HHI of private school parents

[Anonymous]

Yeah, we are an aid family that feels like we're doing fine by normal person standards in the outer boroughs. This is really a question of perspective.

My kids have never been made to feel less than or excluded based on money. Occasionally they'll ask for some minor dumb kid status symbol (a particular brand of jacket or water bottle or whatever) that is actually relatively affordable for middle class families that budget and I tell them they can earn it by doing extra chores or will give it to them as a special gift.

It can be somewhat harder as a parent at some of the events (I never know what to wear) but I get the sense the other parents find it refreshing to not have to keep up with us and we've made good friends quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, we are an aid family that feels like we're doing fine by normal person standards in the outer boroughs. This is really a question of perspective.

My kids have never been made to feel less than or excluded based on money. Occasionally they'll ask for some minor dumb kid status symbol (a particular brand of jacket or water bottle or whatever) that is actually relatively affordable for middle class families that budget and I tell them they can earn it by doing extra chores or will give it to them as a special gift.

It can be somewhat harder as a parent at some of the events (I never know what to wear) but I get the sense the other parents find it refreshing to not have to keep up with us and we've made good friends quickly.

This sounds right vibe to me, would you mind sharing which school this is?

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

Sorry, can't, but I would recommend you look for schools with a combination of financial stability (they all have to file public statements so sometimes this info can be illuminating) and really down to earth admissions folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

[Anonymous]

We were full-pay upper-six-figures people at a 2T middle school and felt *very* looked down upon - our kid (who had some experience with snobby rich kids from her previous school) was made to feel inferior by a bunch of her classmates and we ourselves felt like we were getting glared at on parents' night. Decidedly not worth it.

In retrospect, I think that if you're in my income bracket you should eschew any possibility of private until high school. Public middle schools are totally fine academically if you're in a good district - they'll learn all the math they need, and while they'll get a little less writing practice than a private school kid might, it won't take long to catch up in 9th grade, and at any rate the gap there is shrinking with the class size law giving teachers more time to grade writing assignments. And socially, it's a LOT easier on your kid to go to a relatively relaxed public middle school than to attend a private school during the 3 years when kids are at their absolute most awful.

Plus, frankly, it's a much easier transition for a public 8th grader to switch to private in 9th than it is for a private 8th grader to switch to public to attend a SHSAT school or LaGuardia, so you keep more options open that way. There are exactly zero private schools that can match up with what LAG offers for a talented arts kid, and only a handful of them can match up with Stuy/BxSci/HSMSE in STEM, so the best path forward for your kid could easily run through a public school.

[Anonymous]

That you felt glared at during parents night is wild. That school sounds toxic! I honestly can’t imagine anyone at our school caring about who has what in the parent community, but it’s possible I’m completely naive or that we just got lucky with a nice crew.

I think you’re right that public for the beginning part is a very reasonable option. You’re making me nervous for our transition to the ongoing private school!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you were making it up. I literally meant it reads like satire because it seems like such an outlier. I should have been clearer. There are 123 billionaires in NYC, so to have multiple in one preschool class of 15 kids is a lot and a statistical anomaly. I'd guess there are maybe a couple total in my DC's TT K-12, but I have no idea to be honest. I only knew of one, and that family left the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were full-pay upper-six-figures people at a 2T middle school and felt *very* looked down upon - our kid (who had some experience with snobby rich kids from her previous school) was made to feel inferior by a bunch of her classmates and we ourselves felt like we were getting glared at on parents' night. Decidedly not worth it.

In retrospect, I think that if you're in my income bracket you should eschew any possibility of private until high school. Public middle schools are totally fine academically if you're in a good district - they'll learn all the math they need, and while they'll get a little less writing practice than a private school kid might, it won't take long to catch up in 9th grade, and at any rate the gap there is shrinking with the class size law giving teachers more time to grade writing assignments. And socially, it's a LOT easier on your kid to go to a relatively relaxed public middle school than to attend a private school during the 3 years when kids are at their absolute most awful.

Plus, frankly, it's a much easier transition for a public 8th grader to switch to private in 9th than it is for a private 8th grader to switch to public to attend a SHSAT school or LaGuardia, so you keep more options open that way. There are exactly zero private schools that can match up with what LAG offers for a talented arts kid, and only a handful of them can match up with Stuy/BxSci/HSMSE in STEM, so the best path forward for your kid could easily run through a public school.

Are you the former Fieldston parent who has been posting a lot? Just curious.

We are high six figures with pretty good savings. Public K-8 then private. Fortunately can afford to do enough "big events" like ski trips and camp that our kid can keep up with the Joneses, though we feel very little pressure to do so. There definitely are some cliques of the SAHMs, but they are much more prevalent in younger grades than HS. My child is very involved in a few activities so we have gotten to know the parents of those kids fairly well and they range from huge generational wealth/very rich entrepreneurs to people with significantly less than us. No one seems to care too much, though occasionally things come up in conversation that make the differences obvious (I am more neurotic about such things than others). Because I am very humble, I actually kind of prefer being in this position to when my kid was in public school and we had to remind them to downplay things that were very normal to us (like camp and ski trips) so as not to appear like a rich show off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

NP here and I believe you. There are a lot more billionaires than there used to be - that might explain why some older or clueless posters find it surprising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are exactly zero private schools that can match up with what LAG offers for a talented arts kid, and only a handful of them can match up with Stuy/BxSci/HSMSE in STEM, so the best path forward for your kid could easily run through a public school.

Which ones do you feel are as good at STEM as the top SHSAT schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

Agree. NYC has got 123 billionaires. The average age is 68. The chance is that 2 of them have got kids in the same pre-school in a class of 15 is not very high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

NP here and I believe you. There are a lot more billionaires than there used to be - that might explain why some older or clueless posters find it surprising.

Forbes says 123 in New York, so let's go with the organization that keeps track of wealth rather than guessing. That is a lot, but still would be an outlier to have multiple in one tiny preschool class. Not saying I don't believe the poster. Just that this is not typical of your average private school class, which is what started the discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

NP here and I believe you. There are a lot more billionaires than there used to be - that might explain why some older or clueless posters find it surprising.

78 in 2015
123 in 2025
The average age is 68

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is in preschool, K next year, and we are around $5mil per year and honestly almost everyone in the class seems much wealthier than us. A lot of it is generational. Out of a class of 15, there’s a couple of billionaires, some generational wealth with famous grandparents, some a mix of family money and working hard, a show biz family, and a couple of hedge fund/big law/trader types who are all clearly successful based on the $10mil apartments. Most of the families have at least one parent who grew up in the city.

A lot of the dads are much older which impacts wealth versus us in our late 30s who are newer to making this kind of money. For the most part, everyone is awesome and down to earth though?

I don’t care about the status stuff, I’m not a designer clothes kind of mom, places like St Barts seem terrible to me, but I guess that I’m guilty of being attuned to the micro symbols of status since I definitely pick up on this stuff?

Wow this can’t be the norm. This has to be the upper crust of preschools, right?

Yes this is absolutely not what most classes at a top private are like.

Agreed. This was not our experience in preschool or at a TT co-ed.

Same here at a TT all girls. A "couple" billionaires in a class of 15 reads like satire.

I’m the poster who wrote that and I truly have no idea about other school experiences because this is the only one that we’ve been at, but it’s all very easily known. I have no reason to make anything up for an anonymous internet site.

The ones who I referenced as being billionaires are founders of well known companies that IPOd and it’s all very easily verifiable. If you work in the business world, you know public figures who have been very successful by reputation without even having to think about it. There’s just a lot of money in New York?

Maybe I’m the odd one for noticing this and other people aren’t paying attention at all to who the other parents are, but I highly doubt that just because it’s so obvious! There’s no need to do any digging. It’s interesting to me because I didn’t grow up in this world and so of course I pay attention on some level. I don’t see how you could avoid it?

NP here and I believe you. There are a lot more billionaires than there used to be - that might explain why some older or clueless posters find it surprising.

78 in 2015
123 in 2025
The average age is 68

I think the point remains the same if the people are worth $800 or $900 million.