Best private schools in NYC?
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Anonymous
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It's a scam. These TT schools are full of legacy and big donors. Whatever success the schools have is baked in. The parents are well connected and wealthy, of course they all have good outcome. The schools do very little in college outcome but charging obscene amount of tuition.
If your kid is actually smart, you wouldn't need TT schools to get in a good college. Yes, mediocre kids are sent here to pretend there is "rigor". What a joke. |
Anonymous
what are the alternatives? especially when it comes to teaching soft skills. The public school system has its limitation. |
Anonymous
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In my experience it’s all about money. These are kids raised by adults who often leave them with Nannies to work or play. Parents who are extremely successful professionally but that limits the amount of parenting and shows the kid(s) that money is the most important thing.
Can’t emphasize enough that these student bodies are full of kids prioritizing money. It’s not like it was when I went to private school in the early 90s. I wouldn’t want my child in this environment if at all possible. |
Anonymous
I don’t want to debate, but What does that have to do with what was said above? Why would a parent desperately try to get their kid into a school for social status? Are you really that desperate? And do you truly meet a lot of people who lead with my child attends x or y? I’ve been around and in these schools for years, and I’ve never seen that. I can tell you that my parents sent me to trinity because they thought I needed a more traditional education than my siblings, and it was a mistake. I was unhappy from about 3rd grade through 9th, after which I transferred to Andover. They sent me there with good intentions - by the way, admissions officers certainly can sniff out social climbers from 10 city blocks and it’s embarrassing - but it was the wrong school for me. Not that I didn’t love the kids. I still see my trinity friends all the time and I’m on the back end of my 30s now. I just wasn’t enjoying my time and my I felt like I was wasting the experience. So I was pulled out because my parents didn’t care I about going to parties and saying my kid is at trinity upon meeting a new family. You know your kid, and you know what’ll work for them. Don’t base the decision regarding your kid’s future on your own social ambitions. What a silly, childish thing to do. Also, no one who actually has status cares where your kid went to school. That’s crazy. |
Anonymous
Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info? |
Anonymous
This is true. Well, that and ED which is what many of these kids do, which is essentially wealthy kid affirmative action. Signals to the school = I will pay full freight |
Anonymous
Once again, completely untrue. It’s fine if you don’t want your kid in these environments, but don’t denigrate the 90% of the student body that isn’t from astronomical wealth. And no, we didn’t chase money. Obviously some do, but that’s true of literally every student body. If anything, the schools provided the greatest opportunities for us to uncynically pursue the things we were passionate about, which we continued to pursue through university. Please stop regurgitating falsehoods. It’s not only about money, though there is a lot of money. Spots at top schools are not only going to the children of insanely rich people. Parents are insanely involved with the schools because, if you end up at one of them, there are constantly events and things which involve parents because they build a school community. Why is it so hard to fathom that maybe they’re just good schools that provide good educations to bright and ambitious and and thoughtful students? Why is there some assumption that they’re all dumb? Like, get your kid in and check it out and then don’t send them there if you think they’re horrible. |
Anonymous
To say that they aren’t rigorous - huh? They’re absolute pressure-cookers. The amount of work is bonkers. And the grading curve is also pretty strict. But if you truly think the students are dumb - and I don’t view this as a measure of intelligence, just an easy way to compare a certain level of aptitude - but the average sat scores at them are higher than almost any other school in the nation. This includes the dumb, lazy rich kids. And please don’t say it’s because of tutors. Once again, the vast majority of us don’t get any personal tutorship, but the school provides extra help. |
Anonymous
My child is under 3. It occurs at the Parent & Me classes. The nanny or parent will ask our location, future school aspiration, and lead with the school the older sibling is attending. Why would I be desperate? If anything it makes me feel subconscious about our own socioeconomic status as we face the choice of either spending our child's inheritance on tuition or saving it for when they become an adult. You can argue they have good intentions in wanting to inform us about the school, but it still a social cue in letting us know they have a certain amount of wealth without being overly explicit. |
Anonymous
Analytical fail. Look, I have had dc in both NYC private and SHS public and I know of what I speak. There are absolutely rigorous private schools, of course, I didn’t say anything to contradict that, and the dc certainly aren’t dumb. But if you’ve ever had a kid in an SHS, you will know that there is incredible rigor there too, and many of those kids are simply incredible, and earned their way there through sheer force of will without much financial support. If you’re going to tell me the majority of the private school kids don’t have a whole extra level of support, you’re just a liar (test prep up the whazoo, private college counselors, etc). But if you compare their college emission stats, you might think that these SHS kids are less impressive than the TT kids. Why? Because they aren’t legacy, they aren’t donating money and significantly, many/most are not doing ED because they need to shop for the best merit and financial aid at schools. The TT kids ED far more often as a group from my experience. It is interesting to me how so many TT private parents sniff about the SHS kids not being so great. I can tell you that this doesn’t really happen much in the reverse. These parents are typically working their assess off, and saving for their kids college etc. |
Anonymous
You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face? |
Anonymous
Like I said, the school provided resources for us and many of their students. Please don’t pretend that you know what you’re talking about. It’s exhausting, and I’m not going to reply to the assumptions of people anymore. My family couldn’t afford tutors for my brother and sister, nor could dozens of families. Once again, I’m not saying SATs are a measure of intelligence, but it’s one of the only ways we have to measure student performance across a broad swathe of students, even if we limit it solely to private schools. If you’d like to compare ap testing or whatever, feel free to pour through the data. But yes, most of us couldn’t afford private tutors. We had afterschool sessions in groups to learn test strategies, but they cost nothing and were available to all of us, rich and poor. BTW, many of us were on financial aid - my sister got ~ 55k and my brother got all tuition covered, without which we wouldn’t have been able to afford schools. Which i think is another thing i should mention: when you get accepted at one of these schools, they make an enormous effort to make it affordable. I think some are pushing for meeting all needs of accepted students. Financial aid packages are quite generous at tt schools - they accepted you for a reason and they work closely with families in order to provide the best package possible. Once again, all three of us would not have been able to go to our schools had we not received financial aid. I genuinely am having a hard time understanding why people believe all this hearsay. |
Anonymous
I never said you were desperate, and that wasn’t what i meant to imply. Apologies if that was the takeaway. Truly. And I’m sorry about your self-consciousness? (is that what you mean? i’m just unsure) about your own socioeconomic status. Like i said, we didn’t have much money - certainly no inheritance. so, I just think our experiences were/are different. no one i know is boastful about what elementary/high school they or their children went to. it’s come up at some parties but by accident when there’s some coincidence. Every once in a while - i do some fundraising stuff for my old schools - parents who didn’t come from money would talk about because they were proud of their children at having gotten in. No one used it as a social cudgel to intimidate someone or make them feel self-conscious or boast about their wealth. I’m sure some do, but who would spend their time with a tawdry family that brags about money? |
Anonymous
Forgive me if I came across that way. I wasn’t trying to compare NYC private schools to SHS public,a nd it’s not fair of me to do that if i did. And there’s absolutely no way that i said dc kids are dumb. Of course, private school kids have an extra level of support, BUT it’s not because of wealth. There are a lot of very rich people, but the majority of us came/come from normal backgrounds. For example, my brother and sister had nearly full tuition covered, and when I was at trinity, I had about 3/4 of my tuition through financial aid. WIthout it we couldn’t have afforded these schools. The extra level of support is one of the benefits of going to a TT private school. If you’re lucky enough to get in, they have the ability to provide the support and nurture their students. That’s undeniably a good thing, and without it, i doubt my siblings and i would have gotten into the universities we went to, as is the case with a lot of my friends. And ultimately, it’s not a competition over who works harder, etc. School for us was incredibly hard, the amount of work we had was absolutely crazy - as i’m sure it is anywhere - but again, we needed to rise to the occasion, seek help where we needed it, and pursue the things we wanted to do. No one forced us to do that. My point was simply that to say they arent rigorous is just untrue. They’re incredibly difficult schools where competition is absolutely fierce because the student body - including the rich kids - are wildly intelligent and ambitious. This isn’t meant to take away from SHS public schools or imply that they’re easier - nothing like that. challenges, talent, and academic rigor isn’t zero sum. But our experiences at our schools was by and large a positive one. Which isn’t to say there aren’t huge flaws. There are. But a lot of assumptions people make are just flat-out wrong. As though there’s this weird mystique that people are so quick to judge without any real information. Like really? You think the 8 people who got into harvard, 7 people who got into princeton and yale were all the children of fabulously wealthy people? Come on. What private schools did your kid go to? My sibs are still involved with Dalton and I’m still involved with Trinity. Possible we’ve crossed paths at some point. |
Anonymous
My sole exception to this is people i know who went to deerfield. they only ever talk about deerfield. |