Best private schools in NYC?

[Anonymous]

Similar question to the prior poster—but in reverse. My child made it to round 2 at Hunter. Our preschool director indicated that Dalton really liked us so we sent them a first choice letter (hedging a bit in case we get into Hunter) and we applied to a handful of other UES privates. The odds of Hunter are still long but is it actually so much better academically than Dalton? As a family we felt more at home at Dalton, but if the education and college opportunities my kid would get at Hunter are significantly better than what Dalton can offer, we’d choose Hunter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Similar question to the prior poster—but in reverse. My child made it to round 2 at Hunter. Our preschool director indicated that Dalton really liked us so we sent them a first choice letter (hedging a bit in case we get into Hunter) and we applied to a handful of other UES privates. The odds of Hunter are still long but is it actually so much better academically than Dalton? As a family we felt more at home at Dalton, but if the education and college opportunities my kid would get at Hunter are significantly better than what Dalton can offer, we’d choose Hunter.

The academics are not significantly better at Hunter, and the allure of Hunter over Dalton would be that it's free. If that's not a deciding factor for you, then go with the school that's the best fit for your child and family.

[Anonymous]

If you can afford Dalton, go to Dalton.

[Anonymous]

I’m another parent here trying to decide between Hunter and a TT private school. Like the earlier poster, we’ve gotten very positive feedback from our top-choice private school, according to our preschool director. The odds of getting into Hunter are still long, but I can’t stop comparing the two schools lately.

As an immigrant family where both parents work full-time and with no support from grandparents, the $65k per year (plus inflation) for private school over 13 years is a big cost for us. We can afford it, but it’s hard not to think about how that money could be better used—maybe for college or even to help our child later in life. That said, we really like the environment of our top-choice private school and would be very happy to go there if Hunter doesn’t work out.

Our ultimate goal is to find a school where our child will be both intellectually challenged and grow into a socially and emotionally mature individual. Hunter feels so mysterious to us—we barely know anything about the school beyond what’s publicly available.

So, I’m wondering: are TT private schools only marginally better than Hunter, or is there a significant difference?

Thank you so much to anyone who can share their insights—it would be a huge help!

[Anonymous]

Academically Hunter is better than most privates and equal to the very top privates (Trinity, Horace Mann). The students at Hunter are on average smarter than the students at the privates. Hunter kids get into better colleges. Ask the private you are considering for their college stats only for kids applying to college through the normal admission process—no legacies, no kids of famous people, no kids from families able to build libraries and no recruited athletes. When you compare those college admissions stats (and some schools will provide them) to Hunters, Hunter is ahead by a wide margin.

At a private school, your kid will have more individual support and more social support. The facility will be nicer. In early years it will be easier for your child to socialize with classmates because most will have nannys or SHMs. At Hunter many will go to aftercare and will live far away. Your kid probably will be more well rounded and better socialized coming out of a private school and, assuming it is a TT private, will get an education equivalent to Hunter or one that’s only a little worse. Also, some of the TT privates are not as intense as Hunter. Hunter is a pressure cooker like Horace Mann or Trinity in the HS grades. At a private, your kid likely will graduate with a better network. It doesn’t surprise me that the other poster said their family was more comfortable at Dalton. One parent with a kid at a TT private and another kid at a v good public (not Hunter) said that at the private school he was a client and at the public he was a taxpayer. That’s accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Academically Hunter is better than most privates and equal to the very top privates (Trinity, Horace Mann). The students at Hunter are on average smarter than the students at the privates. Hunter kids get into better colleges. Ask the private you are considering for their college stats only for kids applying to college through the normal admission process—no legacies, no kids of famous people, no kids from families able to build libraries and no recruited athletes. When you compare those college admissions stats (and some schools will provide them) to Hunters, Hunter is ahead by a wide margin.

At a private school, your kid will have more individual support and more social support. The facility will be nicer. In early years it will be easier for your child to socialize with classmates because most will have nannys or SHMs. At Hunter many will go to aftercare and will live far away. Your kid probably will be more well rounded and better socialized coming out of a private school and, assuming it is a TT private, will get an education equivalent to Hunter or one that’s only a little worse. Also, some of the TT privates are not as intense as Hunter. Hunter is a pressure cooker like Horace Mann or Trinity in the HS grades. At a private, your kid likely will graduate with a better network. It doesn’t surprise me that the other poster said their family was more comfortable at Dalton. One parent with a kid at a TT private and another kid at a v good public (not Hunter) said that at the private school he was a client and at the public he was a taxpayer. That’s accurate.

different poster, but great answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Academically Hunter is better than most privates and equal to the very top privates (Trinity, Horace Mann). The students at Hunter are on average smarter than the students at the privates. Hunter kids get into better colleges. Ask the private you are considering for their college stats only for kids applying to college through the normal admission process—no legacies, no kids of famous people, no kids from families able to build libraries and no recruited athletes. When you compare those college admissions stats (and some schools will provide them) to Hunters, Hunter is ahead by a wide margin.

At a private school, your kid will have more individual support and more social support. The facility will be nicer. In early years it will be easier for your child to socialize with classmates because most will have nannys or SHMs. At Hunter many will go to aftercare and will live far away. Your kid probably will be more well rounded and better socialized coming out of a private school and, assuming it is a TT private, will get an education equivalent to Hunter or one that’s only a little worse. Also, some of the TT privates are not as intense as Hunter. Hunter is a pressure cooker like Horace Mann or Trinity in the HS grades. At a private, your kid likely will graduate with a better network. It doesn’t surprise me that the other poster said their family was more comfortable at Dalton. One parent with a kid at a TT private and another kid at a v good public (not Hunter) said that at the private school he was a client and at the public he was a taxpayer. That’s accurate.

Thank you for such detailed and thoughtful response! It’s really helpful. The “client vs. taxpayer” analogy is interesting —there’s definitely a cultural and community difference.

For an unhooked family like ours, does choosing Hunter mean a better chance at top colleges? While at a private school, the focus seems more on the overall experience, with better facilities, individual attention, and a happier environment.

I’m also wondering—does Hunter’s curriculum truly cater to gifted children, or is their strong college placement more about selecting top students early on? I’ve heard that the most successful students at Hunter High tend to be those who test in at 7th grade rather than those who stay from K through 12. Is that true?

[Anonymous]

If you are comparing Hunter to a TT private, Hunter almost certainly means a better chance at an elite college. If you compare Hunter to a less prestigious private, it’s not as clear because while the less rigorous private has a less impressive college matriculation list than the TTs, your kid may have a better chance re college there (as compared to Hunter or any TT) if he or she is at the very top of their class at the lower ranked school and it will be easier to attain that rank at the less rigorous school.

Re the Hunter curriculum, in the early years, it’s not much different than a TT private, but they move faster because the privates devote time to social/emotional learning and Hunter spends very little time on that. The curriculum is more flexible than at a traditional private and if a kid has a real aptitude for a subject they allow them to go a little deeper. It’s definitely not an emergent curriculum, though, like you’d find at a progressive private. Sometimes Hunter is thought of as progressive but it’s not. By second grade, Hunter starts to move quite a bit faster and there also are more opportunities for kids to pursue individual interests. Not all subjects are equal. For example, in elementary school Hunter’s foreign language program is an introduction to Spanish, but the goal isn’t for kids to learn to speak because they don’t devote enough time to it. The kids become familiar with basic words, pronunciation and sentence structure. If they really want to become proficient, they have to supplement outside or wait until HS which begins at 7th grade when there are more and better language options.

Hunter probably is better at teaching gifted kids just because 100 percent of the kids fall in to that bucket. They use a lot of games and creative approaches. And everything is treated as an opportunity to learn. But it’s the kids not the curriculum that is the biggest differentiator. The kids are all v smart and most are curious. Hunter is a place where nerds are wholly accepted and kids think chess and physics and overall learning are cool. There isnt much social pressure to wear nice clothes or certain brands or to be good looking or popular. There is some premium placed on being a good athlete but less than you’d find at most other schools. The downside to the celebration of academic passion/achievement is that on average the kids are not as socially adept and the school provides much less support for social and emotional development.

For better and worse, young kids also have more independence and less supervision at Hunter than at most other schools.

I have a kid at Hunter. We like it but don’t love it. My kid is getting a phenomenal education but I think social/emotional education and support is more important than academics and they aren’t getting much of that. There are people that never would have considered private because it would have been totally out of reach or because they don’t believe in private school. There are others who easily could afford private but chose Hunter because it was the perfect fit for their kid or their family. Those are the groups that love the school. Among upper middle class parents who could pay for private but whose finances aren’t so comfortable that the money means nothing, I think most would have preferred private but chose Hunter because it’s tuition free. We would have gone to private if the money wasn’t meaningful to us. Because the money was meaningful to us, we went with Hunter and decided that if our kid wants to explore other options later—particularly in 7th when Hunter kids start HS or in 9th when a lot of seats open at the privates, we will support that. I doubt our kid will want to move because friend groups are so important at those ages but we will support it if they do.

Among the top HS students more come from the cohort that enters in 7th grade because the HS entrance exam test is identifying kids who have both ability and real intensity since all kids study for that exam and it’s competitive. The kids who enter at K are on average more creative and may rely more on innate ability and passion. Think physicists vs engineers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are comparing Hunter to a TT private, Hunter almost certainly means a better chance at an elite college. If you compare Hunter to a less prestigious private, it’s not as clear because while the less rigorous private has a less impressive college matriculation list than the TTs, your kid may have a better chance re college there (as compared to Hunter or any TT) if he or she is at the very top of their class at the lower ranked school and it will be easier to attain that rank at the less rigorous school.

Re the Hunter curriculum, in the early years, it’s not much different than a TT private, but they move faster because the privates devote time to social/emotional learning and Hunter spends very little time on that. The curriculum is more flexible than at a traditional private and if a kid has a real aptitude for a subject they allow them to go a little deeper. It’s definitely not an emergent curriculum, though, like you’d find at a progressive private. Sometimes Hunter is thought of as progressive but it’s not. By second grade, Hunter starts to move quite a bit faster and there also are more opportunities for kids to pursue individual interests. Not all subjects are equal. For example, in elementary school Hunter’s foreign language program is an introduction to Spanish, but the goal isn’t for kids to learn to speak because they don’t devote enough time to it. The kids become familiar with basic words, pronunciation and sentence structure. If they really want to become proficient, they have to supplement outside or wait until HS which begins at 7th grade when there are more and better language options.

Hunter probably is better at teaching gifted kids just because 100 percent of the kids fall in to that bucket. They use a lot of games and creative approaches. And everything is treated as an opportunity to learn. But it’s the kids not the curriculum that is the biggest differentiator. The kids are all v smart and most are curious. Hunter is a place where nerds are wholly accepted and kids think chess and physics and overall learning are cool. There isnt much social pressure to wear nice clothes or certain brands or to be good looking or popular. There is some premium placed on being a good athlete but less than you’d find at most other schools. The downside to the celebration of academic passion/achievement is that on average the kids are not as socially adept and the school provides much less support for social and emotional development.

For better and worse, young kids also have more independence and less supervision at Hunter than at most other schools.

I have a kid at Hunter. We like it but don’t love it. My kid is getting a phenomenal education but I think social/emotional education and support is more important than academics and they aren’t getting much of that. There are people that never would have considered private because it would have been totally out of reach or because they don’t believe in private school. There are others who easily could afford private but chose Hunter because it was the perfect fit for their kid or their family. Those are the groups that love the school. Among upper middle class parents who could pay for private but whose finances aren’t so comfortable that the money means nothing, I think most would have preferred private but chose Hunter because it’s tuition free. We would have gone to private if the money wasn’t meaningful to us. Because the money was meaningful to us, we went with Hunter and decided that if our kid wants to explore other options later—particularly in 7th when Hunter kids start HS or in 9th when a lot of seats open at the privates, we will support that. I doubt our kid will want to move because friend groups are so important at those ages but we will support it if they do.

Among the top HS students more come from the cohort that enters in 7th grade because the HS entrance exam test is identifying kids who have both ability and real intensity since all kids study for that exam and it’s competitive. The kids who enter at K are on average more creative and may rely more on innate ability and passion. Think physicists vs engineers.

another great post, thank you!
Was it obvious your child was going to gain admission to hunter? did they seem gifted / different than their preschool cohort?

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s obvious for anyone. The acceptance rate is under 2 percent so plenty of brilliant kids don’t get in. The round 2 is a black box and at that point they are looking for things other than academic potential which is measured in round 1. In some ways it was obvious to me that my kid was smart and I did think that they would make it to round 2. They started talking—words not sentences—very, very early at 4 months old and they also started doing math very early—can’t really remember but probably adding and subtracting at 2 or 2.5. They are very creative and very curious. On the other hand, they were not reading when they started school and they didn’t write well, had poor pencil grip, etc. in NY a lot of kids are brilliant so I didn’t think my child was smarter than their preschool classmates. As far as I could tell, they were all very smart and while my kid did go to a TT private preschool, it wasn’t a special school for super geniuses.

[Anonymous]

The Hunter kids are very smart. The kind of kids that could someday run a university science lab or succeed at Harvard med school. But most aren’t Einstein’s and Stephen Hawkings. If you have a kid who is off the charts brilliant, Hunter isn’t going to be able to support them. I have a friend with a kid like that and there aren’t really any schools in NY that work for the super genius kids. They have to be supported with outside resources. All that to say, you shouldnt be intimidated. You don’t have to be a Nobel prize winning 5 yo to fit in. You can like Paw Patrol and be a normal smart kid.

[Anonymous]

Any thoughts on Columbia Grammar vs Browning?

[Anonymous]

Any thoughts on well balanced schools in NYC? (Not pressure cooker, good socially, but still decent exmissions)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any thoughts on Columbia Grammar vs Browning?

CPGS. Great chess team and amazing high school science research program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any thoughts on well balanced schools in NYC? (Not pressure cooker, good socially, but still decent exmissions)?

I am curious as well. Would Friends Seminary fall in this category?