Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

aren’t decisions for these schools tomorrow? Did you first choice dalton? And curious why dalton over trinity?
Congratulations!

My sibling and I went to trinity, and, even though we both received great educations and ended up at top colleges, we didn’t like being there. Sometimes we truly dreaded it.

yes, sibling at dalton, so I’ll talk about why we chose it the first go round - our elder was admitted to trinity, as well.

We have family spread out among NY privates, and we talked with them, then to my parents (my mom is a spence grad and my dad went to fieldston). My parents chose trinity for the usual reasons, although one was actually proximity. They’ve said that in hindsight, they’re a bit conflicted about sending us to trinity when we probably could have been happier somewhere else. So, after a lot of consideration, we agreed that dalton at least appears to nurture and guide intelligent, curious children in the areas they truly feel passionate about rather than grind out the extremely ambitious. This isn’t applicable across the board - trinity was and is a wonderful school filled with passionate kids who will thrive in that environment. It’s just our personal experience navigating our education there was frustrating and frequently overwhelming. It did make college transition a breeze though.

Also, it simply came down to feel. Little Dalton has such a warm and inviting environment. The teachers were generous and enthusiastic. The high schoolers we spoke with were poised, confident, and knowledgeable, but they had some x factor which we didn’t notice so much with other schools. They just seemed to genuinely love Dalton and, more importantly, appeared to care more about learning for the sake of learning rather than matriculation. For us, that is the single most important thing. This was my failing, but I wish I’d done that during my high school years rather than gaming out the best way to gain admittance to a good college. Dalton seems to get those results with much less of the cynicism I experienced at Trinity. Again, to what degree this is true, I don’t know. Obviously, every school puts on a show. But so far, that’s what dalton’s delivered.

This is a very minor thing, but the note Dalton sent us offering a place… it nearly made me cry. The amount of detail and care they put into such a personal note may not be indicative of anything more than upping yield numbers, but their observations about our children were absolutely remarkable. If you’d like, I can post a redacted version of it here.

So, it’s Dalton. Of course, there’s that lingering bit of concern over whether it’s the right choice, but in this position you can’t really go wrong.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

aren’t decisions for these schools tomorrow? Did you first choice dalton? And curious why dalton over trinity?
Congratulations!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

aren’t decisions for these schools tomorrow? Did you first choice dalton? And curious why dalton over trinity?
Congratulations!

probably a sibling? Dalton has to follow ISAAGNY dates.

Dalton due to family, yes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC got accepted at collegiate

Congrats!! This is one of my top choices for DS next year. Would you mind sharing anything that you think helped or set him/your family apart?

Curious about this too. Anything you could share much appreciated.

Parent statement is 5000 characters so you can actually write a thoughtful statement. Some schools wanted less than half that in length which made it more challenging.

They allow you to submit a child's work sample too which also allowed for some additional flavorful storytelling.

In the end -- there's no surefire way if you're not sibling/legacy (which generally fills up 50%+ of these classes at most schools is my understanding). I'm sure these schools have way more interested families than they can accept so part of it is down to having your child have a good playdate (bright, curious, etc.) and coming across as interested and devoted parents who will be good partners along the way (no administration wants drama and misaligned expectations). The admissions team no doubt tries to assemble a class with varied characteristics so that adds a lot of unknowns as well.

But this can all be applied towards almost any of the private schools that continue to see lots of enrollment interest post-pandemic. I encourage you to visit and decide it's actually the right choice for you -- the school (like any other) wants to see genuine enthusiasm in the parents who choose to enroll their kids there as it's ideally a 13-year journey partnering with a school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

aren’t decisions for these schools tomorrow? Did you first choice dalton? And curious why dalton over trinity?
Congratulations!

probably a sibling? Dalton has to follow ISAAGNY dates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC got accepted at collegiate

Congrats!! This is one of my top choices for DS next year. Would you mind sharing anything that you think helped or set him/your family apart?

Curious about this too. Anything you could share much appreciated.

Parent statement is 5000 characters so you can actually write a thoughtful statement. Some schools wanted less than half that in length which made it more challenging.

They allow you to submit a child's work sample too which also allowed for some additional flavorful storytelling.

In the end -- there's no surefire way if you're not sibling/legacy (which generally fills up 50%+ of these classes at most schools is my understanding). I'm sure these schools have way more interested families than they can accept so part of it is down to having your child have a good playdate (bright, curious, etc.) and coming across as interested and devoted parents who will be good partners along the way (no administration wants drama and misaligned expectations). The admissions team no doubt tries to assemble a class with varied characteristics so that adds a lot of unknowns as well.

But this can all be applied towards almost any of the private schools that continue to see lots of enrollment interest post-pandemic. I encourage you to visit and decide it's actually the right choice for you -- the school (like any other) wants to see genuine enthusiasm in the parents who choose to enroll their kids there as it's ideally a 13-year journey partnering with a school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

aren’t decisions for these schools tomorrow? Did you first choice dalton? And curious why dalton over trinity?
Congratulations!

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC got accepted at collegiate

Congrats!! This is one of my top choices for DS next year. Would you mind sharing anything that you think helped or set him/your family apart?

Curious about this too. Anything you could share much appreciated.

Parent statement is 5000 characters so you can actually write a thoughtful statement. Some schools wanted less than half that in length which made it more challenging.

They allow you to submit a child's work sample too which also allowed for some additional flavorful storytelling.

In the end -- there's no surefire way if you're not sibling/legacy (which generally fills up 50%+ of these classes at most schools is my understanding). I'm sure these schools have way more interested families than they can accept so part of it is down to having your child have a good playdate (bright, curious, etc.) and coming across as interested and devoted parents who will be good partners along the way (no administration wants drama and misaligned expectations). The admissions team no doubt tries to assemble a class with varied characteristics so that adds a lot of unknowns as well.

But this can all be applied towards almost any of the private schools that continue to see lots of enrollment interest post-pandemic. I encourage you to visit and decide it's actually the right choice for you -- the school (like any other) wants to see genuine enthusiasm in the parents who choose to enroll their kids there as it's ideally a 13-year journey partnering with a school.

thank you! just curious, were you at a feeder preschool ?

No - DC did not go to a school that would be considered one. As a result we navigated process by ourselves - no help from a PSD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC got accepted at collegiate

Congrats!! This is one of my top choices for DS next year. Would you mind sharing anything that you think helped or set him/your family apart?

Curious about this too. Anything you could share much appreciated.

Parent statement is 5000 characters so you can actually write a thoughtful statement. Some schools wanted less than half that in length which made it more challenging.

They allow you to submit a child's work sample too which also allowed for some additional flavorful storytelling.

In the end -- there's no surefire way if you're not sibling/legacy (which generally fills up 50%+ of these classes at most schools is my understanding). I'm sure these schools have way more interested families than they can accept so part of it is down to having your child have a good playdate (bright, curious, etc.) and coming across as interested and devoted parents who will be good partners along the way (no administration wants drama and misaligned expectations). The admissions team no doubt tries to assemble a class with varied characteristics so that adds a lot of unknowns as well.

But this can all be applied towards almost any of the private schools that continue to see lots of enrollment interest post-pandemic. I encourage you to visit and decide it's actually the right choice for you -- the school (like any other) wants to see genuine enthusiasm in the parents who choose to enroll their kids there as it's ideally a 13-year journey partnering with a school.

thank you! just curious, were you at a feeder preschool ?

Anonymous wrote:Accepted to Dalton and Trinity (trinity legacy). Will be attending dalton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC got accepted at collegiate

Congrats!! This is one of my top choices for DS next year. Would you mind sharing anything that you think helped or set him/your family apart?

Curious about this too. Anything you could share much appreciated.

Parent statement is 5000 characters so you can actually write a thoughtful statement. Some schools wanted less than half that in length which made it more challenging.

They allow you to submit a child's work sample too which also allowed for some additional flavorful storytelling.

In the end -- there's no surefire way if you're not sibling/legacy (which generally fills up 50%+ of these classes at most schools is my understanding). I'm sure these schools have way more interested families than they can accept so part of it is down to having your child have a good playdate (bright, curious, etc.) and coming across as interested and devoted parents who will be good partners along the way (no administration wants drama and misaligned expectations). The admissions team no doubt tries to assemble a class with varied characteristics so that adds a lot of unknowns as well.

But this can all be applied towards almost any of the private schools that continue to see lots of enrollment interest post-pandemic. I encourage you to visit and decide it's actually the right choice for you -- the school (like any other) wants to see genuine enthusiasm in the parents who choose to enroll their kids there as it's ideally a 13-year journey partnering with a school.