Yeshivish Kofer: I went to NIRC for Beis Medrash and learned with boys in the high school during their early night seder, so my knowledge of the secular education in the high school is probably not as great as yours. However, I went to other, more yeshivish places for high school, and the secular education there was far, far worse.
This topic is a year old so I don’t know how relevant it is anymore, but one thing that Ner Yisrael and a few similar yeshivas have that the newer, smaller yeshivas don’t have is a sense that they are completely responsible for the bachurim in torah, middos, and gashmius. I live in Lakewood, and the way the most of the high schools here treat their boys is an utter disaster. There can be one rebbi and maybe a (unpaid) shoel umayshiv for 40 boys in 9th grade. Nobody knows where the boys are when they’re not in yeshiva, nobody gives any hadracha outside of the Gemara and periodic jeremiads about tzioinim, ipods, and lubavitch. This leads to bachurim hitching across town at all hours, essentially no education at all, religious or secular, for the boys who are not at the top of the class, and no knowledge of what your kid is eating, who his friends are, or how he is developing.
Contrast Ner Yisrael, where there is are different level shiurim within each grade, there are dorm counselors, dorm supervisors, older chavrusas, English teachers etc. for each kid in the mechina. The secular studies may not be great, but someone will know if you aren’t showing up. There are at least tests and evaluations.
In Ner Yisrael, the boys go to the rebbeims houses for oneg shabbos, they see the rebbeim (and yungeleit) interacting with their wives and families regularly. They have kosher outlets on campus, like a baseball field, a basketball court, and even a band. If your son goes to Ner Yisroel, you will not find out that he has been going to shalom zachors of complete strangers every Friday night. You won’t find out that he has not had a one-on-one conversation with an authority figure for nine months straight. You won’t find out that he ate shabbos meals in the dorm because the yeshiva didn’t provide meals, relying on the boys to find families to eat with. These are all things that happen regularly in the young, in-town yeshivas.
If there are parents out there who are comparing Ner Yisrael to the types of yeshivas that a peer student might go to in Lakewood or Brooklyn – usually small yeshivas that haven’t been around very long, there is almost no question that your child will be safer and get a better Jewish and secular education at Ner Yisrael.