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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

Can you say which 2T? Or alternatively would you be open to talking on a burner email? [/quote]

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