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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We have a kid at Wagner (funny to see it mentioned here!)

Every kid we know at Wagner (and every other NYC public school) gets some sort of outside math or English tutoring (depending on their weak points). If your kid isn’t getting tutoring then they are at a major disadvantage. The math is, in my opinion, much harder than my suburban DMV math classes were in the 1980s - I can’t do my kid’s math and she has a tutor.

ELA, science, social studies are easy for my kid, but have been tough for her cousin, and he gets ELA tutoring.

Our kid had an easy time getting used to Wagner & loved it there. There are a lot of kids moving in and out of NYC, which makes it very easy to get settled as the other kids are used to “new kids” and overall appear more welcoming and friendly towards new kids than the kids seemed to be in my suburban upbringing (where new kids were rare).

District 2 is fairly large, and if you are far away from Wagner it’s tough to get used to your kid riding the nyc busses or subway alone, but the Wagner kids in our neighborhood meet up and travel on the subway in a pack. We track them via their phones. Wagner does “out lunch”, which the kids love, and it gives them a good foundation in following rules, walking safely around Manhattan by themselves, keeping track of their ID, managing money (the $3 cheese pizza slice at Centro is a big favorite!) and managing time. Wagner is strict about making the kids put their cell phones in yonder pouches.

Overall, our kid seems to be getting a good education.

The kids at Wagner run the gamut of rich to poor. We are solidly middle class, and it’s been fine. Our kid did express annoyance that we don’t have an apartment already purchased and waiting for her as an adult “like most of my friends do! - just buy me a place downtown and rent it out until I need it! That’s what everyone does!” But no issues with fancy clothes - everyone wears t-shirts, target, Uniqlo and H&M, and uses cheap backpacks. A lot of kids have at least one parent from a foreign country, so vacations tend to involve their going to that country, and there’s no pressure to go on fancy vacations. If  the kids go to sleep away camp then it’s often to the Frost Valley YMCA summer camp upstate, which is reasonably priced. [/quote]

Lots of great points here. Thanks. My kid went to a similar school to Wagner and I agree with a lot of this. As you said, there is no "class" pressure at all. We were on the upper end of the economic scale (though far from rich) and made a point of telling our child not to advertise their privilege, though they often wore gear from their expensive camp. You get a sense of the wealth in 8th grade when you see which kids are applying to private HS - usually a few kids from each of the top middle schools end up at private (including kids who got into top SHSAT schools but want something different).

I do have to disagree about the tutoring. My child was not tutored at all, and I don't think any of their friends were either. They are now at various competitive public and private high schools and doing fine. The only tutoring they had was for SHSAT/ISEE/SSAT, which is different. Most of them went to very good public elementary schools so were well prepared - they found sixth grade, especially in math, to be a refresher of things they had already learned. There might have been one or two kids who did "Russian math" but these kids did not stand out academically - if anything, they stood out because they missed out socially/athletically.

Middle school is definitely a weird phenomenon in NYC because kids come in from many different schools so, as you noted, tend to quickly make new friends. But the three years fly by and they are quickly off to different high schools, so they immediately are making new friends again. Some middle school friendships last more than others. It is very different than the suburbs where there tends to be a lot more continuity. I grew up in the suburbs and went to school with many of the same kids K-12, adding on new kids along the way, which I really liked. My kid has nice friends but less deep relationships. I think Covid also impacted this.[/quote]

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