Moving to NYC during "non-entry" year

[Anonymous]

We have a kid at Wagner (funny to see it mentioned here!)

Every kid we know at Wagner (and every other NYC public school) gets some sort of outside math or English tutoring (depending on their weak points). If your kid isn’t getting tutoring then they are at a major disadvantage. The math is, in my opinion, much harder than my suburban DMV math classes were in the 1980s - I can’t do my kid’s math and she has a tutor.

ELA, science, social studies are easy for my kid, but have been tough for her cousin, and he gets ELA tutoring.

Our kid had an easy time getting used to Wagner & loved it there. There are a lot of kids moving in and out of NYC, which makes it very easy to get settled as the other kids are used to “new kids” and overall appear more welcoming and friendly towards new kids than the kids seemed to be in my suburban upbringing (where new kids were rare).

District 2 is fairly large, and if you are far away from Wagner it’s tough to get used to your kid riding the nyc busses or subway alone, but the Wagner kids in our neighborhood meet up and travel on the subway in a pack. We track them via their phones. Wagner does “out lunch”, which the kids love, and it gives them a good foundation in following rules, walking safely around Manhattan by themselves, keeping track of their ID, managing money (the $3 cheese pizza slice at Centro is a big favorite!) and managing time. Wagner is strict about making the kids put their cell phones in yonder pouches.

Overall, our kid seems to be getting a good education.

The kids at Wagner run the gamut of rich to poor. We are solidly middle class, and it’s been fine. Our kid did express annoyance that we don’t have an apartment already purchased and waiting for her as an adult “like most of my friends do! - just buy me a place downtown and rent it out until I need it! That’s what everyone does!” But no issues with fancy clothes - everyone wears t-shirts, target, Uniqlo and H&M, and uses cheap backpacks. A lot of kids have at least one parent from a foreign country, so vacations tend to involve their going to that country, and there’s no pressure to go on fancy vacations. If the kids go to sleep away camp then it’s often to the Frost Valley YMCA summer camp upstate, which is reasonably priced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a kid at Wagner (funny to see it mentioned here!)

Every kid we know at Wagner (and every other NYC public school) gets some sort of outside math or English tutoring (depending on their weak points). If your kid isn’t getting tutoring then they are at a major disadvantage. The math is, in my opinion, much harder than my suburban DMV math classes were in the 1980s - I can’t do my kid’s math and she has a tutor.

ELA, science, social studies are easy for my kid, but have been tough for her cousin, and he gets ELA tutoring.

Our kid had an easy time getting used to Wagner & loved it there. There are a lot of kids moving in and out of NYC, which makes it very easy to get settled as the other kids are used to “new kids” and overall appear more welcoming and friendly towards new kids than the kids seemed to be in my suburban upbringing (where new kids were rare).

District 2 is fairly large, and if you are far away from Wagner it’s tough to get used to your kid riding the nyc busses or subway alone, but the Wagner kids in our neighborhood meet up and travel on the subway in a pack. We track them via their phones. Wagner does “out lunch”, which the kids love, and it gives them a good foundation in following rules, walking safely around Manhattan by themselves, keeping track of their ID, managing money (the $3 cheese pizza slice at Centro is a big favorite!) and managing time. Wagner is strict about making the kids put their cell phones in yonder pouches.

Overall, our kid seems to be getting a good education.

The kids at Wagner run the gamut of rich to poor. We are solidly middle class, and it’s been fine. Our kid did express annoyance that we don’t have an apartment already purchased and waiting for her as an adult “like most of my friends do! - just buy me a place downtown and rent it out until I need it! That’s what everyone does!” But no issues with fancy clothes - everyone wears t-shirts, target, Uniqlo and H&M, and uses cheap backpacks. A lot of kids have at least one parent from a foreign country, so vacations tend to involve their going to that country, and there’s no pressure to go on fancy vacations. If the kids go to sleep away camp then it’s often to the Frost Valley YMCA summer camp upstate, which is reasonably priced.

Lots of great points here. Thanks. My kid went to a similar school to Wagner and I agree with a lot of this. As you said, there is no "class" pressure at all. We were on the upper end of the economic scale (though far from rich) and made a point of telling our child not to advertise their privilege, though they often wore gear from their expensive camp. You get a sense of the wealth in 8th grade when you see which kids are applying to private HS - usually a few kids from each of the top middle schools end up at private (including kids who got into top SHSAT schools but want something different).

I do have to disagree about the tutoring. My child was not tutored at all, and I don't think any of their friends were either. They are now at various competitive public and private high schools and doing fine. The only tutoring they had was for SHSAT/ISEE/SSAT, which is different. Most of them went to very good public elementary schools so were well prepared - they found sixth grade, especially in math, to be a refresher of things they had already learned. There might have been one or two kids who did "Russian math" but these kids did not stand out academically - if anything, they stood out because they missed out socially/athletically.

Middle school is definitely a weird phenomenon in NYC because kids come in from many different schools so, as you noted, tend to quickly make new friends. But the three years fly by and they are quickly off to different high schools, so they immediately are making new friends again. Some middle school friendships last more than others. It is very different than the suburbs where there tends to be a lot more continuity. I grew up in the suburbs and went to school with many of the same kids K-12, adding on new kids along the way, which I really liked. My kid has nice friends but less deep relationships. I think Covid also impacted this.

[Anonymous]

Our kid is at Baruch and this mostly matches our experience - no pressure about rich/poor, everybody dresses cheaply, and big groups of kids take the bus together (particularly from Chelsea). But hardly anybody in her class had outside tutoring; it was much more of a thing when we lived in the suburbs, even the smart kids who didn't need it had tutors there. The only tutoring I heard about this year was for the Hunter test, and most of that by parents.

Also quite agree about middle school socialization - she made a bunch of shallow friendships easily, while her younger brother moved here for 4th grade and has had a much harder time because everybody at his school already knows each other, so I'm actually looking forward to getting him into an environment where everyone is new. And the Yonder pouch thing seems to have been enforced more aggressively at the start of the year, kids came up with workarounds and nobody seems to have stressed about them that much.

Regarding Wagner, we're actually looking at that as an option for our younger kid, as we're moving uptown for commute reasons. At Baruch, they're starting to roll out smaller class sizes with 6th grade this year, and the "screened program" covers 2/3 of the school and there's not much differentiated instruction beyond that - is the situation similar at Wagner? Do the kids actually have lockers? (Baruch doesn't, which is a big pain) And is there any choice about specials or language classes?

[Anonymous]

I have the same question as OP — what are some ways to find out how many spots might be available at a school for this year? For non-entry years, is it necessary to work with a consultant?

We’re looking at lower elementary grades and are only interested in private schools. Thank you all!

[Anonymous]

Honestly, the schools don't generally know themselves at this early stage whether they'll have space in a non-entry grade - you're basically signing up to be on somebody's waitlist. You might *occasionally* see somebody confident enough to actually state that this year we're accepting applications in grades X, Y, and Z, but it's rare.

We were in this situation with both of our kids this year, one of them eventually got into one of our top choices - out of the blue, in May - and the other one (whose scores are actually better) didn't because that grade didn't have space.

So the best strategy is to cast a wide net - apply to every school you're OK with, including some that might not be super-prestigious but are relatively easy to get in to (Calhoun, Speyer, Trevor, LREI, Town, a couple of all-girls schools I won't mention by name because people will chime in to insist that actually they are so prestigious), and be prepared to apologize to your kid's teacher and school secretary for all of the recommendation paperwork they're going to have to do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't *also* apply to your top choices, but this is basically a lottery and you want as many tickets as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have the same question as OP — what are some ways to find out how many spots might be available at a school for this year? For non-entry years, is it necessary to work with a consultant?

We’re looking at lower elementary grades and are only interested in private schools. Thank you all!

The Parents League is a good research for things like this: https://www.parentsleague.org

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have the same question as OP — what are some ways to find out how many spots might be available at a school for this year? For non-entry years, is it necessary to work with a consultant?

I would highly recommend if you want help with the process, hire a consultant.

They essentially divide their services into two sections:
1. Research on schools.
2. Help with interviews, applications, and essays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have the same question as OP — what are some ways to find out how many spots might be available at a school for this year? For non-entry years, is it necessary to work with a consultant?

We’re looking at lower elementary grades and are only interested in private schools. Thank you all!

The Parents League is a good research for things like this: https://www.parentsleague.org

*resource* that is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the schools don't generally know themselves at this early stage whether they'll have space in a non-entry grade - you're basically signing up to be on somebody's waitlist. You might *occasionally* see somebody confident enough to actually state that this year we're accepting applications in grades X, Y, and Z, but it's rare.

We were in this situation with both of our kids this year, one of them eventually got into one of our top choices - out of the blue, in May - and the other one (whose scores are actually better) didn't because that grade didn't have space.

So the best strategy is to cast a wide net - apply to every school you're OK with, including some that might not be super-prestigious but are relatively easy to get in to (Calhoun, Speyer, Trevor, LREI, Town, a couple of all-girls schools I won't mention by name because people will chime in to insist that actually they are so prestigious), and be prepared to apologize to your kid's teacher and school secretary for all of the recommendation paperwork they're going to have to do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't *also* apply to your top choices, but this is basically a lottery and you want as many tickets as possible.

Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful! I’m also curious, are there any all-boys schools that fall into that category?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful! I’m also curious, are there any all-boys schools that fall into that category?

No problem!

I'm not as well-informed on those - my daughter was interested in single-sex (though she ended up at a co-ed) but my son was not - but I think Allen-Stevenson, St. Bernard's, and Buckley are the three lower-tier ones in the UES at least, though none of them have high schools.

Also, for commute reasons we didn't look much at Brooklyn so there could be some options I'm missing there, I may have missed a few other coed ones also - we applied to all the ones I mentioned, but rechecking my spreadsheet, some other co-eds in that category we looked at but decided not to apply to are UNIS, Dwight, Basis, BWL, Steiner, City & Country, VCS, and Leman. (we liked a couple of the ones on my first list better than those and assumed - correctly - we'd get into at least one of them)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful! I’m also curious, are there any all-boys schools that fall into that category?

No problem!

I'm not as well-informed on those - my daughter was interested in single-sex (though she ended up at a co-ed) but my son was not - but I think Allen-Stevenson, St. Bernard's, and Buckley are the three lower-tier ones in the UES at least, though none of them have high schools.

Also, for commute reasons we didn't look much at Brooklyn so there could be some options I'm missing there, I may have missed a few other coed ones also - we applied to all the ones I mentioned, but rechecking my spreadsheet, some other co-eds in that category we looked at but decided not to apply to are UNIS, Dwight, Basis, BWL, Steiner, City & Country, VCS, and Leman. (we liked a couple of the ones on my first list better than those and assumed - correctly - we'd get into at least one of them)

St. Bernard's is not a lower-tier school. Are you thinking of St. Davids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:St. Bernard's is not a lower-tier school. Are you thinking of St. Davids?

Yeah, I think that was it, sorry - as I said, not well-informed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the schools don't generally know themselves at this early stage whether they'll have space in a non-entry grade - you're basically signing up to be on somebody's waitlist. You might *occasionally* see somebody confident enough to actually state that this year we're accepting applications in grades X, Y, and Z, but it's rare.

We were in this situation with both of our kids this year, one of them eventually got into one of our top choices - out of the blue, in May - and the other one (whose scores are actually better) didn't because that grade didn't have space.

So the best strategy is to cast a wide net - apply to every school you're OK with, including some that might not be super-prestigious but are relatively easy to get in to (Calhoun, Speyer, Trevor, LREI, Town, a couple of all-girls schools I won't mention by name because people will chime in to insist that actually they are so prestigious), and be prepared to apologize to your kid's teacher and school secretary for all of the recommendation paperwork they're going to have to do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't *also* apply to your top choices, but this is basically a lottery and you want as many tickets as possible.

This is super helpful but one note based on my experience is that Trevor has been getting much more popular. Still not near TT but harder to get into than the others you listed.

Though note my frame of reference is 9th grade admit and they are bigger in the lower school (on the UWS) then don’t add a lot at 9th grade. (UES).

All that being said, I wouldn’t just spend $70k a year to go to a meh private school just because they have an off year spot. Park your kid at a really good public and apply on cycle to privates later. I do know kids who apply out of lower tier schools to other ones but it is not easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, the schools don't generally know themselves at this early stage whether they'll have space in a non-entry grade - you're basically signing up to be on somebody's waitlist. You might *occasionally* see somebody confident enough to actually state that this year we're accepting applications in grades X, Y, and Z, but it's rare.

We were in this situation with both of our kids this year, one of them eventually got into one of our top choices - out of the blue, in May - and the other one (whose scores are actually better) didn't because that grade didn't have space.

So the best strategy is to cast a wide net - apply to every school you're OK with, including some that might not be super-prestigious but are relatively easy to get in to (Calhoun, Speyer, Trevor, LREI, Town, a couple of all-girls schools I won't mention by name because people will chime in to insist that actually they are so prestigious), and be prepared to apologize to your kid's teacher and school secretary for all of the recommendation paperwork they're going to have to do. This doesn't mean you shouldn't *also* apply to your top choices, but this is basically a lottery and you want as many tickets as possible.

Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful! I’m also curious, are there any all-boys schools that fall into that category?

Browning usually has spots. I know several families who have gotten multiple kids in off cycle— even as late as right before school starts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:, a couple of all-girls schools I won't mention by name because people will chime in to insist that actually they are so prestigious),

Name names! It’s all anonymous.

I’ll start- Hewitt. Never met a family that didn’t get an accept there.