Feeder Schools: Guaranteed to help for 9-12?

prpdd
Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:18:46 +0000

Hobart, my advice to you would be to take a deep breath and think long and hard before you decide to enter the fray and become involved in the NYC private school scene.

First, these schools are VERY competative to get into and place an awful lot of pressure on kids at a very young age. Do you want to put yourself and your boys through this when they are only 4-5?

Second, even if your kids are very bright and test well, there is no guarantee. These schools give preferences to alumni kids. They give preference to siblings. They reserve some spaces for URM. Being famous, extremely wealthy, socially connected, etc. certainly doesn’t hurt your chances. Not being famous, extremely wealthy, socially connected, etc. doesn’t help your chances.

Third, do you want your children to be going to school with the children of the rich and famous? Do you want your kids to feel deprived because for X-mas vacation they had to fly a commercial jet to Aspen (and fly coach no less) and stay in a hotel while a classmate took his families private jet and stayed at their 10,000 square foot ski chalet. You think I am kidding? I am not. Donald Trump, Henry Kravis, etc. also have children and guess what, they want to send them to the same NYC schools you’re interested in.

Also, to correct a couple of errors contained in other posts. Buckley is an all boys school. It starts in pre-first grade and goes through ninth grade (not 12th) - although a large percentage of the class leaves in 8th grade.

I’m pretty sure Allen Stevenson and St. Bernards are the same as Buckley (they used to be). All three are boys schools. If you are interested you need to apply to pre-first grade, as they don’t really enlarge the class size in later years, and therefore places only open up if an existing kid leaves. In my day, (I went to Buckley in the 70’s) is was very rare for a kid to “flunk out”. At worst, if your kid was really struggling they might be held back.

Chapin, Spence, and Brearley are for girls only.

Collegiate, Trinity, Dalton are all coed and go up through 12th grade and are all extremely good schools. Each has a pretty good record of sending kids to top colleges. But there are certainly no guarantees, and a number of kids will also end up and second or third tier schools. Also, remember that it is likely that many of the parents of these kids went Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., so they’re kids are applying as legacies.

Finally, I happen to have my Buckley alumni magazine with me, so I can give you a rundown on where the 8th and 9th graders are going next year.

9th grade - Taft, Andover, Friends, Westminister, Hotchkiss, Deerfield.

8th grade - Trinity, Horace Mann, Taft, Thacher, Regis, Browning, Deerfield, Collegiate, Tabor, Columbia Grammer

Some very good schools on this list, but also some I’m not very familiar with and I suspect would be considered second or third tier schools. What’s surprising to me is how few kids are going away to BS. Back in my day literally every kid in my graduating class went to BS. And over half went to what would be considered top tier schools. For example out of 34 kids we had 4-5 at Exeter and 2-3 at Andover.