HHI/percentage of FA

[Anonymous]

I’m a parent and legacy at a TT. Child entered at K. Was surprising to learn how many of the legacy families are on significant financial aid. Many are parents who went down the non finance/law/tech path and are successful in their own right, just not at the level to pay for nearly $70k a year.

Back when we went it was $15-20k per year. Incomes haven’t kept up with tuition growth.

Seeing the class makeup I strongly believe the school really does try to assemble a class of families who genuinely want to be there.

Anonymous wrote:Following this.

Our HHI is about $125k combined
School (legacy from my partner) : 66,500
FA: ??

Anyone with similar income level looking at privates? I know schools purport to be need blind but I know they’re not. I wonder if being legacy would make a difference.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this. We know TT and other private school grads that are in the “lower middle class for nyc” income bracket. My partner is the graduate and ended up in the arts and I’m a public school teacher. We’re looking at privates for the resources and the extensive curriculum, not for ex missions to ivy schools. We’re low key and not social climbers. Just want a good education for kiddo.

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent and legacy at a TT. Child entered at K. Was surprising to learn how many of the legacy families are on significant financial aid. Many are parents who went down the non finance/law/tech path and are successful in their own right, just not at the level to pay for nearly $70k a year.

Back when we went it was $15-20k per year. Incomes haven’t kept up with tuition growth.

Seeing the class makeup I strongly believe the school really does try to assemble a class of families who genuinely want to be there.

Anonymous wrote:Following this.

Our HHI is about $125k combined
School (legacy from my partner) : 66,500
FA: ??

Anyone with similar income level looking at privates? I know schools purport to be need blind but I know they’re not. I wonder if being legacy would make a difference.

[Anonymous]

My dad was a private school teacher, and I went to private schools we would have been otherwise unable to afford thanks to that, and he has said on more than one occasion that he doesn't really know that private school is doing anything for kids that public school wouldn't - the advantages those kids enjoy are advantages they would enjoy even without private school.

For my own part, we're a little better off than my parents were and could swing one or even two private school tuitions if we pushed ourselves, but at the moment my kids both attend perfectly nice zoned D2 public schools, and until COVID wound down they attended highly-ranked suburban public schools, and in neither case have I felt like they were missing out on much of anything that I had. They were both bored and unchallenged, but I also felt that way in private school, and at any rate the extra time + money have let them aggressively pursue other pursuits (e.g. multiple hours of private music lessons per week, which they love). Also frankly I never fit in socially in those schools - I was always the poor brainy teacher's kid - and I'm pretty sure my kids wouldn't either.

We might apply to TT privates for high school if we feel like we have a good chance of getting in (which their test scores suggest will be doable) since there'd be a significant boost to their college prospects that way and high school is when the difference in facilities between Bronx Science and Horace Mann starts to matter more, but at least for K-8 I remain unconvinced that there's any meaningful difference in the education they'll get in private school, particularly now that the class size law means that public school class sizes are a lot closer to private school ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad was a private school teacher, and I went to private schools we would have been otherwise unable to afford thanks to that, and he has said on more than one occasion that he doesn't really know that private school is doing anything for kids that public school wouldn't - the advantages those kids enjoy are advantages they would enjoy even without private school.

For my own part, we're a little better off than my parents were and could swing one or even two private school tuitions if we pushed ourselves, but at the moment my kids both attend perfectly nice zoned D2 public schools, and until COVID wound down they attended highly-ranked suburban public schools, and in neither case have I felt like they were missing out on much of anything that I had. They were both bored and unchallenged, but I also felt that way in private school, and at any rate the extra time + money have let them aggressively pursue other pursuits (e.g. multiple hours of private music lessons per week, which they love). Also frankly I never fit in socially in those schools - I was always the poor brainy teacher's kid - and I'm pretty sure my kids wouldn't either.

We might apply to TT privates for high school if we feel like we have a good chance of getting in (which their test scores suggest will be doable) since there'd be a significant boost to their college prospects that way and high school is when the difference in facilities between Bronx Science and Horace Mann starts to matter more, but at least for K-8 I remain unconvinced that there's any meaningful difference in the education they'll get in private school, particularly now that the class size law means that public school class sizes are a lot closer to private school ones.

We felt similarly. Considered private for K but particularly because our son was a summer birthday he would have been very young in private while middle of the class in public. Great uptown zoned public so we decided to do that and we are very glad we did. Publid middle was not perfect but it was fine. He had a good specialized option but we switched to private for high school. We are not rich but could make private high school work - K-12 would not have been as easy. We made the right choice for our child and family but every kid (and every family's circumstances) are different.

[Anonymous]

Someone on FB claimed a family with HHI of 1 million received aid for 3 kids going private. Not sure if that answers your question. I don’t really believe they did get aid but stranger things have happened.