Spence vs Nightingale Bamford
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Anonymous
The rankings are as follows: Brearley Spence Chapin Convent of the Sacred Heart Nightingale-Bamford Marymount Hewitt |
Anonymous
| I don’t think Spence is considered better than Chapin. Brearley definitely more academic than both. |
Anonymous
| in general how selective is Nightingale and what’s the vibe compared to other girls schools ? |
Anonymous
| Nightingale is not as selective as Spence, Brearley, or Chapin. Nightingale seems to be the choice if you didn’t get into Brearley or Spence. |
Anonymous
Barely but yes. And it has been for a long, long time. These are such small comparisons. All three are great schools. But the Brearley, Spence, Chapin ranking has been the way of it for many years. |
Anonymous
| I thought Nightingale was 4th after the "big 3" (B, S, C). Sacred Heart interchangeable with Marymount. |
Anonymous
Sacred Heart is usually considered a cut above Marymount. And slightly below Nightingale. |
Anonymous
They're considered on par with one another. Historically, Chapin was the school of choice for old-money WASPs and Spence was flashy, but that was about 100 years ago. Spence may be slightly more desired right now because it's right off Fifth Avenue, while Chapin has the misfortune of being off East End and right next to Brearley, but all of these schools are much more similar than they are different. Brearley is a bit more of a pressure cooker, but they're all academically rigorous. Basically, five hours of homework a night versus three, all covering the same material. |
Anonymous
| Chapin's slipped recently. Spence's exmissions have retained amazing gold-level quality but Chapin's hasn't. |
Anonymous
|
NBS parent - agree with much of the above - supposedly at Spence they allow retesting in upper school so grades are high. Can any Spence parent weigh in?
Brearley, Chapin and Spence college admissions are stronger BUT more of a chance to rise to the top at NBS. My NBS grad daughter is at Ivy but she didn’t get into B or S. We didn’t apply to C. I would rank: Brearley Chapin Spence Nightingale |
Anonymous
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Hi NBS parent
Can you speak more about rising to the top at a school like NBS versus B/S? It seems like it’s better to be the big fish in a small pond to get to the next step… |
Anonymous
No one can be certain one can be the big fish once in the small pond. |
Anonymous
| spence, obviously. why is this a question. |
Anonymous
NBS parent again - this is definitely true, you never know how your kid will do in HS until she is there. Everyone thinks their little kids are smart but in HS you really can see what’s what. I think it was easier for my daughter to be a top student in her class than it would have been at Brearley. It’s likely she would have worked much harder there to end up a B/B+ student. I also think at a much smaller school like NBS she had opportunities to lead clubs and classes which she would not have had at Horace Mann, for example (which she turned down for NBS). I am at the point where I have seen parents thrilled to have their kids accepted at Hunter, HM, Trinity, Stuy, but the kid has to excel there to get into an equally prestigious college. And this isn’t easy - 50% of the time it just doesn’t happen. Just look at their college lists if you don’t believe me. It isn’t a bad idea to be strategic when choosing high schools. |
Anonymous
Thank you, very helpful to hear this experience. |