc. That's mostly what it's about.
You can get just as good of an education at any of the public high schools in CR as you can at Xavier without question. It's all a matter of what the kid puts into it.