$41,150 for nursery school, before pre-K, to get your kid into Ivy

<p><a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/upshot/when-the-college-admissions-battle-starts-at-age-3.html?_r=0"&gt;http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/upshot/when-the-college-admissions-battle-starts-at-age-3.html?_r=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Horace Mann, an elite preparatory school in the Bronx, offers even earlier education. [/
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Children can apply to its “Nursery Threes” nursery school with a tuition of $41,150 for full days of school. Students then can move on to prekindergarten, kindergarten and beyond without needing to reapply.

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<p>Someone please hold the toilet seat up for me so I can throw up...</p>

<p>Good for them. There are people getting into Ivy League schools for a lot less (public schools). If the Ivy schools were smart, they would start their own nursery schools.</p>

<p>To have your kid in school all day, even if it’s 41+K, maybe a cheaper alternative than having a full time nanny, not to mention all other benefits.</p>

<p>All it is required to get straght As in k - 12 (including the most selective an rigorous HS and acutally UGs) is to do your homework every day. No genius, no talents, no brainiaks, no math superkid. My D. and grandkids follow this strategy, it works (at least according to my recent conversation with the 13 y o GrandS).<br>
However, there are plenty of people with unlimited resources. If they want to spend money, GOOD for the rest of us, better for econonmy (those who work at the expensive educational institutions, they shop too!!). So I say, let them for the sake of everybody else. Makes me very happy!
However, there is no way around paying that kind of money for Med. School (aside from very very few scholarships and spots at free Med. Schools)…but we have only 2 payments left…</p>

<p>Why do you want to throw up? There are a number of private nursery schools as such. First of all, there is absolutely NO guarantee that your kid will be allowed to stay at those schools year to year. There aren’t all that many lifers by the time senior year rolls around. and it doesn’t mean those have the greatest chance of getting into, say Ivy League schools. I’m well acquainted with Horace Mann and other such schools. Some of my kids went to them. If people can afford the schools, and want to put their money there, good for them. I can find much more flagrant examples of big spending with no problem. I’d do this in an instant if I had the money and my kids could get accepted–actually I’ve done it.</p>

<p>What I can’t afford is ostentatious. What I can afford is prudent.</p>

<p>I really don’t see those private schools lacking applicants.</p>

<p>This sounds nuts. When do kids get to be kids and finger paint, play with play doh, grow sweet peas, and have rug time and sing silly songs? </p>

<p>This all sounds like a kid-version of Stepford Wives…kids robotically trained to be what their parents want them to be…ivy grads. </p>

<p>(I am so glad that my parents were too poor to be nuts.)</p>

<p>“If the Ivy schools were smart, they would start their own nursery schools.”</p>

<p>Barnard has a toddler school and a friend who is a grad and lives in NYC applied for her twins but only one twin was accepted. She was pissed and ended up sending both of them somewhere else. </p>

<p>“All it is required to get straght As in k - 12 (including the most selective an rigorous HS and acutally UGs) is to do your homework every day.”</p>

<p>You don’t think any high schools or undergrads include writing sophisticated papers as “homework”? Not everyone who turned them in on time got As on them at my prep school, never mind my colleges.</p>

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<p>No, you need the nanny too. The school year at private schools in NYC is many days shorter than the public school calendar, and the school day ends at 2:30 or 3. Of course it costs a lot more for afterschool programs, if the school offers them. Plus you need someone to schlep the kid to afterschool activities–music, fencing, ice skating lessons, playdates, etc., etc.</p>

<p>I have a friend whose kid went to private school in NYC (not Horace Mann) and was enrolled in an afterschool program at the school. The only kids in it were scholarship recipients.</p>

<p>I don’t agree with this “all you have to do in k-12 to get As is homework” either. Homework is only a small part of your grade. You have to study in history, science and foreign language for example to do well on tests, and have to write essays in English, some students are not naturally good at this, and not everyone understands math, chemistry and physics well enough to get all As.</p>

<p>Totally disagree. While doing all your homework is definitely a plus and will go a long way, there is more required of students at both private and public schools. I am sure class participation, discussion, papers and overall interest and motivation in class go a long way. Teachers know the difference between students who are just hitting the marks (i.e. doing all their homework, turning in assignments on time) to those who show a genuine passion. Those are the students they will write stellar recommendations for. </p>

<p>As I have stated on other posts, I read recommendations all the time for scholarship programs and most, if not all, of the students are “good” students. Their transcripts all pretty much look the same. What I pay attention to is the teacher evaluations. I think it is important that you encourage your child to have a good relationship with at least one or two teachers in high school so that they can write a recommendation that speaks to your child and their gifts.</p>

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Goodness my kids did all their homework in their public school and still didn’t get all As. And I know Horace Mann requires a lot more writing because a good friend of mine sent one of her kids there while her other stayed in the local high school and it was her one regret about the younger kid who insisted on staying in the public school because of the great arts program we have. (And amusingly they both ended up at the same college.)</p>

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This is exactly the sort of thing the elite schools give you in their early childhood education programs. It’s all very developmentally appropriate. The big reason to send your kid to HM for nursery is to avoid the admissions mania of high school. This used to happen at the K level, now it’s starting even earlier - that’s the news.</p>

<p>If you want to read a pretty funny novel about the whole NYC upper class mania about getting into kindergarten (and also high school) read <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Admissions-Nancy-Lieberman/dp/B000Y8SE6K”>http://www.amazon.com/Admissions-Nancy-Lieberman/dp/B000Y8SE6K&lt;/a&gt;. It’s wickedly funny, and explains why so many of us live in the suburbs!</p>

<p>For a full time nanny, it would be 50+K. To get a part time nanny, $15-20/hr for 3-5 hrs/day, would be a lot less. Net net, you are probably not paying that much more.</p>

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That’s what those kids would do at pre-K, probably not something they would do if they were to stay home with a nanny. Ultimately, that’s why we decided to send our kids to one of those schools because our nanny couldn’t provide all of those enrichments to our kids. I was paying for a nanny, finger painting, dance, exercise classes, and arranging for play dates. Whereas going to one of those schools, everything was right there.</p>

<p>There are cheaper alternatives, but those coop kind of schools require a lot more parental participation (volunteer work), and as a working parent it was not an option for me.</p>

<p>Not no pre-Ks are that expensive. My kids went to this school.
The Preschool Program Ages Tuition
2 half-day classes per week (Red) (45th Street) 2.3–2.6 $10,730
2 half-day classes per week (Red) (76th & 86th Streets) 2.0–2.6 $10,730
3 half-day classes per week (Red) 2.7–2.11 $14,890
5 half-day classes per week (Red) 2.7–2.11 $17,595
5 half-day classes per week (Green) 3.0–3.11 $18,655
5 half-day classes per week (Blue) 4 $19,950
5 full days (Blue) 4 $24,565
Jr. Kindergarten (45th Street only) Ages Tuition
5 full days 5 $25,660</p>

<p>“For a full time nanny, it would be 50+K. To get a part time nanny, $15-20/hr for 3-5 hrs/day, would be a lot less. Net net, you are probably not paying that much more.”</p>

<p>My niece, who lives in Brooklyn, shares a nanny with another couple. From what she told me it’s pretty common. Nanny not a live in. Her baby is only 6 months and the other child the nanny cares for is a bit older (1 1/2.) No idea what she will do when child in old enough for nursery school. I have a feeling they will have to move out of the city by then. </p>

<p>How pathetic. </p>

<p>Anyway, why wait till preschool? Why not start offering prenatal programs at these schools where the fetuses can hear live chamber music and their mothers are fed special intelligence-stimulating diets?</p>

<p>It looks a little overkill to me…</p>