I have several friends in NYC with kids with these profiles:

1. In multiple Broadway productions over many years, an exceptional singer, at LaGuardia highschool, top grades. Double Ivy legacy, accomplished/semi-famous parents. Very likely heading to HYP

2. A kid at Trinity/Horace Mann (don’t want to out him) with straight As who played a team sport since age 6 and was privately coached on the side by an Olympic gold medalist for years. An excellent chess player too. Brilliant, everything comes easy to him. Great sense of humor, very kind. Ended up at MIT. Was not recruited for the sport but walked on the team.

3. Top 5% student at Stuyvesant (in a class of 900), a talented guitar player, started her own band back in middle school. Many debate team awards, including national level. She is gorgeous and a great writer too. Wrote a poignant poem as a gift to our family when our dog died that had me laughing and crying. I have it framed and look at it fondly often. Rooting for her to land at her dream college.

Sorry DMV area. Fierce competition is not unique to this area. In fact, the top NYC kids would run circles around ours.

I see a high percentage of kids going to top 10 universities from these nyc private schools but I also hear a good percentage of the kids are legacy + big donor families. True?

I thought it was pretty much merit based but I may be being naive!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

DP.

If they can't get into Stuyvesant, are they even college material?

what a silly comment, it's not like all these kids going to hs in NJ first lived in NYC and couldn't get into Stuyvesant and had to move to NJ

I would not send my child to Stuy even if guaranteed into the college of their choice. what a miserable four years of HS. Go to Bronx Sci and at least have a little bit of a slightly normal HS experience (though still not a ton). Stuy personifies the term "striver." Before people jump down my throat, there are obviously plenty of exceptions to this rule - there are nice, relatively normal kids there but they are the exception, not the rule.

When I had an admissions interview at Princeton the summer before senior year, it was me and a preppy white boy. We introduced ourselves, but I had never heard of Stuyvesant at that time, and assumed it was a private or UMC public in NY or NJ because the kid mentioned driving down the turnpike. Now it's 75% Asian lol

Princeton will be 75% Asian soon too. Their STEM is already.

Doubt it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

DP.

If they can't get into Stuyvesant, are they even college material?

what a silly comment, it's not like all these kids going to hs in NJ first lived in NYC and couldn't get into Stuyvesant and had to move to NJ

I would not send my child to Stuy even if guaranteed into the college of their choice. what a miserable four years of HS. Go to Bronx Sci and at least have a little bit of a slightly normal HS experience (though still not a ton). Stuy personifies the term "striver." Before people jump down my throat, there are obviously plenty of exceptions to this rule - there are nice, relatively normal kids there but they are the exception, not the rule.

When I had an admissions interview at Princeton the summer before senior year, it was me and a preppy white boy. We introduced ourselves, but I had never heard of Stuyvesant at that time, and assumed it was a private or UMC public in NY or NJ because the kid mentioned driving down the turnpike. Now it's 75% Asian lol

Princeton will be 75% Asian soon too. Their STEM is already.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any wealthy suburb in the nation with high concentration of educated households has the same problem of competitive college admissions s.

Why do you suppose Horace Mann has no problem sending 35% to ivy+ but these wealthy educated suburbs cannot?

You already know the answer, are you going to make her say it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

Palo Alto parent here. Santa Clara county had this season 750 applicants to Harvard and accepted 19 (2.5% admission rate). What’s wild about this is the strength of the applicants (at DC’s school). The vast majority of kids select themselves out (including my DC) because they conclude if they are not in the top 10 percent of applicants from the school, there is no point. 2.5 percent from this group of applicants is kind of nuts. I am curious if people in Boston or ny have seen local numbers like the above for Santa Clara county.

Palo Alto is such a 1% kind of town that I suspect AOs at Ivies like Harvard aren't that inclined to admit a ton of people from that zip code - also Gunn and Paly have reputations for being grind academies where people pursue APs and ECs solely to look good for college admission. So that may be working against your kids. It's so tough because the kids are worked so hard and are very accomplished but there's also this reputation of toxic competition and pressure and history of suicide clusters.

Gunn and Paly are easy compared to Lynnbrook and Cupertino. The real pressure cookers are the schools full of engineering families rather than the exec families.

Yes. And the internal (student vs student) competition for grades and ECs inside both Harker and Menlo School is just unbelievable.

Harker is its own unique beast, we turned down an invitation to apply after a visit and shadow. The school is really tech focused (and the population reflects that) and they swimlane kids quickly. If you are not in the top 20% it is likely a pretty hard place to be. A great feeder to Stanford but otherwise I don't feel that the success aligns with the stats. If you are engineering/CS focused you can get the same environment (and likely similar results) at Lynnbrook or Monte Vista while saving your family $600k on tuition (k-12). The schools are more similar than different. Harker is like a private version of TJ, Lynbrook is like an open admissions version of TJ and overall their colleges admissions look relatively similar though it looks like both Harker and Lynnbrook might do a bit better in the T10+ category.

I did not know that Menlo school was a pressure cooker. Menlo School (along with Castilleja and Crystal Springs) are hugely popular with Stanford families and Sand Hill Road families (as opposed to tech engineering families) and you can see the difference in admissions. They all send kids to R1s but they all (and especially Menlo) send large numbers of kids to SLACs so once again IYKYK when it comes to undergraduate education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

DP.

If they can't get into Stuyvesant, are they even college material?

what a silly comment, it's not like all these kids going to hs in NJ first lived in NYC and couldn't get into Stuyvesant and had to move to NJ

I would not send my child to Stuy even if guaranteed into the college of their choice. what a miserable four years of HS. Go to Bronx Sci and at least have a little bit of a slightly normal HS experience (though still not a ton). Stuy personifies the term "striver." Before people jump down my throat, there are obviously plenty of exceptions to this rule - there are nice, relatively normal kids there but they are the exception, not the rule.

When I had an admissions interview at Princeton the summer before senior year, it was me and a preppy white boy. We introduced ourselves, but I had never heard of Stuyvesant at that time, and assumed it was a private or UMC public in NY or NJ because the kid mentioned driving down the turnpike. Now it's 75% Asian lol

Anonymous wrote:Any wealthy suburb in the nation with high concentration of educated households has the same problem of competitive college admissions s.

Why do you suppose Horace Mann has no problem sending 35% to ivy+ but these wealthy educated suburbs cannot?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldnt be happy with that.

No one seriously thinks those schools are safeties! Come on, PP.

They are for the top kids at an elite NYC school. At the best privates in New York, 40% go to Ivies + Stanford and MIT every year. UVA, Michigan, Georgetown are safeties at these schools for the top half of the class.

Which NYC private send 40% to ivy+ every year?

Trinity doesn't, Dalton doesn't, Horace Mann doesn't.

Collegiate might but their graduating class is like 50 students.

Maybe if you added SLAC but even then, I doubt it.

NYC boy parent so don't quote me on this as I don't know a ton about girls schools, but I have heard that Nightingale has been really strong lately.

Horace Mann sent a small heard to Chicago a year or two ago. Not Ivy+ but still impressive. I was amazed Chicago would take so many kids from one school.

Though one could argue if you took the alma maters of the parents at these schools, the students are actually almost underperforming - i'm guessing 40+% of parents at many of these schools went to Ivy+. Many kids are ending up at great schools but worse than where their parents went.

The schools aren't "worse", that is just prestige whore talk. The Ivies as schools aren't superior in anything but name to many of the top schools or SLACs. The top SLACs are likely superior to the Ivies for actual education.

Any wealthy suburb in the nation with high concentration of educated households has the same problem of competitive college admissions s.

Brearley does. (Send over 40% to these schools)

I’m sure Regis guys can consider Georgetown a safety.

This is school by school.

Anonymous wrote:Which NYC private send 40% to ivy+ every year?

Trinity doesn't, Dalton doesn't, Horace Mann doesn't.

Collegiate might but their graduating class is like 50 students.

Maybe if you added SLAC but even then, I doubt it.

These stats indicate that >35% of Horace Mann grads matriculate at one of the 13 Ivy+ schools.

https://www.horacemann.org/academic-life/college-counseling

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

DP.

If they can't get into Stuyvesant, are they even college material?

what a silly comment, it's not like all these kids going to hs in NJ first lived in NYC and couldn't get into Stuyvesant and had to move to NJ

I would not send my child to Stuy even if guaranteed into the college of their choice. what a miserable four years of HS. Go to Bronx Sci and at least have a little bit of a slightly normal HS experience (though still not a ton). Stuy personifies the term "striver." Before people jump down my throat, there are obviously plenty of exceptions to this rule - there are nice, relatively normal kids there but they are the exception, not the rule.

And to the earlier poster, NJ publics do fine. They are not what they were 25 years ago but they still send kids to plenty of great schools. And kids get a relatively normal suburban childhood.

It is possible to have a bright kid go to great schools and actually enjoy a normal HS experience. Unfortunately, too many people don't get that and are too busy memorizing exissions stats and gaming the system. Many top schools can see right through that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn't sleep last night and was watching 2025 "watch me as I open my acceptances" videos on youtube.
Many kids getting in to a half dozen top20 schools with a 3.9/1400/33/10 APs from schools in underrepresented states. I'm not even talking about Mississippi but places like Oregon, Arizona, etc.
It's the same on Reddit. Kids have these INSANE results (like they're choosing between Princeton, Duke and Penn) and then you read their stats and they have a 33 and no AP exams (despite taking 10 AP classes) and they're ASIAN or white as can be.
It's freaking night and day.

a friend of mine who has worked in admissions for 20 years at a couple T5 schools says this area is like North Shore of Chicago. It's a full tier down from NYC, suburban NYC, NJ, Palo Alto, some LA, and Boston. IOW we're not very special. And this area isn't even uniquely competitive.

I think we suffer from kinda boring kids with good teeth. Well off, hard working, great stats, kinda diverse in the same ways and .. pretty cookie cutter. It's tough for this one little moment in an otherwise super nice life. Our kids have had a more plush childhood that the Queen of England did. And if this little chapter is tricky -- oh no, they might have to go to Emory! -- really, we should thank our lucky stars

So interesting. I am from NYC and the worst college outcomes I see come from NJ public schools. These families pay high taxes for absolutely nothing. Be grateful you didn’t screw your kids by moving there.

What does this mean? They live in NJ because they work nearby. Where you do suggest they live? NYC and their kids goto Stuyvesant?

DP.

If they can't get into Stuyvesant, are they even college material?

what a silly comment, it's not like all these kids going to hs in NJ first lived in NYC and couldn't get into Stuyvesant and had to move to NJ

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my unhooked kids did great coming out of a top private hs in nyc. if you were in the top half of the class (which wasn't easy), schools like BC or Middlebury and Hamilton and GW were safeties. All gravy from there.

The process was only really hard for parents who wouldnt be happy with that.

No one seriously thinks those schools are safeties! Come on, PP.

They are for the top kids at an elite NYC school. At the best privates in New York, 40% go to Ivies + Stanford and MIT every year. UVA, Michigan, Georgetown are safeties at these schools for the top half of the class.

Which NYC private send 40% to ivy+ every year?

Trinity doesn't, Dalton doesn't, Horace Mann doesn't.

Collegiate might but their graduating class is like 50 students.

Maybe if you added SLAC but even then, I doubt it.

NYC boy parent so don't quote me on this as I don't know a ton about girls schools, but I have heard that Nightingale has been really strong lately.

Horace Mann sent a small heard to Chicago a year or two ago. Not Ivy+ but still impressive. I was amazed Chicago would take so many kids from one school.

Though one could argue if you took the alma maters of the parents at these schools, the students are actually almost underperforming - i'm guessing 40+% of parents at many of these schools went to Ivy+. Many kids are ending up at great schools but worse than where their parents went.