Where are all the Ivy admits coming from you wonder? Dalton NYC 2023 Matriculations

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked on an accreditation review for the Dalton school.

It was their policy that students could not start kindergarten until age six - no exceptions.

The admissions director told me that older, more mature students are more successful applicants to the Ivy League schools.

Right, and this means filtering for families that can afford preschool until their child turns 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I worked on an accreditation review for the Dalton school.

It was their policy that students could not start kindergarten until age six - no exceptions.

The admissions director told me that older, more mature students are more successful applicants to the Ivy League schools.

Ah, re-classing for academic reasons. Forget re-classing for sports, in NYC they re-class for academic and maturity reasons in order to have an advantage in college acceptances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So NYC schools have better athletes, more legacies, more donors, more faculty and VIPS than schools here? I guess. I think the NYC schools are just a bit better tbh.

NYC schools definitely have more legacies, donors & VIPs than the DMV. The DMV is mostly upper middle class territory; NYC is far wealthier, bigger and powerful.

Eh, I think DC has a lot of legacies too compared to most metro areas. I work at a prestigious organization and have so many co-workers went to Amherst, Dartmouth, Brown, etc. NYC has more money, and I think nowadays, that’s what matters versus your run of the mill legacy.

Yes, but they don't donate the same kind of money as the NYC legacies. These are the people who donate new libraries.

[Anonymous]

My friends daughter is on the list. Even though she had already completed K elsewhere, they would only admit her for K. Many of these schools have a June 1 cutoff for K, redshirting is very common for girls and boys bc money is not an issue vs rushing to start free K in a public school.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the 60k+ tuition crowd worries too much about the cost of preschool.

For the unwashed masses, NYC has universal PreK and 3K now. Thanks for something, Deblasio.

Or some kids start at public and then switch over, usually repeating a grade. That's pretty common, even when you're entering at middle school. (not common for HS)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not upset with the kids or their parents, they have figured out the system and are playing the game. What I find appalling is the elite colleges who claim to want socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity, cultural diversity, regional diversity, etc etc, but then take all these kids from one school. An elite upper class private in NYC.

Wealthy, smart kids concentrate in the same place. What did you expect?

Wealthy, yes. Smart tends to be defined in a way to be synonymous with wealthy in this country, especially by the time you get to high school seniors. Are the kids at Dalton "smart" because they are inherently more intelligent than children elsewhere? Or are they smart because they are of average to above average intelligence and then have had exposure to the best possible education money can buy?

I am always fascinated by how often this argument is made among private school families (of which I am one, but I personally grew up middle class and attended mediocre public schools all the way through college). The smart kids at elite privates are not smarter than the smart kids at even just okay publics. They are more sophisticated (better traveled, more well-spoken, more comfortable with adults, etc.) but that's a different metric. And it's entirely based on exposure, not inherent qualities.

What I've learned is that wealthy people have a coded way of speaking and interacting that they ascribe to intelligence or simply superior choices but are just a form of gatekeeping (to keep people like me out, I think, but being very perceptive I've learned the code and how to fake what I need to fake so that people accept me when that's what I need, for instance in private school circles where this matters so much to people). The children at Dalton are not inherently more intelligent than the upper half of a class at a good suburban public school. In many ways the kids at the public school are more worldly because they have experienced a much wider range of people and usually have not been raised to believe they belong to a special class of humans who deserve more and better of everything. But they are less sophisticated in the ways that count to rich people, so they will be deemed less intelligent. It's all just a self-protective stance.

Are these kids smarter or are they not allowed to fail? My friend moved to NYC in her early 20s to be an actress and ended up working at a test prep place. She was tutoring Kevin Bacon's kids and writing their papers and even spoke to Kevin Bacon on the phone (sadly, the closest she got to acting while living there... she ended up being an early WeWork employee but that is another story). Most kids don't have multiple tutors helping them.

I went to Columbia (grad school - MBA) with a kid who grew up on Park Ave, went to Horace Mann, went to Penn undergrad... and ended up just floating around after undergrad before grad school. She wasn't stupid, but she didn't have a work ethic to speak of (neither did her brother) and she'd never learned basic lessons that most of us learn from failing when we are young. She didn't understand time management, she didn't have basic life skills (she would ask me things that she could have googled, I would literally text her screen shots of her question in google), and she didn't understand her own privilege. Her parents actually cancelled their ski trip to help her write her MBA essays (she was like 27 or 28 at the time) because she couldn't write them and complete the application without their help. She ended up being asked to leave the program for a variety of reasons. The varsity blues scandal really illustrates how far people will go to keep their kids from failing (i.e. going to a lesser school) and it's really sad because I think there are handfuls of kids who have stellar resumes but really don't belong where they are and they don't end up succeeding when they are put into the real world because outside of employing them (which many end up doing) their parents can't help them.

Varsity blues was the kind of parents who couldn't afford the kind of donations Dalton kids will have made on their behalf or the kids of C list celebs that no body cares about instead of A list celebrities whose kids can just choose where they want to attend.

Even worse, Varsity Blues was, for the most part, the kind of parents who didn't know better how to get things done. They were willing to donate plenty of money- they just didn't have the connections to do it more discreetly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the 60k+ tuition crowd worries too much about the cost of preschool.

For the unwashed masses, NYC has universal PreK and 3K now. Thanks for something, Deblasio.

Or some kids start at public and then switch over, usually repeating a grade. That's pretty common, even when you're entering at middle school. (not common for HS)

Do these privates accept a kid who attended public school during their entry years?

[Anonymous]

I’m a Trinity grad from the 90s and find this thread fascinating.
I’m surprised these schools do well in college admission still. In my class, about a third went to ivies. But we also had several end up at Skidmore and one to Arizona state. It was a miserable four years and hard to compete in the college game with kids of billionaires, heads of publishing houses, famous actors and nationally ranked squash players. The school also totally favored those kids and gave them leadership positions some did not deserve. That said, there were some very smart kids in my class. The top three students got a prize at graduation. One went to H,one to P, one to Y. None of you would be all that impressed with where they are today.
Back then, Dalton wasn’t all that so I am surprised by that list. I lived just a few blocks from Dalton and my parents never considered sending me there. I didn’t know anyone who attended. It’s funny to hear it spoken of in such august terms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:So the nyc kids get in because of their rich parents.

And the dmv kids are having a crap year because their parents aren't as rich?

Yes

To take it a step further, the first gen seats aren't coming from the development admit kids and the have to come from somewhere

I would be shocked if there are a lot of first gen kids getting into Dalton considering the parental involvement required even if there is full FA. Just that parents who aren’t familiar with such application processes wouldn’t have the exposure to apply to private schools. How many kids is A Better Chance or Prep For Prep getting into these privates?

Actually quite a lot. My child attends a NYC private school and in 7th grade (which was NOT a typical entry year), there were 5 Prep for Prep kids who joined. At least one is now headed to an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Here is this year's Spence School matriculations: https://www.instagram.com/spence23niors/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the 60k+ tuition crowd worries too much about the cost of preschool.

For the unwashed masses, NYC has universal PreK and 3K now. Thanks for something, Deblasio.

Or some kids start at public and then switch over, usually repeating a grade. That's pretty common, even when you're entering at middle school. (not common for HS)

Do these privates accept a kid who attended public school during their entry years?

Sure. A lot of these school expand in 6th and/or 9th. I've never been shocked by who gets admitted at that point. They're ringers. The proven athlete, the kids with broadway credits, the Oliver Scholar (URM and first gen ) who already has impressive math awards. It's hard to predict much when a kid is 4. It gets easier when they have a resume.

[Anonymous]

As much as I enjoy reading these threads, and we are nobodies, already told my kids they are not postings their info and they agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is this year's Spence School matriculations: https://www.instagram.com/spence23niors/

Googled one with an uncommon last name and immediately came up on “America’s Richest Families.” Says that family has long been involved with a certain activity that the child in question is described as being involved in on their post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the 60k+ tuition crowd worries too much about the cost of preschool.

For the unwashed masses, NYC has universal PreK and 3K now. Thanks for something, Deblasio.

Or some kids start at public and then switch over, usually repeating a grade. That's pretty common, even when you're entering at middle school. (not common for HS)

Do these privates accept a kid who attended public school during their entry years?

Sure. A lot of these school expand in 6th and/or 9th. I've never been shocked by who gets admitted at that point. They're ringers. The proven athlete, the kids with broadway credits, the Oliver Scholar (URM and first gen ) who already has impressive math awards. It's hard to predict much when a kid is 4. It gets easier when they have a resume.

Are there a lot of top athletes in NYC? I can't imagine NYC has a ton of D1 athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think the 60k+ tuition crowd worries too much about the cost of preschool.

For the unwashed masses, NYC has universal PreK and 3K now. Thanks for something, Deblasio.

Or some kids start at public and then switch over, usually repeating a grade. That's pretty common, even when you're entering at middle school. (not common for HS)

Do these privates accept a kid who attended public school during their entry years?

Sure. A lot of these school expand in 6th and/or 9th. I've never been shocked by who gets admitted at that point. They're ringers. The proven athlete, the kids with broadway credits, the Oliver Scholar (URM and first gen ) who already has impressive math awards. It's hard to predict much when a kid is 4. It gets easier when they have a resume.

Are there a lot of top athletes in NYC? I can't imagine NYC has a ton of D1 athletes.

why?