Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AFAIK, everyone who took ISEE in DC’s (public school) grade got 7s, 8s, 9s. I don’t think that’s the differentiator here.

It's not a differentiator but it is a floor - lots of kids with 1500+ SATs don't get into Harvard, but you're generally not going to get into Harvard without them.

So I don't think "any TT options would be closed to your family" is inaccurate, it's just that you shouldn't go off thinking that your kid is a surefire admit with all 8's and 9's - if their ISEEs are above whatever level the school considers an acceptable baseline then they'll look at the file in more detail for other, more interesting indicators of whether they'd be a good fit.

Not disagreeing with anything here. I was replying to a post that talked about being lucky or not lucky enough to have kids who do well on these tests -- all I am saying is that that baseline is not difficult to achieve by any reasonably intelligent kid at a decent school with some preparation. The other components may be more of a reach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

no one cares about your politics. And don’t bring up politics, say some silly nonsense, then tell other people to move on. Ya weirdo. You opened the door.

On a broader point: if you have a kid fortunate enough to get into st. ann’s (i didn’t go there, kiddos don’t go there, only know a couple of people (who are v successful) who did), then go ahead and make a judgment. I get the sense that this gabroni has zero affiliation with the school aside from reading stories on the internet about it. Also, wtf does going outside of nyc have to do with going to school in nyc? So silly…

Anonymous wrote:AFAIK, everyone who took ISEE in DC’s (public school) grade got 7s, 8s, 9s. I don’t think that’s the differentiator here.

It's not a differentiator but it is a floor - lots of kids with 1500+ SATs don't get into Harvard, but you're generally not going to get into Harvard without them.

So I don't think "any TT options would be closed to your family" is inaccurate, it's just that you shouldn't go off thinking that your kid is a surefire admit with all 8's and 9's - if their ISEEs are above whatever level the school considers an acceptable baseline then they'll look at the file in more detail for other, more interesting indicators of whether they'd be a good fit.

Anonymous wrote:I agree that ISEE is pretty over-rated. Lots of kids get high scores. And I know kids who didn't do particularly well, had good but not stellar grades and were largely unconnected who got into very good schools.

They did not get into any of the top ten.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My kids were at avenues from kindergarten to 5th grade then I transferred them to top tier schools (Horace Mann and Chapin). However, we were lucky enough to have kids that test well on the ISEE, if your children don’t get 7,8,9 on that test, any TT options would be closed to your family.

AFAIK, everyone who took ISEE in DC’s (public school) grade got 7s, 8s, 9s. I don’t think that’s the differentiator here.

Not from my personal experience.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone thinking about the suburbs?

As someone who did this and recently moved back to the city: don't, at least not for elementary.

A good suburban elementary school is in no way an upgrade academics-wise over a good city one, particularly with the class size law making city schools competitive on that count - if you don't believe me, go to https://data.nysed.gov and compare the report cards for a Westchester suburb you like with those from a top zoned elementary like say PS267. And in terms of culture and diversity and generally having a rich full life there's just no comparison. The coolest, most interesting kids we met in the suburbs were the ones who had stayed in the city until late elementary or middle school.

Some random school problems we had to deal with in the suburbs:
- Outdated curricula and a stubborn insistence on sticking with them; they were hell-bent on Calkins right up until the state made them stop and they weren't even doing a very good job applying Calkins (kids were being strictly limited in what books they were allowed to read based on a 1-minute reading-out-loud assessment)
- Extremely hit-or-miss teachers, a problem exacerbated by real estate - no young teacher could afford to live near us so they were all commuting an hour every morning - and seniority; a bunch of crappy teachers were un-fireable due to both their length of service and the fact that they had too many fans in the older generation of town residents from when they were better teachers; they also kept shedding good teachers who got frustrated with them, particularly in hard-to-replace specialties like foreign languages and strings
- Refusal to invest in building maintenance, so we kept losing school days due to flooding or lighting strikes; we lost both the use of the library for half a year and many of the books in that library in a bad thunderstorm
- Town board of finance constantly making random last-minute cuts to the school budget, so programs would start up one year and vanish another because they were moving things around to try to fix them, and they'd be randomly stingy - math team switches from grades 3-5 to 4-5 because they didn't want to pay the extra few hundred bucks for some slightly different league for the 3rd graders, teachers don't have extra copies of worksheets because they only have precisely this many and aren't supposed to copy them, Box-Factory-esque field trips, etc.
- Faculty members publicly beefing with the superintendent; we had a middle school history teacher who was for whatever reason fanatically opposed to the idea of instructional coaching, swayed enough of the board of finance to his point of view that they tried to get the board of education to cut it, and when they refused, included the cost of coaching in one of those aforementioned last-minute cuts. (he also ended up getting his wife onto the board of education, who doesn't seem to have done much except make various futile attempts to cut the coaching budget and then quit in frustration after 2 years)
- Various school functions outsourced to nepotistic SAHMs; for example, there was no official elementary/middle school theater program but there was a separate nonprofit that used school facilities to put on shows and showed consistent favoritism in casting towards the children of board members.
- Obsession with tutoring even for kids who didn't need it (as discussed here elsewhere recently), which meant lots of pressure on the kids who didn't use tutors because everybody was always bragging on being 2 points higher than everyone else on MAP tests.
- Many of the worst aspects of private school culture, like ultra-rich popular kids all hanging out in the same ski/beach towns together - my daughter discovered she had been shunned by that group when she arrived at sleepaway camp and found out that the two 'popular' friends who had persuaded her to go to that camp had changed their cabin requests to exclude her.
- Lots of little racist incidents - Swastikas in bathrooms, 'build the wall' chants at sporting events against more diverse towns back in Trump 1, people making absolutely unhinged posts (publicly, under their own names) whenever the idea of building more diverse housing stock to attract a wider variety of residents came up...

Granted a lot of these are also problems in the city - including random budget cuts a few years ago (thanks Eric Adams) and of course lots of uptown PTA nonsense - but not this many, and not all at once, and in the city they're to some extent easier to escape because you're not trapped in a small town with a bunch of crazy people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

+100000000

I agree that ISEE is pretty over-rated. Lots of kids get high scores. And I know kids who didn't do particularly well, had good but not stellar grades and were largely unconnected who got into very good schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My kids were at avenues from kindergarten to 5th grade then I transferred them to top tier schools (Horace Mann and Chapin). However, we were lucky enough to have kids that test well on the ISEE, if your children don’t get 7,8,9 on that test, any TT options would be closed to your family.

AFAIK, everyone who took ISEE in DC’s (public school) grade got 7s, 8s, 9s. I don’t think that’s the differentiator here.

Anyone thinking about the suburbs?

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My kids were at avenues from kindergarten to 5th grade then I transferred them to top tier schools (Horace Mann and Chapin). However, we were lucky enough to have kids that test well on the ISEE, if your children don’t get 7,8,9 on that test, any TT options would be closed to your family. I’d do Avenues as it’s a solid 2nd Tier. However, if you love a progressive philosophy, St. Ann’s is considered 1st Tier!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

You’re not digressing; you’re continuing to be an a-hole (that’s an awful name that actually appears to fit you; happy with that one?). And I said you’re using “woke” in the maga way (which is accurate), not that you’re maga. Though you do seem to share a lot in common with them in that you both act like jerks. I’m done with you now, carry on.

You're kind of proving my point about St. Ann's people. Unwilling to compromise. Unable to take criticism. Think they know all. So insufferable. Not everyone there is like that - I'm not dumb enough to paint with that broad of a brush, unlike so many others here. But it is a prevalent attitude there. Read the articles about the scandal - part of the cause was they were going overboard.

Lots of other great schools in the city that will better prepare your kid for the real world. And trust me, most of them are based on fundamental Democrat values. Your kid will be fine.

Let's move on. Good luck to everyone awaiting decisions and/or making decisions! I know it is a stressful time. Lots of great options out there.

You really have to read the articles about the scandal if you are considering the school. There were so many points of failure and seemingly no accountability after the offender was removed.

Agreed. It really personified all of the negative stereotypes about the school and showed a real lack of leadership, accountability and perspective. Not where I want my kid when there are plenty of other options.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

You’re not digressing; you’re continuing to be an a-hole (that’s an awful name that actually appears to fit you; happy with that one?). And I said you’re using “woke” in the maga way (which is accurate), not that you’re maga. Though you do seem to share a lot in common with them in that you both act like jerks. I’m done with you now, carry on.

You're kind of proving my point about St. Ann's people. Unwilling to compromise. Unable to take criticism. Think they know all. So insufferable. Not everyone there is like that - I'm not dumb enough to paint with that broad of a brush, unlike so many others here. But it is a prevalent attitude there. Read the articles about the scandal - part of the cause was they were going overboard.

Lots of other great schools in the city that will better prepare your kid for the real world. And trust me, most of them are based on fundamental Democrat values. Your kid will be fine.

Let's move on. Good luck to everyone awaiting decisions and/or making decisions! I know it is a stressful time. Lots of great options out there.

You really have to read the articles about the scandal if you are considering the school. There were so many points of failure and seemingly no accountability after the offender was removed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

You’re not digressing; you’re continuing to be an a-hole (that’s an awful name that actually appears to fit you; happy with that one?). And I said you’re using “woke” in the maga way (which is accurate), not that you’re maga. Though you do seem to share a lot in common with them in that you both act like jerks. I’m done with you now, carry on.

You're kind of proving my point about St. Ann's people. Unwilling to compromise. Unable to take criticism. Think they know all. So insufferable. Not everyone there is like that - I'm not dumb enough to paint with that broad of a brush, unlike so many others here. But it is a prevalent attitude there. Read the articles about the scandal - part of the cause was they were going overboard.

Lots of other great schools in the city that will better prepare your kid for the real world. And trust me, most of them are based on fundamental Democrat values. Your kid will be fine.

Let's move on. Good luck to everyone awaiting decisions and/or making decisions! I know it is a stressful time. Lots of great options out there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Perhaps they had other options. I would do a decent public over those. Plenty of time to move to a good zone.

Saint Ann's is one of the best schools in NYC. Also interested in how you know anything about two different schools in different neighborhoods are when you clearly didn't send your kids there.

I know people at both schools. Knowing about both of these schools is far from a stretch - anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about NYC private schools knows well about both of them.

St. Ann's is wackadoodle progressive (and I say this as a liberal Democrat). Like virtue signaling wokeness progressive. Plus have you read at all about the scandal there? No thanks. They do have pretty great exmissions - I will admit that. But I would not want to mix with that insufferable crowd. Go to Packer if you want to be in Brooklyn.

Avenues is less bad but not my cup of tea. They try way too hard.

Here we go with "woke" again. Anyone who uses that word in the MAGA pejorative way immediately loses all credibility.

As a moderate Democrat, it is the virtue signalling woke folks like at St. Ann's who drive me nuts as they provide fodder to Fox News to empower the idiot MAGA people. And then you start calling people like me who are actually a lot closer politically to you than the vast majority of America by awful names, including MAGA and Republican. Go spend some time beyond a 20 mile radius of NYC and see how the real world lives. Then start to pick your spots. I'm not saying give in to Trump and his buffoons. But be smarter about the causes you are fighting for.

But I digress.

You’re not digressing; you’re continuing to be an a-hole (that’s an awful name that actually appears to fit you; happy with that one?). And I said you’re using “woke” in the maga way (which is accurate), not that you’re maga. Though you do seem to share a lot in common with them in that you both act like jerks. I’m done with you now, carry on.