I think you’re more likely to find what you’re looking for at many of the Westchester public schools than at Avenues. Just move to Scarsdale, Chappaqua, or Rye and call it a day.
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Some additional thoughts:
I’m not sure if Dwight-Englewood has openings for 8th. It’s right across the George Washington Bridge on the NJ side, and actually has a bus that takes NYC kids to/from school everyday. This way, you can live in NYC if Dwight has openings for 8th.
Another option is to check if the Catholic schools has openings for 8th, so your DC can go there while you apply to privates for 9th. Boys Catholics are Xavier and Fordham Prep, and Notre Dame for girls. All are good / pretty good schools. There are additional catholic schools in addition to these few mentioned.
I’d second the idea of considering public schools in Scarsdale and Chappaqua.
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We are waitlisted at Dwight englewood as well
Agree on the short term and long term plan. We do intend to try again next year. If you had to pick, would you pick Avenues or scarsdale middle for the short term?
Also, do you think it is a good idea to wait for schools he is waitlisted at? He is waitlisted at 5 schools.
If your heart is set on NYC high school, Scarsdale would mean moving one more time for you and DC next year. And, if you start at Scarsdale then move onto NYC high school, that means your DC will need to make new friends again, whereas if she goes to Avenues or local NYC public first, her friends will still be local to her, even if she/he changes schools.
My nephew went to high school in Chappaqua and loved it. Very good and rigorous school.
Personally, I don’t know Avenues enough to say whether it’s worth 60K per year (it was not a school we considered for either of our DCs). If money’s not a problem, and your preference is NYC, then I would pick Avenues for 8th grade, and try to get her into a better school for 9th. Even then, I’d probably consider local public + tutor to keep DC’s academics up.
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I’d really suggest giving a second look at some of the public school options, particularly for eighth grade. They are a world apart from many West Coast schools, particularly CA.
(Also, other types of testing are not predictive of ISEE scores.)
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I agree with @sonatarhia 's logic.
Alternatively, if you aren’t wild about either and will be looking for placement in a year you could consider something like Trevor Day or New Canaan Country where they support the transition to high school. Many schools that end before high school lose students along the way and find them hard to pick up in their upper grades so you just might get a little luckier with those. Just a thought, possibly late in the game.
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My guess is that waitlist would be hard to move, esp for 8th. But then - you never know who may need to move (due to work, personal reasons, etc), so while it’s not a 0% chance, no one knows for sure as it’s unpredictable.
Try calling the Parents League tomorrow and see if they have pointers or advice for you.
Also, try calling the “lower tier” schools and Brooklyn schools if you’re dead set for private - Browning, Dwight (in NYC), Poly Prep, etc. There are probably more, again, I think Parents League can help you.
BTW, scratch my suggestions for Xavier / Fordham Prep, they are both high schools, so not possible for 8th grader.
We have already spoken to Parents League and they helped with the list of schools that we applied but they had no insider info beyond the regular process.
The answers on this forum is what we needed. The strong points of view are more helpful than general information about admission. After paying such a high fee for Avenues, I am concerned that it will still not be academically rigorous …
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To be fair, Avenues seems to have decent college exmissions, which I assume / equate that the academics is at least good?
Can you ask the school to put you in touch with a few current families? That way, you can get more details directly?
Also, ask if your DC can do a “shadow” day at Avenues, so he can see and experience the school for himself?
Both of the above are standard while applying for 9th grade admission, so I assume avenues should be able to do for your son as well?
Good luck to you! I’m heading off to bed now, but happy to answer more questions tomorrow!
Thank you! We have done our due diligence, spoke to families and children and the reviews from Avenue families are great. Their college exmissions are good, so I agree that academics are decent.
However, whenever we talk to families outside Avenues, we get not so great responses and this thread is a testament to that experience.
How about looking at it this way - how confident are you that your son will be accepted into a (better) school for 9th grade?
If the answer is “very confident”, then I think doing one year at Avenues while he applies out is fine. It’s probably a great school for adjusting to NYC life since their focus is to make sure all students are happy.
If the answer is “maybe / I’m not sure”, then you need to ask yourself if you’re ok with him potentially staying four years through high school. Are you OK with that? If so, then go to Avenues. If not, then maybe look at Hackley / Scarsdale / westchester schools.
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I live near DE, it is an excellent school with great kids and an amazing curriculum, but also not better than the local public high schools (would be happy to talk to you if you want to PM). Absolutely suggest picking one of the local public school options for 8 and then applying for high school. If you decide on Bergen county the bergen county academies are a public magnet system that are better than any private school.
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One of our Collegekids had a major move between grades 7 & 8. Think hard about your particular student as they are now, how they handle change, what environments they are happiest in, and how they react to visits at the different schools. Grade 8 can be a hard grade in which to manage a major move: at a peak time for ‘fitting in’ your student will unequivocally be an outsider.
It can work- and if it does it’s more likely to be down to luck than anything you can predict or manage. What you can do is give your student more autonomy than you might be thinking they should have: if they are (relatively) enthusiastic about the choice it will help, no matter how soft or hard the landing is.
To that end, visits are absolutely essential. We all went for several days for a look-see visit (which, btw, the company should cover), looking at both accommodation and schools in the two areas we were considering. Unless you are lucky, it will mean missing some school- 100% worth it, for you and for your student.
Also, I noticed that you are looking at a short 1-3 year time line. Look hard at schools such as Hackley and Masters, which are day/boarding schools in the NYC area. That would give your student the option of staying put and finishing HS in one place, even if you move back to CA when they are in grade 9 or 10 (we moved a different collegekid between grades 10 & 11- also very challenging).
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Agree!
Yes an easy adjustment for our kid and a short commute for parents are both important considerations for the transition to nyc life
Yes I agree changing schools at this age can be hard, and while our child seems cool about it now, I don’t know if that will be the case next year and again when we have to leave nyc. That was part of the reason why we really want our dc to get into a school where they can stay until we have to leave nyc. We talked about the boarding option at hackley and our dc said they wouldn’t want that later either.
There’s a 2015 documentary about the Avenues that you might find of interest:
Class Divide | Watch the Movie on HBO | HBO.com
They interview a number of students, all of whom seemed very thoughtful and well spoken.
Not that it’s especially relevant, but if I remember correctly, Suri Cruise attends.
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