NYC mom here! So Brearley, Spence and Chapin are considered “top tier,” Nightingale-Bamford is “second tier” and Hewitt is “third tier.” The order of “most prestigious/best” to least is just that: Brearley, Spence, Chapin, Nightingale-Bamford, then Hewitt. I’m guessing you’re not interested in the Catholic schools but typically Convent of the Sacred Heart would be put either just before or just after NB and Marymount is after that.
Brearley is known for having super smart girls. Spence is known for being flashy and a bit more “society” with confident, sporty, social girls. Chapin is known for being the most conservative and WASPY of those three. The old adage used to be “Chapin girls date doctors, Spence girls marry doctors and Brearley girls become doctors.” Of course, that’s a bit old fashioned now (girls from all of these schools go onto fantastic universities and can become doctors) but that’s the saying…
Nightingale is lovely but is not in the same league as B/S/C. But nothing to sneeze at either. A little flashy but pretty traditional. A lot of people prefer it to Chapin because Chapin is so far east and not fun to get to for many people.
I actually don’t know anyone who sends their girls to Hewitt. It’s supposed to be a “nice” school. It’s not very competitive to get into.
You can look at each of the schools here to see the ISEE scores you need to get in. It reflects the competitiveness of each school as I described above: https://iseepracticetest.com/target-scores/
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