Best private schools in NYC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
St. Ann's . . .

Very impressive. Attending: Yale-5, Brown-5, Harvard-3, Cornell-4, Cu/Princeton/UPenn-4

Whoever said they are 4th tier is DELUSIONAL.

And St. Ann's only has a graduating class of 86 kids!

[Anonymous]

Are most of the St Ann's kids really self driven to do this kind of work?


No.
Some do a lot of theater or art or whatnot.
Some do drugs.
As one teacher put it, the work is optional. Another told me that teaching there is like being the tv in a hospital waiting room -- people tune in or not depending on how interesting the story is.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I disagree with so much of this but your description of it is very fair and interesting, so thank you.

What about extra-curriculars? And I am referring to real extra-curriculars for the sake of exercise, creativity and escaping, not for the sake of padding a college app. Being in academic school for that long is not healthy. Kids need to be kids. There is also a difference between "jet set vacations" and "taking a week to do something else to recharge." Which all people should do.

A lot of people pinch pennies to send their kids to expensive privates to get away from the Stuy mentality of countless APs and non-stop work. Especially for high school kids. Colleges should be doing a better job of encouraging kids to relax.

The best racecar is the one that crosses the line in first place and then breaks into 1000 pieces. If you want to get into an Ivy, it helps to be super-smart, but you really have to work extremely hard. There's no Stuy-like competition -- I don't think people are cheating on tests or stealing books from the library. But the kids find ways to compete -- who won writing awards or got into a summer program or whatnot.

They have sports teams. Mostly the teams aren't particularly good, except for the squash team, but the coaches instill discipline and fitness. Sports facilities are pretty minimal, so the teams would likely get crushed by even a mediocre suburban team. Trinity / Dalton / HM(!)/ RCS all have vastly better facilities. They won the girls volleyball league this year, but I heard that they had a trans player who was exceptional. People get very very excited about music and theater and art performances there., and there's the usual model congress and debate and whatnot.

But bear in mind that the ultimate job for many of these kids is to be a university professor, and that's a job that requires you to be super self-motivated and hard-working. Going through this process is kind of a filter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The best racecar is the one that crosses the line in first place and then breaks into 1000 pieces.


wow

[Anonymous]

From the below schools, can anyone rank which kids come out the most well balanced and happy?

Avenues
Brearley
Chapin
Collegiate
Dalton
Fieldston
Horace Mann
Riverdale
Spence
St. Ann’s
Trinity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
What's the deal with Avenues? Campus looks incredible. Why is it so hated?

It's seen as a school for dumb rich kids.

It’s exactly that.
Signed, a New Yorker who lives in Chelsea and has friends with kids at Avenues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Want to add on Avenues. They have mostly wealthy class family and some upper middle class. So the atmosphere at Avenues is definitely so much less privileged as compared to tier 1 schools. Kids are down to earth and friendly to each other. Makes it easy to make friends.

I have kids at both and I actually find that tier one schools have much more socioeconomic diversity than Avenues as they work with organizations such as Prep for Prep.

I will say because Avenues offers immersion you’ll meet plenty of LatinX families if that is important to you. However, they are all extremely well off for the most part.

+1. Avenues is a for profit school and does not offer any financial aid or scholarships. They have less diversity and cannot attract disadvantaged academic superstars the way other schools do. As a result, they have an inferior student body than even T3s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:5th grade for Brearley and 6th grade for Spence and Chapin are considered entry points. 9th grade as well.

This is incorrect. The only official entry point into those schools is Kindergarten. I have a niece at one of them, and they accepted zero nee girls in 5th and one in 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5th grade for Brearley and 6th grade for Spence and Chapin are considered entry points. 9th grade as well.

This is incorrect. The only official entry point into those schools is Kindergarten. I have a niece at one of them, and they accepted zero nee girls in 5th and one in 6th grade.

My daughter was accepted at two of these schools at 6th grade very recently. They accept very few girls maybe 6-14 girls but they do accept girls at 6th grsde. 9th grade is also an entry point for all three top girls schools because some students leave for boarding school or coed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Want to add on Avenues. They have mostly wealthy class family and some upper middle class. So the atmosphere at Avenues is definitely so much less privileged as compared to tier 1 schools. Kids are down to earth and friendly to each other. Makes it easy to make friends.

I have kids at both and I actually find that tier one schools have much more socioeconomic diversity than Avenues as they work with organizations such as Prep for Prep.

I will say because Avenues offers immersion you’ll meet plenty of LatinX families if that is important to you. However, they are all extremely well off for the most part.

+1. Avenues is a for profit school and does not offer any financial aid or scholarships. They have less diversity and cannot attract disadvantaged academic superstars the way other schools do. As a result, they have an inferior student body than even T3s.

There is plenty of diversity at Avenues, especially due to Latinx families, socio-economic diversity is lacking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard that you should aim to get into the "right" preschool in order to boost your chance of admission at a private kindergarten. Which preschools are the best ones to target? Is 92nd St Y still the elusive prize that it used to be?

Not true. In fact, coming from a lesser known preschool that doesn’t broker its students can work to your advantage. Just like coming from TN or AK can help you with an Ivy admission over DC, NYC or Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5th grade for Brearley and 6th grade for Spence and Chapin are considered entry points. 9th grade as well.

This is incorrect. The only official entry point into those schools is Kindergarten. I have a niece at one of them, and they accepted zero nee girls in 5th and one in 6th grade.

My daughter was accepted at two of these schools at 6th grade very recently. They accept very few girls maybe 6-14 girls but they do accept girls at 6th grade. 9th grade is also an entry point for all three top girls schools because some students leave for boarding school or coed.

They only accept new girls if there is attrition. Some years 10 girls leave in lower school for various reasons and get replaced in 5th or 6th. Other years almost no one leaves and so they accept zero or 1-2 max. There is no official entry point after K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wondering why Columbia Prep and Grammar is not thought of as highly - they had exmissions to HYP this year, have a chess team that wins nationally, has an awesome advanced science research program, and seems like less of a pressure cooker compared to other schools. I read that they also have one of Princeton's college admissions deans joining as head of college counseling, so curious if their Princeton admissions rate will go up.

I think we can't look at HYP individuals only, but really have to look at the percentage of students that succeed.

At TT schools like Dalton, 50% of graduates go to Ivies, 60% go to Ivies + Top 10 + T5 Lacs.
At Columbia Grammar, you may find a few individuals that go to HYP, but the matriculation results at large is not super impressive as TT schools.

Columbia admissions is not competitive. They accept most anyone that applies and can pay tuition. Avenues is the same.

Not sure about Columbia Grammar. Avenues certainly the upper division is not easy to get into. Several families we know of applied at 9th grade didn't get in. They have about 45 spots at 9th grade. Anyone didn't get into TT or boarding schools apply to Avenues, the acceptance rate is sub-10%.

I have never met one family that has not gotten into Avenues that has applied. Most of the very motivated stand-out students take advantage of the unique immersion offerings in the lower school then move on to top tier schools at middle school. They lose about 20 kids after lower school so 6th grade is an excellent time to apply to Avenues. While the curriculum, facilites and teachers are very good, the student body isn’t very scholarly. Nicer by a mile than Columbia Grammar, however.

This is all correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I just went through the K admissions process. We're not originally from NYC and have no connection to any local private schools. Our child was at one of the "Baby Ivies" for preschool and we expected that would translate into excellent admissions choices. However, after completing the process we believe that the excellent exmissions stats of our preschool are largely due to them carefully selecting children who fit the preferred profile of the K-12 schools, and not due to much educational or reputational "value add" on their part. The preferred profile includes children of TT alumni and kids who provide visual but not socioeconomic diversity (think URM with parents in law, finance, medicine, etc.). I suspect the same is true for the high schools with excellent exmission stats. Getting kids into Ivies for college is easier if the parents are alumni and donors.

Thanks for this input. Did your PSD do a lot of bartering for the final admission? Also, If a child is unconnected, were their exmissions still as strong? My colleague whose unconnected child went to a Baby Ivy preschool didn’t get into the top 2 schools she wanted (Trinity and brearley) because all the spots went to siblings and super donors.

After we were waitlisted at 2 TTs (our top 2 choices) and accepted at 1 T2 (our last choice for a few reasons), our PSD said "I'm surprised. Our assessment was glowing and we got strong feedback from the waitlisting schools. I'll inquire." But after making some calls the response was "It is what it is." We didn't feel there was much effort put forth on their part. We are involved in the school, but not in leadership roles, and have donated fairly generously (low 5 figures per year, but definitely not "super donors"). Our contributions didn't seem to be enough to move the needle with our PSD in terms of advocacy. I don't know if further advocacy would have helped, but we didn't seem to get any.

We heard that the schools we were waitlisted at "waitlist everyone" and that the only way we were getting in was if a child of a similar "profile" to our own rejected the offer, which seemed highly unlikely given the prestige and reputation of the schools, and given that (we suspected) there were likely legacy kids of our "profile" ahead of us in line. We also heard that last year was a particularly difficult year for unconnected admissions due to many connected families returning to the city post-COVID pandemic. I have no idea if those things are true.

Within the circle of families that we know, unconnected admissions of oldest siblings to TTs largely, but not always, go to URMs. Once a sibling has been accepted schools will "look for ways to say yes" to younger siblings. I have been surprised by a couple of acceptances of non-legacy, non-sibling, non-URM, non-G&T kids to TTs, and then learned that there were professional or family connections to the school. Scour Board of Trustee lists for any connections you may, unwittingly, have.

We donated maybe $1k over the three years DC was in preschool, did not volunteer for anything (2 working parents), not connected, no name preschool, and still DC was accepted to 2 of the 7 TTs. Smart, nice kid, normal family. That was many years ago. DC is in high school now and at the top of their class. The TTs have a way of figuring out which kids will thrive in their school, and that imo is most important (unless you are a billionaire of course).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why do people believe this? Why is it that everyone who says things has no affiliation with these schools?

I’m not trying to be argumentative, but this is such nonsense. All it does is undermine the quality of the education and the abilities and talents of ambitious and hard-working kids. Stop doing this. We just did well at school and pursued the things we loved uncynically.

The unfairness usually comes in the amount of resources that goes into developing a TT private school student as it takes a lot of resources to make a well rounded student (from tutoring, extracurricular activities, traveling/cultural events, sports, etc...).

Your understanding of Ivy League admission is fundamentally wrong. Ivies are not particularly interested in "well rounded" applicants. They are looking at kids with big spikes. They are also looking at kids with hooks (URM, donor, legacy). Just being a straight A student without big spikes or hooks is not enough. If you understand this, you will be better equipped in selecting high schools for your kid(s).

Being a top 10-20% student with non-exceptional ECs from a tippity top nationally-recognized high school like the best 7-10 privates in NYC plus Hunter & Stuy is absolutely enough for an Ivy admission, in fact for multiple Ivy admissions. BTDT. Some of these kids can take 300-level courses at Ivies in their freshman year with no problem. This is how over-prepared and academically capable they are. I am sorry but a bird watcher with As from a middling suburban public pales in comparison, and the top colleges are aware of that fact.