Best private schools in NYC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

You can say self-consciousness.

I would argue it a matter of perspective whether it is viewed as being proud of their child getting in vs status symbol (my own bias). You can also learn a lot from people who brag relative to people who judge silently, so I don't really take it negatively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

Just one last thing to tack on here: Even a few years ago, i never would have thought that i’d be defending trinity. I didn’t like going to trinity, which is part of the reason why i left - the other reason was boarding schools had better sports. But I just think it’s so strange what some people say about it. It’s a great school. It certainly isn’t a fun school, however you’ll leave with a wonderful education. Regarding the super wealthy, yes there are some, but it doesn’t really matter where they go to school. They could go to the worst school in the country and still get in pretty much wherever they want. Because they’re rich. They go to these schools because they do provide excellent educations. I didn’t realize how lucky i was to go there until years later, since when i was there, i was constantly stressed and it made me unhappy. Should you send your kid to a TT in nyc, it’ll be most likely be worth it, but again, it’s up to each individual child whether they take advantage of the school’s resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
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.

What? Do you know how selective Trinity or Dalton is? The average IQ there is probably over 160. Not joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

What? Do you know how selective Trinity or Dalton is? The average IQ there is probably over 160. Not joke.

I can't imagine every sibling or legacy child has a high IQ... Trinity, Brearley, Spence, etc, classes seem to be at least 80% sib/legacy. At least Dalton seems more even-keeled...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
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.

What? Do you know how selective Trinity or Dalton is? The average IQ there is probably over 160. Not joke.

I can't imagine every sibling or legacy child has a high IQ... Trinity, Brearley, Spence, etc, classes seem to be at least 80% sib/legacy. At least Dalton seems more even-keeled...

In recent years there are very few sib/legacy at trinity, maybe 10%? The curriculum is extremely rigorous. If the student has to engage a private tutor, he is not going to survive trinity. Most of students I know of do not use tutors. It's called raw talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face?

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.

Sorry, what year are we talking about? Because I’m discussing current realities. The majority of kids at TT are UMC or wealthier, and yes, they have $ for SAT prep. Most have private tutors (and essay help and private college counseling) but those who didn’t could still afford pricey group classes which maybe you don’t think of as pricey because you are apparently clueless and out of touch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

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.

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.

Look, I’m not going to out myself but if you’re talking anything current, you’ll know that basically almost all of the kids who got into HYP the last several years from those schools were full pay. I didn’t say they were ‘fabulously wealthy’ but they had enough money that they paid sticker price. Again I’ll comment that ED is UMC affirmative action.

You are apparently so out of touch with reality that a regular old UMC lawyer/doctor/professional type family feels ‘poor’ to you.

And if you’ve ever been involved with SHS, it is just very different. Sure, there are middle class and UMC families here and there, but there are also tons of families of very modest means and they aren’t having their kids ED HYP because they are shopping for merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face?

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.

Sorry, what year are we talking about? Because I’m discussing current realities. The majority of kids at TT are UMC or wealthier, and yes, they have $ for SAT prep. Most have private tutors (and essay help and private college counseling) but those who didn’t could still afford pricey group classes which maybe you don’t think of as pricey because you are apparently clueless and out of touch

No reason to be insulting and you’re wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

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.

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.

Look, I’m not going to out myself but if you’re talking anything current, you’ll know that basically almost all of the kids who got into HYP the last several years from those schools were full pay. I didn’t say they were ‘fabulously wealthy’ but they had enough money that they paid sticker price. Again I’ll comment that ED is UMC affirmative action.

You are apparently so out of touch with reality that a regular old UMC lawyer/doctor/professional type family feels ‘poor’ to you.

And if you’ve ever been involved with SHS, it is just very different. Sure, there are middle class and UMC families here and there, but there are also tons of families of very modest means and they aren’t having their kids ED HYP because they are shopping for merit aid.

And I never said they were poor, but many private schools will offer some aid to families that make up to 400k in some cases. And yes, I do know. I’m still active in the school, as are my siblings, and my nephew is currently there. Why is this a disagreement? It’s just a fact. It’s not a debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face?

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.

Sorry, what year are we talking about? Because I’m discussing current realities. The majority of kids at TT are UMC or wealthier, and yes, they have $ for SAT prep. Most have private tutors (and essay help and private college counseling) but those who didn’t could still afford pricey group classes which maybe you don’t think of as pricey because you are apparently clueless and out of touch

No reason to be insulting and you’re wrong.

Not wrong. I strongly suspect you don’t have dc at these schools. At least not remotely current

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

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.

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.

Look, I’m not going to out myself but if you’re talking anything current, you’ll know that basically almost all of the kids who got into HYP the last several years from those schools were full pay. I didn’t say they were ‘fabulously wealthy’ but they had enough money that they paid sticker price. Again I’ll comment that ED is UMC affirmative action.

You are apparently so out of touch with reality that a regular old UMC lawyer/doctor/professional type family feels ‘poor’ to you.

And if you’ve ever been involved with SHS, it is just very different. Sure, there are middle class and UMC families here and there, but there are also tons of families of very modest means and they aren’t having their kids ED HYP because they are shopping for merit aid.

And I never said they were poor, but many private schools will offer some aid to families that make up to 400k in some cases. And yes, I do know. I’m still active in the school, as are my siblings, and my nephew is currently there. Why is this a disagreement? It’s just a fact. It’s not a debate.

I’m not going to have any more back-and-forth on this. Good luck with your school selection. I hope you don’t have the horrid misfortune of getting in to a private school. All the rich hobgoblins will destroy your life and your kid might end up going to Amherst or Dartmouth or, dare I say it, Georgetown!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face?

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.

Sorry, what year are we talking about? Because I’m discussing current realities. The majority of kids at TT are UMC or wealthier, and yes, they have $ for SAT prep. Most have private tutors (and essay help and private college counseling) but those who didn’t could still afford pricey group classes which maybe you don’t think of as pricey because you are apparently clueless and out of touch

No reason to be insulting and you’re wrong.

Not wrong. I strongly suspect you don’t have dc at these schools. At least not remotely current

Nephew had his first day today. I do fundraising for for both my old schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

You think higher SAT scores are not because of test prep? You are really saying that with a straight face?

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.

Sorry, what year are we talking about? Because I’m discussing current realities. The majority of kids at TT are UMC or wealthier, and yes, they have $ for SAT prep. Most have private tutors (and essay help and private college counseling) but those who didn’t could still afford pricey group classes which maybe you don’t think of as pricey because you are apparently clueless and out of touch

No reason to be insulting and you’re wrong.

Not wrong. I strongly suspect you don’t have dc at these schools. At least not remotely current

Nephew had his first day today. I do fundraising for for both my old schools.

*last thursday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
In recent years there are very few sib/legacy at trinity, maybe 10%? The curriculum is extremely rigorous. If the student has to engage a private tutor, he is not going to survive trinity. Most of students I know of do not use tutors. It's called raw talent.

I am not sure if CUNY and LACs are prepared to handle all that raw talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Simply untrue for the vast majority of the student body. Where are people getting this info?

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

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.

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.

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.

Look, I’m not going to out myself but if you’re talking anything current, you’ll know that basically almost all of the kids who got into HYP the last several years from those schools were full pay. I didn’t say they were ‘fabulously wealthy’ but they had enough money that they paid sticker price. Again I’ll comment that ED is UMC affirmative action.

You are apparently so out of touch with reality that a regular old UMC lawyer/doctor/professional type family feels ‘poor’ to you.

And if you’ve ever been involved with SHS, it is just very different. Sure, there are middle class and UMC families here and there, but there are also tons of families of very modest means and they aren’t having their kids ED HYP because they are shopping for merit aid.

And I never said they were poor, but many private schools will offer some aid to families that make up to 400k in some cases. And yes, I do know. I’m still active in the school, as are my siblings, and my nephew is currently there. Why is this a disagreement? It’s just a fact. It’s not a debate.

Bingo. And this is why you are so clueless. Yes, some MC UMC families- especially with multiple children - may get *some* aid at TT schools - sure, bc an HHI is considered not rich to these people, but an HHI of 400k will not get you a cent of financial aid in college. And these ‘poorer’ families still have enough money to put their dc into SAT prep classes etc. And if you tell me they don’t, I will know you are delusional or a liar. So don’t tell me that the ‘TT kids have such high SAT tests scores, and it has nothing to do with paid prep’.

You apparently have no idea how most students live. Sad for you. All that education and you’re so myopic