Packer and Village Community School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with all of this. And even the essay schools have their pros and cons. We loved NEST but it is remote (not the end of the world). Bard is great for artsy humanities kids - a kid who would excel at a traditional private school probably wouldn't be happy there so it isn't a binary choice (though there are obviously less traditional private schools).

Bard has a level of connection to Jeffrey Epstein that would make even Dalton blush, so until they clean house I would stay far away from them.

Personally, I have a 7th grader and a 5th grader; I feel pretty good about the 7th grader's choices since they'd have a strong chance at 4 out of 6 LaGuardia studios along with the SHSAT schools, but if the 5th grader has a bad lottery number and screws up their SHSAT, I'm going to be on the fence whether to send them to a lower-tier private school (they're extremely bright but lack the polish to get into a TT/2T as a high schooler) or do a split-household thing with the older kid in the city and the younger kid in the suburbs for two years.

Bard is weird. I found the curriculum and everything else just weird. My kid couldn't leave the tour fast enough.

You're very lucky to have an artsy kid. LaGuardia is huge and there's also Sinatra in Queens, which people seem to love. As for your 5th grader, if you're in D2 try for Clinton; then you have a perfectly acceptable fallback for high school. And NEST of course, if you happen to have insane lottery luck.

Re the 2T vs suburbs, do the math. A friend of mine in this position (older kid had a good public HS spot; younger was a poor test taker) discovered it was significantly cheaper to pay for private than move, given the taxes, cost of a second car, furnishing a house, etc etc.

Thanks. Sadly 5th grader's lottery number was not in range for Clinton, let alone NEST. We know people at Sinatra but we're not sure if the academics are strong enough.

As far as math, it's honestly close enough that I'm more worried about fit than about cost - at a lower-tier private I worry there'll be too many rich kids who don't work hard, we would need to find one that had high academic standards but low enough prestige that they still had a chance of getting in. Also needs to have good STEM.

Anonymous wrote:My older child is super academic. Second child is smart but not nearly as book smart. Older child aced the SHSATs but wanted smaller and we are fortunate to be able to pay for private so did so. We chose a slightly less competitive school so a) they could stand out, b) less stress, and c) younger sibling might have a chance of getting in and succeeding. We are working hard to be on good terms with the administration because younger child might not have the grades and scores to get in but hopefully since they know us as a family they will give the benefit of the doubt.

One of my cousins is actually doing this exact same thing, sticking it out at a less competitive school with a very academic older sibling in the hopes of getting the younger one in. Hopefully it works out in both cases

Might really benefit your older kid to be the star student at a 2T.

That thought had crossed my mind, but I'm kind of hoping they get the same benefit at LaGuardia but with the added perk of classmates who love the arts as much as they do.