Best private schools in NYC?

[Anonymous]

This is such good information. I really didn’t know to approach it that way when going through the process. We wanted all girls anyways but didn’t realize what few spaces there would be at the same sex schools. Anyone know how many students Dalton accepts at 6th or 7th?

[Anonymous]

There was a recent separate thread -- Dalton 6th Grade Slots?

short answer: very limited

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a recent separate thread -- Dalton 6th Grade Slots?

short answer: very limited[

Dalton, Chapin and Spence: 6-12
Riverdale: 20
Horace Mann: 50
Collegiate: ???
Brearley: ???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does nicher arrive at their rankings? Avenues I know solicits parents to post review in an attempt to bolster their rating and it does work. I believe they are 11 or something lie that.

This is so on brand for Avenues. Striver Academy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trinity parent who wore normal clothing (pants, flats, sweater) for both our k tour and interview. Did not interview with head of admissions (Jennifer) or associate head of admissions (was Drew, is now Jaclyn). Unconnected and got lucky.

The couple we toured with was outwardly flashy, dad was pompous and talked over everyone and argued with his wife and tried to dismiss her questions. They probably thought we were the odd ones, but we never saw them again.

Wow, unconnected? Nice. Any tips

Luck. Honestly. My kid is very bright, but NYC is filled with very bright kids. I am confident that many applicants would have checked the same boxes and been equally successful in the school.

I wish I had meaningful tips. Be yourself. Be kind. Hope that your 4/5 year old has a good day on that visit. Know why the school is of interest to you and why you think your child would be a good fit and communicate that well. We focused a lot on the lower school experience at every school because it felt impossibly hard to predict who our kid would be in middle or high school. That is all I've got.

The rest is just luck.

Thank you. We don’t know at families at Trinity. Everything has gone well so far but feel like an outsider. Guess we will see

You’re welcome to ask me questions if you’re applying for k. My oldest isn’t in upper school yet, so I can’t speak to that process or experience, but happy to share.

If you applied for k, did you talk to parents at the Open House? The diversity event? You don’t need to know anyone, I promise! I just found that asking current parents at every school that interested is very helpful.

We went to the diversity event and talked to a bunch of the parents in the appropriate affinity group. Everyone was nice. Are you saying this meant something for admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When have Riverdale or Chapin been second tier? Never heard those mentioned as anything other than top tier.

Second tier schools I always hear mentioned are NBS, Sacred Heart and Fieldston.

Riverdale has traditionally been 2T. On UB, which popularized this, it was the 7 listed above. Chapin has always been TT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does nicher arrive at their rankings? Avenues I know solicits parents to post review in an attempt to bolster their rating and it does work. I believe they are 11 or something lie that.

Niche includes things like online review/surveys, food quality, etc. It's like Yelp. Not reliable in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does nicher arrive at their rankings? Avenues I know solicits parents to post review in an attempt to bolster their rating and it does work. I believe they are 11 or something lie that.

Niche includes things like online review/surveys, food quality, etc. It's like Yelp. Not reliable in any way.

Yelp, Niche, US News rankings - directional at best 100%

[Anonymous]

I think the tier question boils down to two things:

1) How heavily do you weight admissions exclusivity versus academics versus college matriculations; and
2) How many tiers do you want to end up with.

If we're going with three tiers, where TT are the prep school equivalent of Ivies, 2T are other schools that have reasonably competitive admissions, and 3T is everybody else, and we're heavily weighting acceptance rates, you'd probably have to include Riverdale in TT and most of the other non-TT schools mentioned in this thread in 2T.

If on the other hand you have four tiers and you weight academics/matriculations more, 1T would probably be just the canonical quintet of HM/Trinity/Dalton/Brearley/Collegiate, 2T would be Riverdale/Spence/Chapin/St Ann's and maybe Friends or one or two others, 3T would be the academically weakest "name" schools like Fieldston and LREI, and 4T would be the schools that take everyone like BWL and Dwight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the tier question boils down to two things:

1) How heavily do you weight admissions exclusivity versus academics versus college matriculations; and
2) How many tiers do you want to end up with.

If we're going with three tiers, where TT are the prep school equivalent of Ivies, 2T are other schools that have reasonably competitive admissions, and 3T is everybody else, and we're heavily weighting acceptance rates, you'd probably have to include Riverdale in TT and most of the other non-TT schools mentioned in this thread in 2T.

If on the other hand you have four tiers and you weight academics/matriculations more, 1T would probably be just the canonical quintet of HM/Trinity/Dalton/Brearley/Collegiate, 2T would be Riverdale/Spence/Chapin/St Ann's and maybe Friends or one or two others, 3T would be the academically weakest "name" schools like Fieldston and LREI, and 4T would be the schools that take everyone like BWL and Dwight.

Where would Avenues land? Is it more challenging than Fieldston or Poly Prep?

[Anonymous]

I think it’s be 3T on the 4-tier system, but the admissions picture specifically is hard to read because as I understand it they accept most kids early and so people applying there are mostly people for whom that was their first choice.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, re the rest of your question, I don’t know Poly Prep that well, but from what people have told me I think Avenues is more rigorous than Fieldston. Poly Prep’s curriculum seems pretty aggressive but I don’t know how it works in practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the tier question boils down to two things:

1) How heavily do you weight admissions exclusivity versus academics versus college matriculations; and
2) How many tiers do you want to end up with.

If we're going with three tiers, where TT are the prep school equivalent of Ivies, 2T are other schools that have reasonably competitive admissions, and 3T is everybody else, and we're heavily weighting acceptance rates, you'd probably have to include Riverdale in TT and most of the other non-TT schools mentioned in this thread in 2T.

If on the other hand you have four tiers and you weight academics/matriculations more, 1T would probably be just the canonical quintet of HM/Trinity/Dalton/Brearley/Collegiate, 2T would be Riverdale/Spence/Chapin/St Ann's and maybe Friends or one or two others, 3T would be the academically weakest "name" schools like Fieldston and LREI, and 4T would be the schools that take everyone like BWL and Dwight.

Spence actually outperformed HM ( IVY league + MIT + Stanford rate) using the latest college matriculation data published on their websites. But I am curious to know why, as I always thought HM was much more academic focused than Spence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the tier question boils down to two things:

1) How heavily do you weight admissions exclusivity versus academics versus college matriculations; and
2) How many tiers do you want to end up with.

If we're going with three tiers, where TT are the prep school equivalent of Ivies, 2T are other schools that have reasonably competitive admissions, and 3T is everybody else, and we're heavily weighting acceptance rates, you'd probably have to include Riverdale in TT and most of the other non-TT schools mentioned in this thread in 2T.

If on the other hand you have four tiers and you weight academics/matriculations more, 1T would probably be just the canonical quintet of HM/Trinity/Dalton/Brearley/Collegiate, 2T would be Riverdale/Spence/Chapin/St Ann's and maybe Friends or one or two others, 3T would be the academically weakest "name" schools like Fieldston and LREI, and 4T would be the schools that take everyone like BWL and Dwight.

Spence actually outperformed HM ( IVY league + MIT + Stanford rate) using the latest college matriculation data published on their websites. But I am curious to know why, as I always thought HM was much more academic focused than Spence.

DEI + lots of hooked kids in one year for whatever reason.

[Anonymous]

I think among the top tier and most consider Spence, Chapin and Riverdale top tier, college placement are quite similar…but I don’t have all the data.

Horace Mann is not sooooo much more academically rigorous than Spence, maybe a bit more.