re: uws hs

why do you feel the need to only consider private????

Quality of public education declines dramatically after the elementary school level, unless you get into the specialized high schools.

I guess I'm biased b/c I'm a high school teacher

NYCApt1234, there aren't any good public HS's in the UWS.

But its a very easy subway commute to Stuyvesant. If you say he's competitive why not save college price tutition for college and let him study among a more diverse group of students (ethnically and economically if not intellecutally)? At least give it try, if he doesn't make it, then private could be a a back up. Isn't Collegiate on the UWS as well? Isn't that where JFK Jr went?

Don't know for sure, but some people have mentioned Beacon on the UWS

Better chance of getting hit by lightning. Collegiate will probably accept 1-2 kids in ninth grade. The talent pool is extraordinary that you are competing against. Better chance is getting in at the Kindergarten age. You are probably competing against 25-50 of the brightest kids in the entire city for those spots. This is one of the cute little secrets that the top privates don't tell you. A major method for keeping up their high acceptance rates to the best universities is to cherry pick the brightest kids from 5th-9th grade to fill in the 1-2 openings each year.

Some years ago, I was about to walk past the Dwight School with an out-of-town friend, and was excited to tell him what DWIGHT is an acronym for ... but when we reached it, the canopy had hand-painted quotation marks around the word "School"!!!

I think the acceptance ratio there is one.

Paris Hilton

Trinity almost doubles in class size in 9th grade - I don't know what the numbers are now, but the theory is that the "survivors" (kids who started in Kindergarten) are sick of each other by then and need new blood. Also the larger student pool makes it possible to offer more electives. My kids got a wonderful education there, as well as making great connections (kids who come from old money, of course, but also kids whose parents were professors, composers, filmmakers, scientists, as well as kids who are now - my kids are in their 20's - doing fascinating things.) The only thing about entering Trinity at 9th grade is that Trinity starts Latin in sixth(?) grade, so there's catching up to do. My kids both took Latin straight through, and my younger one studied Classical Greek as well. The department is stunning. The fact that my older son, the scientist who could hardly wait to get out of high school so he could only study science - who took an extra Calculus "for fun" - stayed with Latin and in fact, took a Latin Poetry class in college.

Oops, didn't finish that run-on sentence, but you get the idea. It's competitive, God knows to get into, but the atmosphere is great. And not cutthroat like Horace Mann. And the college-advice people (at least when we were there)worth the price of admission.

glad your kids had a good experience; no need to trash HM.

Didn't mean to trash them. It's a different culture, a difference I found particularly obvious at swim meets. Hackley had the best swimmers - they recruit (or at least did then.) Horace Mann and Trinity competed for second overall, and won some races. The Trinity Tunas (sic) gathered at the ends of the lane to encourage and cheer their on distance swimmers, rallied around their injured, etc. The Horace Mann swimmers showed no camaraderie, and I once saw them boo a teammate who screwed up his leg of a relay. The Horace Mann mothers only rooted for their own children. The Trinity team (and claque) were more of a supportive community.

Also to Shimpys, Columbia Prep might be worth looking into too. Have you spoken to the Parents' League? They have info on all the independent private schools (also camps, tutors, etc etc.) and you can ask a volunteer about the different schools, their reputations and cultures (although they will be scrupulously evenhanded, not partisan like a person who still identifies with a school when her kid is working on his PhD.)

Other neighborhood-but since is a thread about hs...does anybody have an opinion on the UN International school for middle and high?

I think Trinity HS is set up to take in kids from all the Episcopalian lower-school feeders throughout Manhattan -- Grace Church, St. Bernard's, etc., and that's why the numbers swell at 9th grade.

Horace Mann is known to be an academic pressure-cooker that makes kids snap. Set up an endowment for a lifetime of psychotherapy for them if you send your kids there. No offense, CC.

And to answer your question: Dumb White Imbeciles Getting High Together.

don't believe everything that you read. our kids survived HM and are fine.

How about Riverdale?

Good if your kid is Jughead Jones. Otherwise no.

Maybe Fieldston.

Trinity is also the home of Prep for Prep, which takes promising kids in public middle school and tutors them to get scholarships into private high schools. Trinity takes its share, along with kids who have moved into town, kids from other K-8 schools like Town, etc.

All the private schools have scholarship kids in varying numbers and they make an important contribution to the culture as well.