<p>Private school and real estate- that is the dilemna for most New Yorkers…unless you are among those and there are many,many people who can easily spend $40,000 not just for one child but for two children to attend private school. I am an older baby-boomer parent and I graduated from NYC public schools. I work in educational sales and have have been in private and public schools throughout NYC and the suburbs, upstate NY and NJ and CT for years. I have friends who have sent and do send children to elite private schools, the elite public schools. I have been in private schools that are sublime and private schools that are totally chaotic, I have been in public schools that are delightful and immaculate and public schools that are struggling. In my case, my dh and I were not in the right financial place to get in on the first wave of brownstone buying and our building in Brooklyn Heights one-bedroom with a skyline view went co-op without any insider pricing… and so we bought a house in a close commute to the city with a fine public school system prior to having our family-not sorry with the choices we made, only wish we could afford to sell our house and move back to a two-bedroom or larger apartment. Older d sometimes questions why we moved out of Brooklyn when we did and my response was that if we had stayed, in all likelihood you wouldn’t have a sister as probably the cost to educate one child in private school would have been enough for us-that is the choice many of our city friends made, one child… it is an individual and family choice and it is all relative. If a dual income couple are both investment bankers and put in long hours… is it better to stay in the city and pay the tuitions or live in a close-in suburb and pay high taxes and commute?</p>
<p>For the monied-set paying a high price for a sought after product or service is a requirement of the competitive lifestyle. And the higher the better because it is both self and socially validating. The only other essential is that the cost be known to fellow competitors. Hence; this “news” piece.</p>
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<p>This does not matter because there are no zoned high schools in Manhattan. Living in district 2 does not guarantee you a seat there for high school. The best one can do is apply to a high school where priority is given to students residing in district 2. Then it is the matching and hoping that the school that you list as #1 will chose you as their #1 choice. There are not enough high school seats available in district 2 for every district 2 resident that may want to attend HS in district 2. If you were to compare it to college admissions, most schools are reach schools just due to sheer number of applicants for the limited # of seats.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Screened programs based on 7th grade stats: </p>
<p>English (80‐100), Math (80‐100), Social Studies (80‐100), Science (80‐100) for Museum</p>
<p>The rest of the schools will want English (90‐100), Math (90‐100), Social Studies (90‐100), Science (90‐100)</p>
<p>• Standardized Test Scores: Math Level(s) 3‐4, English Language Arts Level(s) 3‐4</p>
<p>• Review of Attendance & Punctuality</p>
<p>Baruch College Campus High School - Priority to district 2 residents, then Manhattan screened 109 9th grade seats (7606 applications)</p>
<p>Eleanor Roosevelt High School Priority District 2 (actually, school was built because parents wanted a neighborhood feeder HS for ESMS/Wagner SP students. Most seats will go to ESMS) screened program screen 125 seats (6173 applications)</p>
<p>Millennium High School Priority given to following zip codes: 10002, 10004, 10005, 10006, 10007, 10012, 10013, 10038 or 10280 screened 150 seats (5266 applications)</p>
<p>NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies Priority to District 2 students or residents (majority of seats feed from Lab middle school) 125 9th grade seats (3851 applications) screened</p>
<p>NYC Museum School Priority to District 2 students or residents Screened 124 seats (2737 applications)</p>
<p>Quest to Learn Priority to continuing 8th graders 2. Then to District 2 students or residents who attend an information session limited unscreened 81 seats</p>
<p>Stuyvesant High School Specialized High School (admissions exam) 830 9th grade seats (24,704 applications)</p>
<p>^^^ insane.</p>
<p>Toblin-
On what evidence do you base your statement? In my experience “the monied set” send their children to schools based on what is best for their child. For them paying $40,000 may not put a big dent in the budget, so why not? </p>
<p>Re. your "competitive lifestyle charge: It’s a little like someone without money for a car looking at you and deciding you’d bought your Toyota Corolla so you could lord it over other people.</p>
<p>Reading through all these posts. The public school problems, while certainly amplified in NYC, are very real issues for most urban schools. Smaller cities in NY also have the same problems, like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse. Each will have wonderful high schools, and will have those that are absolutely frightening and unsafe. While private school tuition in these cities is less that what you pay in NYC, we do see families dedicating a large proportion of the family income to private school. </p>
<p>My children were blessed to gain admission to the one public that rivals all the privates here. If they hadn’t high private school tuition would have been our burden. </p>
<p>These are issues that many urban areas are dealing with, a diverse population, many divese student needs, and capabilitites. Problems faced by some families are so much greater than determining the best fit college. Budgets are stretched and resources are tight. I dont think a workable model has been developed in urban areas that can work for all. </p>
<p>For many middle to upper class families in urban areas, the choice becomes private school or heading to the suburbs. I would imagine in NYC those decisions are much harder. I can choose private school tuition here and only spend 18000 per child, or I can move to the suburbs and increase my commute by only 15 minutes. In NYC, those numbers are exponential. </p>
<p>I am one of the blessed ones, but had my children not gained admission, we would have been faced with those choices.</p>
<p>Sybbie: I know that those schools are not zoned for district 2, but it is next to impossible to get in to them unless you live in district 2. One has more very good possibilities for high school if you live in that area and have a kid who performs well. I went through to whole process two years ago with my daughter, now a sophomore in public, and we would have loved to have had those schools to put down on our list. (as it is, we were very lucky and she got into her first choice. I’m still sighing with relief!)</p>
<p>Yes, the numbers are crazy. Having been thru the process myself I know it is dreadful. But of those numbers, many of the kids who apply do not actually qualify.</p>
<p>Toblin: Yes, for a certain element that may be true, but you know, not everyone with kids in NYC private school is a social climber. You should see the beat up mini van I drive.</p>
<p>Sybbie: “Then it is the matching and hoping that the school that you list as #1 will chose you as their #1 choice”</p>
<p>It no longer works like this. You don’t have to list a school as #1 to be matched to it.</p>
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True, that. Our kid got in with a huge scholarship because of the resources he and we devote to his music. Which has nothing to do with social climbing and everything to do with fostering his passion. Which we are so deeply committed to that my husband works a second job doing manual labor to pay for his lessons, camp and other things. Private schools in this are are also notoriously generous with scholarships and/or financial aid because the alumnae give back. We are beyond grateful for the scholarship, but if Sweetie Pie hadn’t received financial assistance we would have found the money somewhere because he has a very specialized interest for which he works his butt off and this is the only opportunity to pursue that in such specificity. My husband graciously offered to donate a kidney to the cause, but is happy that won’t be necessary.</p>
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Technically you don’t, but the computer is geared to match to the highest choice on the application, which means that if the seats are all filled with qualified students who placed that program first, anyone who put it second is out of luck. Several of my son’s friends have made breathtakingly bad choices and we just keep our heads down because no good outcome is possible.</p>
<p>Although people think it works like that, it doesn’t. I’ll try to find the article that explains it.</p>
<p>It used to be that “A kid could conceivably just miss the cut in her first choice, but because she placed it first in her list, would be locked out of the next school down the list, which had already filled up with kids that had put it first, bumping the kid all the way down the list like a Slinky down a set of stairs.
The new algorithm adopted by the Board of Ed in 2004 is designed to avoid this, by using a “student-proposing deferred acceptance mechanism,” which is strategy-proof, according to Professor Alvin Roth of Harvard.
The way it works is sort of like this: Let’s say for the sake of simplicity that each school has 10 spots. Every school that Kid A applies to looks at his record and ranks him numerically. Assume School 1 ranks Kid A 11th and School 2 ranks him seventh. Using the old method, Kid A doesn’t get into School 1 because he’s too low at 11th, and doesn’t get into School 2 because it’s already filled up with 10 kids who ranked it first on their list.
In the new system, schools accept kids, but defer their final decision until the whole selection process is finished (hence the phrase “deferred acceptance”).
So what happens is Kid A is still rejected by School 1. School 2 has also filled up, but now that Kid A’s name comes along because he was rejected by School 1, Kid A gets slotted into seventh place by School 2, the kid in the seventh slot of School 2 is bumped down to eight, and so on, until the kid in spot 10 is bumped to 11 and is no longer selected by School 2. His application is then presented to the school that is second on his list. And on and on and on.
The end result is that it takes guessing out of the equation for kids. “It no longer makes it a dominant strategy to not put their true preferences,” Roth told me.
But the sad truth is that many school administrators not only don’t understand the mechanism, they don’t believe the Board of Ed when it says kids shouldn’t try to game the system. I know a lot of parents who were told by their guidance counselor that, “School X won’t pick anyone who doesn’t put them first on the list.”
Those guidance counselors need to catch up on their reading. The schools don’t know where the kids rank them, and where kids rank them doesn’t affect their mathematical chances of getting in. Period.”</p>
<p>From <a href=“http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/04/nyc_board_of_ed.html[/url]”>http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/04/nyc_board_of_ed.html</a></p>
<p>Redpoint, that’s three years old. The process has changed yet again. I’ll see what I can find for you. I recently read a really good article about it for this year, but I can’t remember where. I’ll look though.</p>
<p>The schools still don’t know where the students rank them, but the computer does.</p>
<p>And, the most important thing for parents to remember is that the criteria are absolute. If you don’t meet the requirements of a specific program (whether grades, attendance, attending an open house, living in a particular area) the application is kicked out without review.</p>
<p>Thanks, I’d love to see the article. I thought all that changed was that all kids were going to learn their fate at the end of Feb, not just those who got in to specialized schools. I did not think the computer algorithm changed.</p>
<p>Several things changed this year. As Sybbie pointed out, the first round seat is lost when an appeal is filed, the notification was changed to one day, and, whether by design or by sheer volume of applicants, student ranking is given more weight. Which is not to say that only 1st rankers will get into a specific program, but if there are (this is common in my area) for example 700 applicants for 35 seats, all of whom meet the requirements for consideration, there simply won’t be room for the kids who put that program below second place. It’s common sense as well as anything else. If the numbers weren’t so skewed, it might work differently, but if you look at the numbers of the selective programs, most are skewed that way because so many programs have different methods of entry and the same program might have 1/2 by school selection and 1/2 by random computer placement. It’s intended to be complicated and it changes so frequently because it’s fully employment for certain professionals.</p>
<p>What I’m saying badly (and I’m still going to look for that article!) is that when there are going to be 650 or more kids unable to fit in a program, the numbers are against you if you don’t rank the program very high. No GC I know has ever said that a school won’t take you if you don’t rank it first, but they will tell you that you should put what you want higher on the application as long as you meet the criteria, but should never take up a high spot on an application for a program you can’t be admitted to because that will mess with your acceptance.</p>
<p>Two of the kids we know applied to only two programs, both of which are not in their zoned school, both of which are among the most selective in the borough, and one of which both of those kids don’t meet the criteria for. Those are going to be unmatched kids because the parents think they are so special that the admission fairy will come and personally fly them into seats in that program in the fall.</p>
<p>This hurts my head.</p>
<p>So now you know why I fell to my knees sobbing when my son got offered the private school scholarship, right?</p>
<p>Yes. I can relate. Its why I am keeping my 8th grader in private school next year, even though public worked out or my oldest daughter.</p>
<p>Now when you have a kid with LD, like my third child, that’s when it really really gets difficult.</p>
<p>Admission fairy! Yes. Insane. I know people who wouldn’t dream of applying to any public school other than Bard or Beacon, and think they are going to get in because they are so special because they come from private school.</p>