the only reason i would leave NYC

Nah! Private schools either go bust (quite a few disappeared over the years) or tuition remains static. I don't think tuition has ever gone down.

Wrong - there was an article on this very recently (too lazy to google, sorry) discussing the fact that many upper east side private schools were suddenly receiving notification that children were being taken out of the scholl by their parents due to economic factors, and others were becoming late with their payments. I think it is possible. Spots were opening up in schools that before had waiting lists.

Malraux: you are not answering the original question. I agree that spots will be easier to come by, but I have never ever seen tuition go down. Just look at old NYT articles. Weaker schools that charge the same as better schools will go bust, or merge.

And, I've also had a few conversations with the principal of a top private (albeit not in NYC, but still 30k+) and he doesn't see tuition ever going down. The way he hopes to keep diversity is through generous financial aid, so the bottom line is that people making an upper middle-class living are squeezed the tightest in terms of private school. The other thing to do is to endure public school for as long as you can. Every year per child is a 30k+ post-tax savings. Or ask the grandparents to help as tuition paid to school is not considered a taxable gift.

nyc10023 - a very good point - you are indeed correct. I, too, would be interested to know if prices themselves budge at all in the next year or two...

My position is somewhere in between. We're seeing a downturn unlike any other. Tuitions have exploded over the past 20 years at a pace way faster than inflation. Ivy League college now cost nearly $50k per year; in the 1990s that figure was $25-$30k. Private schools now run $25k plus; that number was $15 in the 1990s. Even in the 1990s, those figures were way higher than they were in the 80s. Parents of course will do ANYTHING for their kids, but we are now reaching a point where many can't pay.

There is so much fluff in schools now. Look at the number of administrators/support relative to teachers. Is all of this really necessary?

I realize tuition has never, ever decreased during a recession. But the combination of the "mother of all recessions" and an explosion in the cost of privte education pay change things this time ...

The other thing to remember is that affluent parent bodies of public schools will still have the bucks in a down economy to help out. Say each family donates 5k, you've more than made up for tax cuts. I don't see this as a problem for PS199,6,234,3,41,87 and of course all the Hunter-Anderson-Nests-whathaveyou. In a world where preschool tuition alone is 10k+, not to mention the cost of daycare/nanny, that's not a reach at all.

That's our plan obviously. Use public school unless it is absolutely not working out.

I appreciate all your comments. This really is a terrific web site.
My only conclusions are
1) if you are a owner, than hope you live in a good school district and you can transfer out of private school to a good public school if you need to (although I would never send my kids to anything past 6-8th grade in a ny public school)
2) use plenty of birth control

Yeah, everyone knows the NYC public high schools suck. Not a good one in the bunch... sheesh.

I guess NYC is "the best place to live by far" only if you can afford to insulate yourself in the gated community that is the NYC private school system.

What is so wrong with Bronx Science or Stuyvesant?

I have 2 children in NYC private schools. Son is in arguably the best , daughter is in a top 10. Both tuitions this year topped 31k. Daughters school is DEFINATELY feeling the stress. Some schools, especially UES, are simply too heavily weighted to Wall Street types, 25-35% of student body. Tougher fundraising to provide financial aid. A few kids quietly not being there anymore. Big test will be in Feb-March. This is when acceptances go out. Many folks applied in Sept-Dec, but with no financial consequences. If accepted in Feb-Mar, first tuition deposit is due soon thereafter. The best schools have huge demand relative to open spots. 10-20 applications for every spot. The less coveted, may receive 2-3 apps for every spot. This is where the first stress will show. I imagine this happening very soon. I woiuld not be surprised to see a few of the weaker ones fail Sep '09. Many others, 10-12 schools will struggle, but remain open.

sorry for posting twice in a row, but education is much more interesting than RE.
waxer: please DO NOT DREAM of thinking transferring out of public school into private in middle or upper school is easy. This is truly swimming in the deep end of the pool. The better privates may have 3,4 or 5 open spots. This is when the bulk of the BEST AND BRIGHTEST financially impaired kids arrived. NYC public schools have 1.1 million children. 1% of this years public school 8th graders is over 900 kids. Chances are they are pretty bright. This is your competition for those few spots transferring in. My best advice. If you really want a private school education, GET IN A SOON AS POSSIBLE!
This may be the article MALRAUX was referring to

Meltdown may burn public schools
BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, October 10th 2008, 1:53 AM

He for News
Public school parents fear the financial crisis will cause a huge influx of private school kids into the already overcrowded public system.
Many of the city's 35,000-plus private school students are concentrated in Manhattan's overstuffed Districts 2 and 3.
"There are plenty of parents here who are in the mortgage business or work on Wall Street," said Mary Silver, who has two daughters in Public School 116 in Murray Hill.
RELATED: CITY COULD EASE PUBLIC SCHOOL OVERCROWDING, PARENTS SAY
"It's going to have an impact on the school," added Silver, who says she is the only one in her 200-unit building who sends her children to public school.
PS 116 has eight kindergarten classes and had to give up its pre-K program this year to accommodate the demand.
In the past two years, 34 new residential buildings have been zoned for PS 116's area, which runs from 25th to 43rd Sts. and from Fifth Ave. to the East River.
That translates into about 3,400 new units, and PS 116 is the only public elementary school in the zone.
SEE: QUEENS HIGH SCHOOLER TACKLES HER FOOTBALL DREAM
Some top-rated high schools in Manhattan's more affluent neighborhoods have already seen a surge of interest.
School tours at the highly regarded Eleanor Roosevelt High School on the upper East Side have been packed.
"We've had a lot of private school parents coming," said Marty Trachtenberg, the school's parent liaison for the past six years. "There's absolutely a bigger influx."
An open house at Manhattan's sought-after Beacon High School attracted almost 2,000 people last week, a 25% increase over last year, parent coordinator Judith Moore said, noting that many had sent their children to private schools.
Robin Aronow has been helping parents navigate the public school application process for eight years. Her workshops at several Manhattan private nursery schools in the past few weeks have attracted more parents than ever before.
"There is a tremendous amount of interest in knowing what people's options are right now," she said. "People are definitely thinking more seriously about public schools."
Average private school tuition for elementary schools in the city is a whopping $21,000 and more than $26,000 for high school. Applications for scholarships are on the rise.
"That is the biggest impact of the economic crisis on independent schools, a big increase in requests for financial aid," said Myra McGovern, National Association of Independent Schools spokeswoman.
The upper East Side's PS 6 has six first-grade classes this year and had to give up its art room to accommodate the growing school population.
PTA board member Regina Gurvich is concerned about the impact on her third-grade daughter's overcrowded school.
"Most of the young families in the neighborhood are connected to Wall Street," she said. "The impact will be serious."

Arguably the best? Top 10? What metrics do you use, anyway? How many get into Harvard/Yale/Princeton so they can go on to land jobs at Goldman? Last I checked these threads, most of those kids aren't very popular or well-off right now.

If our scale includes emotionally grounded, I'll take the public school kids over the privileged kids any day.

Yo Yorick, my posts are purely informative for the benefit of waxer. I am not in the business of passing judgement. However, I would assume at least 20-30% of the graduates of H/Y/P lead a productive life and are quite grounded. Better than most of society.

> Yeah, everyone knows the NYC public high schools suck. Not a good one in the bunch...

Except for, uh, the best high school in the country (public or private).

> How many get into Harvard/Yale/Princeton so they can go on to land jobs at Goldman? Last I checked
> these threads, most of those kids aren't very popular or well-off right now.

If you think anywhere near the majority of these kids go to Wall Street, then you don't know much about 'em. Last time I checked, those schools sent more to med school than wall street. More to law school. Hell, more to academia...

"What is so wrong with Bronx Science or Stuyvesant?"

1. It is wildly competitive to get into. If your kid is not both a superbright AND excels at stress management, forget it
2. Stress. These schools, especially Stuyvesant, are cut throat, harsh places. I've talked to so many families whose kids are under such pressure. Many have breakdowns (there are schools known to take "Stuyvesant burn outs" as a speciality).

If I had that kind of kid, sure, I'd go that route. The private school tuition is killing us. But I don't. I have kids that score in the top 90 percentile on the tests (one 99 percentile, the other low 90s), but they are not competitive, one a very dreamy, disorganized type even (if fairly deep), that would not make it six months in one of those high octane schools.

Our kids are being rushed into adult level pressures so early, and our society as a whole pushed that way, that we forget that some of the most creative, and useful people were not pressure factories. I don't believe in stuffing everyone into that kind of mold, and I think it's a mistake for society to do so.

But there it is. My long-winded issue with the very few good public schools in NYC (beyond elementary, of which there are many more in number). I feel my kids can get a great education (my families top priority) in an environment that works for them only in private schools in NYC.

as far as education goes, that should be "family's" ;)

"2. Stress. These schools, especially Stuyvesant, are cut throat, harsh places. I've talked to so many families whose kids are under such pressure. Many have breakdowns (there are schools known to take "Stuyvesant burn outs" as a speciality). "

The stress generally comes from the parents. So, perhaps these parents need to check themselves.

"Harsh", not sure thats quite accurate. They are competitive places for sure, but the kids are actually very friendly and giggly, probably more so than other public schools given the nerdy factor. And a pretty darn diverse bunch, more so than any private school I’ve seen in this town.

If anything, you want "harsh", check out what happens at the private schools. Horace Mann? A teacher got harassed by students, and then the rich parents got her punished, instead of the schmuck kids. This was well covered in the media (New York Mag had a 12 page article).

I'll take some competitive kids over the absolutely non-meritocracy, political, JUST HORRIBLE PEOPLE messes at places like Horace Mann. And they don’t even do as well admissions-wise as Stuy. And, if you don't want as competitive as stuy, try Brooklyn tech. Try midwood. Try hunter high school.

But the nastiest shit I've ever heard is at the money manhattan/bronx prep schools. Spoiled is the least of it. Some nasty, nasty stuff going on in those places that I would never want my kids subjected to.

Ironically, in my year and the years right before and after, there was this big number of folks who kicked ass at Stuy (and one was student body pres) and then burned out at Harvard... some failed, some took time off...

"The stress generally comes from the parents. So, perhaps these parents need to check themselves."

I think it depends on the kids. A family I know, for example, told the story of the time his son forgot his homework, called classmates, who refused to give him the assignment. He had just come to the school and was perplexed at the cut throat nature. A year later, he was doing the same thing. Crazy. Another family, very low key, not pressuring, their daughter had a breakdown there. Perhaps overall it is parents putting pressure on the kids, but the reality is that this is a social dynamic in these schools whatever the source. Some kids handle it, some don't.

Horace Mann, I don't know. I know my kids school, Nightingale-Bamford, had several cases (in fact, almost yearly) where parents complain of too much homework. There is the predictable meeting to let them vent, and then nice words of empathy are spoken, and reminders of the school's mission, and the curriculum stays the same. I've never heard of a case of teacher harassment like the one you mention. And one reason they don't do as well in admissions is that they have to compete with their peers. Colleges have quotas on regions, even down to schools (e.g., they won't stock their class with all Stuyvesant/Bronx science kids). So, in a way, it makes it HARDER to go to those schools admissions-wise.

Overall, I think it depends on the administration and the history of the school. One has to look around. But there are many more possibilities in the private realm. Really, only a few in the public. Meritocracy is one thing, but this setup really limits things terribly in the public realm. And if you don't have a superbright, the situation is not a gradient - they drop through the abyss. There is hardly any middle ground in NYC. If I HAD to go public, and my girls didn't get into one of the handful of best schools, frankly, I'd move out of the city. Medium bright kids should get good education (for them and society). They should go to a hell hole.

I know many people who work for me that are in this position. Smart kids, but some percentage points off what it needs to get into these places, they can't afford private. They are miserable, very worried about their kids futures.

"shouldn't go to a hell hole"

My kid is at a very good, very nice for the genre, private school. There are some not-so-nice children, families, but for the most part it's great for an ues school (we're downtown), not that much homework until late middle school (then crushingly hard). I doubt tuition will go down. Endowments have taken a beating, and the top schools have had huge numbers of applicants for each spot available. Like colleges, I think in the future, tuition will continue to increase to allow for more financial aid for those at the bottom. I know people with very high-testing children who only got into their "safety" school for 2008. There was a huge increase in under-5s in the city, this economic crisis will alleviate the crowding somewhat, but things will probably still be tight for a couple of years, both in public and private schools. I don't think I'd have the courage to navigate the public system beyond elementary school, and middle school admissions, both for selective public and private schools, is a f'ng nightmare.

Yep, sounds like us and every other family in town. I'm not ready to say that all our kids will test into Stuy/Hunter, etc. so we're going to try to do public school for as long as we can before doing private.

"Horace Mann, I don't know."

Trust me, you should know. And its not the only one.

" I've never heard of a case of teacher harassment like the one you mention. "

Seriously then, you should do some research. There are some MAJOR issues at the private schools that don't get covered that often. This one did.

My ivy's admissions office actually told me that a number of kids from one of the prep schools mentioned started a "drug of the month" club... and lets just say it affected admissions for at least a few years.

"And one reason they don't do as well in admissions is that they have to compete with their peers. Colleges have quotas on regions, even down to schools (e.g., they won't stock their class with all Stuyvesant/Bronx science kids). So, in a way, it makes it HARDER to go to those schools admissions-wise."

At my ivy, Stuy alone had more folks than Dalton/Fieldston/Horace Mann/Riverdale/Nightingale/Collegiate combined.

So much for quotas.

If anything, I think the ivies get off on the "meritocracy" over "privilege" part, and padding their "% of kids attending public school" numbers. And, if you equalize the ability to pay (some schools look), I think its even more slanted toward a Stuy.

BTW, here is another one...

Nobel prize winners from Stuy/Bronx Sci - 13.
Nobel prize winners from Dalton/Fielston/Riverdale/Horace Mann/etc. - 0

If you can't get in, I understand, there aren't that many options.

But don't sweep private school problems under the rug.

"But don't sweep private school problems under the rug."

I'm not trying to. I was only telling you my experience. And of course stuy would out perform if my model of it being hypercompetitive works. In addition, those who aren't so competitive tend to go to small liberal arts colleges (like myself). I stayed away from the Ivy's - the learning environment as an undergrad was not what I wanted. For me it worked well - I had very close relationships with professors at small college, this helped ignite my love of learning, and led to PhD. This is one reason the small college outperform the Ivy's for getting their people into grad school and beyond (per capita). So, you have to make sure you are analyzing things the right way.

Actually, Stuy sends a pretty damn big number to Amherst, Swarthmore, etc. 5 folks in my homeroom (out of 30) went there and Oberlin.

So there goes that idea, too...

In short, Stuy sends more kids to top ranked colleges than any school in the country by far (WSJ source) and it 'aint just ivies...

I think you're just playing to a stereotype.

You are going with two anecdotes and drawing a conclusion from it, ignoring data and some pretty contradictory evidence.

> So, you have to make sure you are analyzing things the right way.

Agreed. I suggest data, not 2 anecdotes.

> This is one reason the small college outperform the Ivy's for getting their people into grad school
> and beyond (per capita).

Oh, and I guarantee you Stuy outperforms the prep schools in times of likelihood of getting PHDs. Hell, all those nobel prize winners... they generally have PHDs.

You're making a double logical leap here, and I don't believe either is true.

I would be quite comfortable challenging your statistics on Ivy admittance ratios. Many of the top NYC private schools do quite well in admissions to H/P/Y. I think you may be misguided because of the size of Stuy/Bronx Sci. ex. Collegiate, they only graduate 50-51 boys per year. They publish where these boys go on an open website...http://www.collegiateschool.org/program/college/matriculation.asp?bhcp=1 these numbers are pretty impressive. Try prepreview.com this site tells you about all the top schools..unfortunately you need to pay to get the data....I am a product of public high school and college..I received advanced degrees in mathematics. Unfortunately, I failed English, my obvious inability to properly structure a sentence. As much as I believe in public education, don't underestimate the strength of a select group of the privates in NYC. I wish all the privates published the info like to Collegiate web sites. Does Stuy/Bronx Sci publish this data. In case you don't choose to pay the fee for Prepreview, I will tell you, Roxbury Latin, Brearley and Collegiate are the tops using this metric, nobody else is even close.

I went to one of the top Ivy schools (H/P/Y). It mattered to me because I came from a relatively rural environment in the Northwest, and I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school. It opened my mind and my world in ways I could never have anticipated. But I don't think it will matter for my daughter. I don't know that I even want it for her.

Having said that, my daughter's school is number two in the country for the percentage of graduates who attend Harvard, Yale and Princeton, something over 20% of the graduating class. Not that I'm sure it matters, but it's not an anecdote, it's data.

> I would be quite comfortable challenging your statistics on Ivy admittance ratios. Many of the top
> NYC private schools do quite well in admissions to H/P/Y.
>ex. Collegiate, they only graduate 50-51 boys per year.

Note that I said COMBINED. So add up Collegiate, Dalton, Fieldston, etc, etc... you get to Stuy class size numbers, and lesser H/P/Y stats.

Go ahead and challenge, but those schools should be blowing away the %s given the head start most of those kids have, and they just don't.

BTW, WSJ published the data on top schools, including all mentioned, and St. Anns beats the crap out of the Manhattan schools, just for comparison. And Dalton/Fieldston/Horace/Collegiate/etc. are all surprisingly low...

nyc10022: Incorrect

1 Roxbury Latin MA
2 Collegiate NYC
3 Brearley NYC
4 Winsor school MA
5 Trinity NYC
6 Chapin NYC
7 Spence NYC
8 tied Saint Ann's NYC
8 tied National Cathedral DC
8 tied St. Paul's NH
11 Harvard-Westlake CA

Stuyvesant's (and Bronx Science's) classes are hand-picked from among the brightest in the region, their accepted students score phenomenally well on tests, and they have an application process much like a college. Some kids transfer from the elite privates to go there, particularly if they have a science/math bent. Why wouldn't you expect these kids to do extremely well in college admissions? Many of the students (admittedly not all, although one can't put a value on parental involvement/encouragement, etc.) at these schools have had just as great a head start as those who graduate from the top private schools.

the only reason i'd leave nyc would be not having to be here for job reasons and crime.