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Two challenging dropoffs is probably not sustainable.
Consider option 3: moving to a neighborhood with a school that can serve both kids.
@GMTplus7 S1 and S2 are both at Success Academy, which is K-12, so I have option 3 now.
@bookmama22 Thanks - I extensively used insideschools when I was researching kindergarden for S2. (They had the most comprehensive analyses of the G&T test results which I used for modling S2’s chances at various programs.)
Success Academy will have four years worth of college placements when S2 is in 7th grade. I guess until then it will be hard to know how their excellent reputation on the NY state tests translates to true college preparadeness. A lot of people will be watching to see where those first few graduating classes place.
I would opt for moving to another country. I think that the opportunity to experience another culture is invaluable. 
Could you hire someone to do drop-off/ pick-up at at least one of the schools? That was the only solution that worked for me (only child but school in opposite direction from my office and challenging commute). I did this for 12 years.
I have raised kids both in NYC and suburb. Contrary to popular believe, I thought my life was easier in NYC. It was much easier for me to hire a babysitter in NYC than NJ because sitters in NYC didn’t have to know how to drive due to various public transportation options. Out in the suburb you would either have to have a live in or have them travel a very long distance to come to your house. In NYC you could have your kid start taking bus/train to school around 12 and go to their ECs by themselves, which you couldn’t do out in the suburb.
If you could afford private schools then you could afford sitter(s). You could hire 2 sitters in the short term to pick up your kids at different schools or you could have one take a school bus. D1 started to take a school bus when she was 5 and our sitter would pick her up at the bus stop.
Your issue is no different than what many parents face even without special needs student. I know plenty of parents who sent their kids to different schools due to their special talent, needs. Yes, it is more work, but no one said raising kids is easy. I know this will sound harsh, but I don’t think it is fair S2’s education should get compromised because of S1. My kids went a rigorous K-12 private school. Many students enter in middle school and high school, and it takes some time for those students to catch up.
NYC is crazy when it comes to education because it is so densely populated. It matters where you go to school down to nursery school. When each top tier colleges have around 1000 slots, they are not going give 100 slots to NYC (Dartmouth shows 20% from NE, 27% Mid Atlantic). When those adcoms could pick and choose from top privates and magnets there would be no need for them to go next level down. I think OP is correct to think where her S2 goes to K-12 may have impact on college application.
I would also like to add that you could hire an older student from the school to get one of your child home. In NYC there are a lot of college students who would love to get paid as a babysitter. D2 gets a lot of babysitting jobs whenever she is home from college. You wouldn’t have this kind of option if you lived outside of NYC.
It’s similar here, and we live in the burbs of Atlanta. For us we’re doing out of district for an IB accredited public school, but we had so many options that it was hard to know which one was right-the school we’re zoned for (which is excellent, but didn’t have what we were looking for in terms of IB and robotics), the charter schools, the online schools, and the private schools. If you buy a house in the wrong school district here in Georgia, your kids are looking at an abysmal education. And the wrong school district can be a few miles from the right school district-it’s fairly alarming trying to insulate your kid from bad schools here.
However, after reading this thread, it seems like NYC is much more extreme, and much more concentrated, and much more competition at the top tier of wealth. It would freak me out, and I don’t envy you trying to decide. I think the silver lining is that the school you picked certainly sounds like it’s going to be great, and you may have been an early adopter of a very terrific new school. There certainly seems to be some good comfort there, knowing both your kids are in a school that challenges and supports them.
Oh, I meant to add, the other thing about sports and your older son. There are some drawbacks to going to a school that is renowned for (fill in the blank here, sports, drama, robotics). You may think your kid is gifted in those areas, but if you go to a school with a super strong program where you think his strength lies, if it turns out he’s not as good as you (or his coach) thinks he is, he’s going to be warming the bench, painting scenery, or printing out robotics flyers instead of doing the good stuff.
If you go to a school with a solid, but more inclusive program, he’ll have a better shot at excelling at his level.
I live in NYC and, frankly, I think it was a LOT better place to raise my offspring that suburbia would have been. NYC’s system is complicated, I admit, but you also have far more options here than you do in most other places. Oldfort was very happy with her Ds’ school. I think it’s a horrible place. Conversely, oldfort has “dissed” my offspring’s school on CC saying she would never have sent her kids there. Two different people with very different kids and very different ideas of what education should be like. In NYC, we each were able to find a “match.”
I think the OP should sit back and wait until it’s time to think of middle school. Then she can investigate her S2’s options, apply, see where he gets in, and then determine whether any of those options are better for this particular child than Success Academy is. It’s just plain silly to worry about college admissions now.
That said, be careful comparing college admissions data among schools. NYC has a lot of URMs, legacies, faculty brats, developmental cases, celebrities, and recruited athletes in “prep” sports --squash, fencing, etc. So, looking at the number or kids who get into top colleges from any particular school can be misleading if you’re trying to predict admissions odds for a kid without any of those hooks.
Personally, though, if my H were a college prof, I’d be looking at colleges which offer a tuition benefit, including one for other colleges. I’d be urging him to get a job at one of them. Fac brats get a bigger boost in admission than any other category too.
I don’t know which school you kid went to in NYC. My older kid only went to one private in NYC until second grade. I don’t think I could give an opinion on how good it is for higher grades. The school was United Nation International School (UNIS). I don’t believe I have mentioned this on CC, so not sure why anyone would know what I thought of it. By the way, I thought it was a great school. If we’ve stayed in NYC, both of my kids would have attended the school. Both of my kids went to a private outside of NYC and we were very please with it. I think jonri probably got me confused with anther poster.
Some great feedback.
Is it true that even if S2 graduated in the top 3% (or even was among the top few kids or was even the top kid) of his class at Success Academy high school and performed well on (the competitive par of) AP tests (6? 10?) and had the requisite SAT or ACT scores that “the spots would be gone” before his application would be considered, so great is the power of Stuy/BkTech/Bronx Sci/Hunter + top privates and Catholic schools in NYC?
He is legacy at HYP. H is 100% Hispanic (I’m euro mutt).
If so then obviously we would need to move him for high school. And as a December-born (currently youngest in grade) kid, we would probably have him repeat a grade in private rather then be the youngest in a selective public.
Wow. I didn’t realize the feeder system was that airtight.
The “spots would be gone” where?
@oldfort put it as follows:
“When each top tier colleges have around 1000 slots, they are not going give 100 slots to NYC (Dartmouth shows 20% from NE, 27% Mid Atlantic). When those adcoms could pick and choose from top privates and magnets there would be no need for them to go next level down. I think OP is correct to think where her S2 goes to K-12 may have impact on college application.”
Success Academy has no “level” and it would be pretty astounding if it debuted at the same level as the top public high schools. (Not impossible because Eva Moskowitz is a school design prodigy).
My point is that if you’re thinking that only a certain, few colleges are acceptable for your son, yes, those “spots” might be gone. But there are thousands of good colleges and universities in the United States.
As someone who is an alum of one of the NYC Specialized HS who grew up in NYC in the tail end of NYC’s high-crime era in the '80s and extreme early '90s, I find this part a bit odd.
The vast majority of junior high/high school classmates weren’t dropped off or picked up by parents*. Most of us got ourselves to/from school…including taking the NYC subways/buses as necessary. The few HS classmates who were dropped off/picked up were perceived as being extremely sheltered by overprotective parents by most of us students and even some teachers when I attended HS in the early-mid-'90s. Especially if they were boys/young men.
And the NYC of my childhood/HS years was far more dangerous and crime ridden than it has been in the last decade.
Even many of the upper/upper-middle class families from expensive areas like the most exclusive areas of the UES who had children attending private and NYC Specialized HS like those of some HS classmates rarely dropped/picked up their kids from schools back then. By high school, the HS student was usually expected to be independent enough to do that themselves, even if it meant taking the NYC subway/buses in the NYC of the '80s and early '90s and before.
If monster academic workloads is a concern, the NYC Specialized HSs are no different and in some ways, arguably worse as the private schools tend to provide much more personalized academic handholding* and didn’t have nearly the same degree of what can be a sink-or-swim competitive academic atmosphere. Also, unless one has some interest in STEM it can be an issue as they are STEM-centered public magnets with the corresponding course requirements** even though they have strong humanities and social science departments as well.
When I was asked by an uncle about whether the NYC Specialized HSs would be right for his D, based on her prior academic background(Montessori), academic interests(overwhelmingly creative arts/humanities), and personality inclinations(hates being in an intensely competitive environment, we both concluded my HS and the other NYC Specialized HSs would be a poor fit for her and she ended up attending one of the NYC elite private schools like the three named above.
- Smaller class sizes and different academic/parental expectations/campus ethos.
** I.e. Taking 1 full year of drafting in sophomore year when I attended, technology/engineering related shop classes, at least 3 years of science with labs, at least 3 years of math regardless of level one started with***, etc.
*** If one started 9th grade having already completed AP calc BC or multivariate calculus, they’d still require at least 3 years of math either in HS or on a DE basis at a local 4-year college if the offerings in HS are exhausted on top of that. If the math offerings are exhausted as they were with some HS classmates, they’d be taking math courses usually taken by upperclass math majors or even graduate students in math which aren’t available in the local community colleges.
Just because one is the youngest or among the youngest in one’s grade doesn’t necessarily mean one needs to be held back. Also, having known several siblings of HS classmates and a few friends/relatives who taught at the elite NYC private HS like the 3 you’ve named, the difference in academics isn’t as dramatic to justify holding a “youngest in grade” student in a private while allowing him to continue in the same grade at a NYC Specialized HS/Hunter College High School(HCHS).
As a child who was one of the youngest in his grade in K-12, I would have strongly resented any parental attempts to hold me back on account of my age/late birthday. And it really depends on the individual student. Many fellow young for grade HS classmates had great college/post college outcomes* whereas some who were redshirted and thus…a year or more older than most of us struggled to graduate.
Incidentally, if you are interested in having your son try for HCHS and he is qualified by results from City-wide exams in 5th grade, they only accept applications from 6th graders for entry into 7th grade. If you miss that application window, HCHS will no longer be an option. Hopefully, things may have gotten better, but if it was like my family’s experience you may need to be proactive in ensuring you get your son registered for the HCHS exam if his city-wide exams in prior grades qualify him to take the exam as some elementary school admins may due to inexperience(my Catholic school) or deliberately discourage/sabotage a student’s efforts to try taking that exam due to a perverse incentive in “keeping their best students in school/district*”.
- One classmate turned 12 at the start of 9th grade and not only graduated in 4 years with my graduating class at 16, but did so within the top 10%.
** Going by my own experience though in my case, I qualified but word didn’t get back to my Catholic school principal and parent until the registration deadline to take the HCHS exam has passed.
*** Been hearing this is a common issue in many public and even some private schools…especially those heavily populated by low SES minorities. It’s also a factor for many prospective applicants to the NYC Specialized HSs which is a reason why many HS alums…especially URMs have been expanding their outreach efforts to encourage more kids from those areas to apply and provide free tutoring resources for those who need it.
@Oldfort, I don’t have you confused with anyone. I did think your older D had gone to UNIS longer than until second grade but I was aware…because you have posted it…that she went to UNIS and you thought it was a great school.
You did “diss” my offspring’s school on CC.
That’s fine, BTW…my point was simply that NYC has a LOT of options. I would not want my offspring to attend UNIS. You’d posted that you wouldn’t have wanted your Ds to attend the school my offspring attended. (I just did a search and confirmed that.)
Bottom line: NYC offers lots of different options.There are so many it can be hard to figure out the best option for your child though.
My daughter has a late December birthday and so has been one of the youngest in her class.
She has done very well academically even as the youngest, so I wouldn’t necessarily hold your son back just because of his birthday.
Downside is that her handwriting might have been better if she hadn’t had to learn to write so young.