Anonymous wrote:Between Saint Ann's and Avenues for Kindergarten, which would you choose and why?

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Anonymous wrote:Random question: I'm a lapsed Catholic - baptized and confirmed and even served as an altar boy - and never had my son baptized, but am acquainted enough with the church to be able to navigate that process. He's in 4th grade and if his grades and test scores hold he's probably Regis material.

Would it be totally ridiculous to try to get him baptized so he could apply to Regis? Would his experience there be over-the-top religious enough that it wouldn't be worth it?

You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

1. I didn't think that counted, though I definitely could be wrong (I'm Jewish so not totally on my radar)
2. People wonder where the stereotypes about Asian Tiger parents come from. OMG.

Asian Tiger parent here, converting to a religion doesn't scratch the surface of what we're willing to do to ensure our kids succeed.

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Anonymous wrote:Random question: I'm a lapsed Catholic - baptized and confirmed and even served as an altar boy - and never had my son baptized, but am acquainted enough with the church to be able to navigate that process. He's in 4th grade and if his grades and test scores hold he's probably Regis material.

Would it be totally ridiculous to try to get him baptized so he could apply to Regis? Would his experience there be over-the-top religious enough that it wouldn't be worth it?

You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

1. I didn't think that counted, though I definitely could be wrong (I'm Jewish so not totally on my radar)
2. People wonder where the stereotypes about Asian Tiger parents come from. OMG.

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Anonymous wrote:Between Saint Ann's and Avenues for Kindergarten, which would you choose and why?

Neither. Do you have another option? Two very different places. All things being equal, if you are in Brooklyn, St. Ann's. If in Manhattan, Avenues. Both are kind of cultish in very different ways.

"Neither" - what an unhelpful response.

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Anonymous wrote:Between Saint Ann's and Avenues for Kindergarten, which would you choose and why?

Neither. Do you have another option? Two very different places. All things being equal, if you are in Brooklyn, St. Ann's. If in Manhattan, Avenues. Both are kind of cultish in very different ways.

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Anonymous wrote:You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

The joke’s on them, if you send your non-religious kid to a Jesuit high school for 4 years there’s a pretty good chance that by the time they graduate they will no longer be faking it.

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Anonymous wrote:You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

The joke’s on them, if you send your non-religious kid to a Jesuit high school for 4 years there’s a pretty good chance that by the time they graduate they will no longer be faking it.

Anonymous wrote:You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

Anonymous wrote:Between Saint Ann's and Avenues for Kindergarten, which would you choose and why?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Random question: I'm a lapsed Catholic - baptized and confirmed and even served as an altar boy - and never had my son baptized, but am acquainted enough with the church to be able to navigate that process. He's in 4th grade and if his grades and test scores hold he's probably Regis material.

Would it be totally ridiculous to try to get him baptized so he could apply to Regis? Would his experience there be over-the-top religious enough that it wouldn't be worth it?

You’re fine, at least you’re actually Catholic. Many Asian families who are not even Christians get their kids baptized in Middle schools so they could apply to Regis.

Anonymous wrote:Random question: I'm a lapsed Catholic - baptized and confirmed and even served as an altar boy - and never had my son baptized, but am acquainted enough with the church to be able to navigate that process. He's in 4th grade and if his grades and test scores hold he's probably Regis material.

Would it be totally ridiculous to try to get him baptized so he could apply to Regis? Would his experience there be over-the-top religious enough that it wouldn't be worth it?

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Anonymous wrote:It appears that we may have the good fortune of receiving offers from Trinity and Dalton for kindergarten. Daughter is bright and loves school. Seems to have an emerging interest in STEM, but she is 4, who knows where she will go as she gets older. Logistically, both schools are convenient to us.

Would appreciate the group's opinions. The prior posts have been helpful to us - any fresh comments appreciated.

I’m actually a trinity grad with family currently at dalton. Recently had family make the choice between trinity and dalton. Chose Dalton in the end.

There’s a weird consensus among certain parents that Dalton STEM is slightly weaker than other TT’s, which I don’t agree with, but who knows?

I always think that if i could go back, I would have chosen dalton for myself, but that’s only because I tend to do better with less supervision and more academic freedom. Family there now is in Little Dalton and they absolutely adore it. I can give more specifics if you’re curious.

This is purely anecdotal, but I’ll say quickly that I wasn’t ‘happy’ at Trinity (i was a lifer), and i think that was true for a lot of us. But i wasn’t necessarily unhappy either. I did get a great education and went on to a good college, though, which was the point, i guess.

Really helpful, thanks so much! Any specifics you can share about their experience at Little Dalton would be much appreciated.

Sure!

So there were many reasons why dalton was ultimately chosen and why it’s so beloved now. I’ll list a few good and a couple bad.

First is one small deciding factor: the amount of care dalton put in once they were admitted. The acceptance letter they wrote was truly wonderful, which is a small, but pretty telling, expression of the care they put into choosing the kindergarten class. It was more than a page long and included remarkable insights into our kiddo. TBH, we sort of expected to get into trinity due to multi-generational legacy, etc., but they displayed no enthusiasm or genuine interest, which is fine. Again, when you’re applying, the schools keep a safe distance from parents. Once you’re admitted, though, dalton instantly made an effort to create a sense of community which trinity neglected. Is this the most important thing? Of course not. But it does make a bit of difference when you’re trying to decide between schools like these.

Second, when we did the visit, we loved Little Dalton’s physical space. It’s a special place. Lots of nooks and crannies, hidden hallways, a surprisingly large gym, tons of classrooms, and a sense of joyous, albeit organized, chaos in which a kid can thrive. It feels fun! Big Dalton also holds regular events for Little Dalton, which are lovely, and the older students host the younger ones - not entirely uncommon at other schools, but we like what dalton does, international day, etc. We love house system, too.

Third, their learning philosophy and the structure of their courses is more conducive to learning for youth imo. The fluidity between classes helps: ours is an advanced reader; they got to move up groups in order to stay challenged beginning in K, and the staff were wonderful in encouraging them to progress with their weekly library book all through k. The teachers are absolutely exceptional; ours still exchanges letters to his K teacher, and it’s such a nice little thing.

Fourth, the community is pretty wonderful. Parents are as involved as they want to be: there’s no pressure to be a joiner, but there certainly are more and less involved people. More than that, though, we’ve noticed that there’s an extreme lack of snootiness despite the caliber of some of the parents we’ve met. Most everyone, with a couple of notable exceptions, have been lovely, as are the kids. At Trinity, this has not always been the case, and this dates back to my dad’s days there.

Fifth, fin aid is generous, all things considered. We’re full-pay, but for tons of students and families we’re close with now, dalton has been exceedingly good at ensuring that admitted kids could attend regardless of need. One of the things we loved most about it was how they made it seem that if your child was admitted, it was for a good reason and they truly want you to be able to go.

There are downsides to dalton. For example, afterschool activities fill up FAST. The signup goes up, and the spots for certain classes go in, like, two minutes. It took us 2x to get STEAM and chess (dalton chess is extremely competitive though), and 3x to get tennis. Again, at dalton as anywhere, rich kids will have an advantage in certain things. But we do believe that Dalton puts in sincere effort to make things as fair as possible.

Most importantly, the kiddo loves it there. Still hates getting going in the morning, but by the time they get to school, they’re off to the races, and when they come home, they’re full of stories about things they’ve learned, etc. There’s a lot more, but that’s enough for now. We just love dalton. Like I said above, it’ll be great for some people, not so great for others, but for us, it’s a perfect fit. And I won’t taint your judgment with my memories as a trinity survivor, but there were lots of lows and a few highs…

Could you say more about what it was like as a Trinity survivor? The lower school seems so happy

The lower school is totally fine. I have very happy memories through fifth grade or so. Around seventh grade, the pressure starts to pick up. Then it becomes unrelenting. It gets truly bad, and the competition is so extreme.

I want to mention something quickly: everyone seems to think that purely rich kids get into ivies, that they’re unqualified and that they inflate the number of acceptances to ivy+ schools. 1) That’s not (entirely) true. Occasionally it is - i have some excellent examples from families you’ve definitely heard. But so many of the VERY rich kids/nepobabies did extraordinarily well in school and deserved to get into the schools they did. 2) In my year, around 40% went ivy+. The vast majority of us did not have our names on campus buildings or the NYPL or have parents on the nightly news, etc.

I’m pretty definitively not a genius, so I had to work nonstop from age 13-graduation to ensure that I’d get into a good college. The stress at times could be overwhelming, and there were moments of pretty profound darkness and failure. It didn’t help that my sibling, who very much is a genius, breezed through school like it was a sunday brunch. But, as so many survivors point out, it did make college much, much more tolerable, and I don’t think I could’ve gotten into the colleges i did had i gone somewhere else.

For me, I’m pretty social, so that aspect of the school was never a problem. But there are definitely people who thrive in trinity’s social environment. Others sink. Deep. There are definitely issues with bullying along class (sometimes racial) lines, which i was lucky to avoid, and there are the usual high school things like hotness rankings and some grosser stuff which i won’t go into here. Class and social cache were quite important to life at trinity though. I’m not sure how I avoided the worst of it.

There’s also a trinity bubble. You can literally go your whole school life socializing only with trinity kids, and that can leave you with a pretty warped sense of reality. I certainly suffered it a bit I’m afraid to say. But I was also so busy that my social life mostly consisted of doing things related to EC interests or schoolwork.

There are definitely good things though. I’m still friends with a ton of my fellow survivors - they’re my best and truest friends, actually. I wound up at an HYP, and after that I went to a good grad school. A lot of my current success I have to say I can attribute to some of the ethic Trinity dragged out of me, and I’ve benefited from the networks all the schools afforded me. Still, if i could do it all over again, i think i would have gone to dalton. I actually talked to my mom (a spence grad) about it recently and she agreed. My dad went to trinity, but transferred to exeter b/c he stopped enjoying it and I think he would have loved if I’d gone there.

Oh, well… next life.

Do you think things have changed at Trinity since you were there? Lower School and early years of Middle School seem quite slow though the environment is certainly very warm and welcoming for students. Have heard that the ramp up to High School is intense and new admits in 9th grade for High School overwhelmingly dominate academically. Did the surveyors who weren't from donor families, URM or recruited athletes in your class do well with college admissions? I imagine the admit rate for that cohort would be well below the 40% that's often ascribed to the overall class.

Honestly, no. I want to be careful with how I phrase things. I don’t want to discourage anyone from attending, because certain people do thrive there, although i don’t think anyone actually loves trinity. I saw another parent talking about their child entering the upper school and that they’ve had a largely positive experience with the school so far, and that’s great. But being a parent is enormously different than being a student, obviously, and the student experience is extraordinarily intense.

It’s not solely because of the academics - the trinity parent said they’re manageable, and they’re exactly right: they’re just barely manageable. But so many students are miserable trying to manage their academics and extracurriculars. It’s constant stress, and teachers, while top rate, have incredibly high expectations and aren’t the most welcoming. They’re actually strangely cliquish and have clear favorites. All of this is fine: i actually benefited from this and in some sick way, I enjoyed the stress of the academics and always being busy. But most of my friends were capital U unhappy. So was i. At certain points, I probably edged on full-blown depression. I just eked my way through. And the emphasis and pressure to make it look easy is just as important. I stopped going to ad hocs for help at the beginning of sophomore year cause i didn’t want to make it look like i needed help.

You’ll say, as a parent and a fully-matured adult, that this was a stupid thing to do. It was my fault to inflict harm on myself this way. You’re right. It was, and it made my life harder. But I was 15, and the environment made me feel and my friends feel like this was something you needed to do for respect.

I’m not going to get into the social aspects of it. Not gonna talk about the swamp, the partying, homecoming, etc. A lot of it is just par for the course in high school. But there is ABSOLUTELY a social hierarchy at trinity, and even though i graduated more than a decade ago, i still believe it exists. I don’t think trinity cares about changing these things as long as they continue to have the results they have. I also think that, since trinity has such a collection of fabulously wealthy and famous families, everything heightened. You feel the social pressure much more acutely than you would at another school. But again, it just comes with the territory of going to a school like trinity. My best friend left sophomore year to go to choate, which she LOVED fwiw, and there was a hierarchy there, too, however it was far less pronounced, according to her.

My point is the experience of a student and parent are vastly different, and the differences between lower, middle, and upper school are drastic and pronounced. Trinity can actually do damage to you if you let it. But if you manage to make it through, the results can be worth it. Like i said before, I got into an HYP (the same as my sibling), went to a good grad school afterward, and have had a successful career so far. Could i have done that without having a kind of shitty high school experience? I don’t know. But I will say that, deep, deep down, I’d be very concerned with sending my kid to trinity for high school.

What is the social hierarchy at Trinity? How would a normal NYC rich but nothing mind blowing family fit in?

I’ve been writing really long posts, so I’ll keep this one short. The social hierarchy at trinity is exactly what you’d expect with a few small quirks which may be a bit unique to it. It would take a full academic study to explain what i mean.

When you ask how a normal nyc rich family would fit in, are you asking about parents or students? I’m not a trinity parent (Go Ivan!), but my parents had some friends. They weren’t really joiners, though. For students, I think i have an interesting perspective on this. When my sibling and i started at trinity, we were comfortably upper middle class. By the time we got to high school, we’d become probably middle of the upper echelon of trinity rich. The truth is wealth does play a role in trinity student life. It’s omnipresent. It’s easier to fit in and be accepted if you come from a wealthy family. It also helps if you’re a guy.

I’m going to contradict myself quickly here: all of this is only true to an extent. All of this is generalized and based on my own observations, experiences and conversations i’ve had with friends over the years - maybe it’s a sign of the “trauma” we experienced, but survivors often speak of surviving trinity when we get together. Trinity will be great for certain kids from a variety of different backgrounds. It’s a hard school which will provide you with an excellent education. The students are smart, the teachers challenge you, and, like i’ve said elsewhere, if you do well, you’ll be able to write your own acceptance letter. But that’s hard to do. And where trinity has a glut (smart, ambitious kids and resources for them to pursue their interests, whatever they may be), they have a severe dearth of care and compassion or any concern about a holistic education. And that is totally fine for some people.

I, along with I'm sure many others, am very appreciative of the long posts that you so generously take the time to write. As you've pointed out, the experience that parents have of the school is so much different than those of the students and, similarly, of alumni like yourself who have gone through it and have had time to look back and reflect. My impression of the TTs and especially of Trinity is that they are very 'pre-corporate'. Just like STEM kids go to Stuy or Bronx Science to become engineers, the TTs' focus on humanities academically and the social environment seems almost like training, whether intentionally or not, for how to navigate the very specific context of the NY corporate world which can have sharp elbows. Don't know if this impression fits at all with your experience.

There are plenty of future PE-ers/ib-ers/management consultants/future execs at all the TT’s in part because it’s kind of the path of least resistance to a comfortable lifestyle and it’s readily available to many of us. But TBF, STEM at TT’s is very good, and the resources alone can set them apart from some of the publics.

It has all the requisite facilities and a ton of classes to choose from. for the truly advanced students, you have the opportunity to design your own credit. IIRC, you’re only required to do 2 years of lab science, but everyone does all four years pretty much, even people geared to arts. Then, if you’re a truly gifted student, you can do IGS’s, which a handful of people did. Particularly in sciences and even more so in CS/tech-related areas. I can’t remember what the course is actually called though. But the trinity network really helps here: you have access to some ridiculous opportunities if you’re a good student that other schools can’t really match. One of the benefits of private vs. public education.

The other thing is i wouldn’t even say the majority of my class went corporate. Many of us did - and truth be told, they were generally white guys from rich families - but more of us found our way into other areas. I have friends who own restaurants, some are writers and journalists, some became founders or engineers, some are professionals, like doctors and lawyers, some are actors/performers, some are prominent academics, others are successful artists, etc. Up until recently (why i have the time to write so much here) I worked in a creative/development role in entertainment. Obviously this is class-dependent, but my class did all kinds of things. That’s one of the things I do like about trinity, and which I’m sure is true at many of the other privates: the diversity of interests and talents can translate into a diverse group of interesting adults later in life.

I will say that we probably have fewer kids going into the arts these days, but i think that’s a function of changing social dynamics rather than the school’s influence on what its graduates should be doing. Like i’ve said elsewhere, the institution never changes so much even when the student body does. If you look at the graduating classes of most of the top schools over the past ten or so years, you’ll see the same pattern: there’s like 15 companies that hire kids from the ivy+ and pay a high enough salary to lead a decent lifestyle (exaggeration, sort of…), and I think students are sharp enough to recognize it. They mitigate risk by trying to meet the standards to get roles in those industries, often at the expense of some of their other talents, which is too bad. But no, i don’t really see trinity as a corporate breeding ground. I think in some ways, if you use it properly, trinity can be what you want it to be. But that’s quite a difficult task.

The other Trinity grad chiming in here: I’ve long said that the most impressive alum is Ian Maxtone-Graham who is one of the original writers of the Simpons. To me, that takes true intelligence and creativity. Going to work at Goldman, where you got a leg up from connections, doesn’t impress me.