Lining Up At Elite Schools - Go Figure!

maybe things are not as bad as all you doom and gloomers wish it to be. My kid just got into the pre-school of our dreams. The competition was fearce. All spots are taken. I dont think that people who are sending their kids to a $30K preschool are "trapped" in Manhattan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/education/24schools.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=ps%206%20zoning&st=cse

that doesn't seem to mesh with this article. did people in nyc just make more babies a few years ago?
kindergarten age roughly coincides with the last big blackout in nyc - coincidence?

Yes they did sniper - or they satyed instead of hightailing it to the burbs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/nyregion/23kid.html

watchnwait, in the 15 years I have lived in Manhattan I have observed that the typical pattern is for ppl to rent in nyc for a few years first (70% renters in Manhattan), sew their wild oats, then move to the burbs when they want to start a family.

The article shows the change that I started to notice from about 2000 onwards which is that more people wanted to stay in nyc even after having babies and a lot bought. This helped fuel the bubble of course. Aboutready and I have discussed this quite a few times here on SE.

So rather than this being a result of ppl being unable to sell it is more to do with this change in behaviour that started a few years ago.

I'm amazed to find myself saying this, but I'm with petrfitz on this one. There are surely some families with particular circumstances that match watchnwait's thesis, but there is no way that this is the general explanation. Rather, I believe that the general explanation is well described in the Crain's article - limited seats, huge population, many well off families (even if fewer or many fewer than in the recent past), willingness of parents to make this investment in their children, etc. Unlike parents quoted in the article, I never believed that the recession and market meltdown would change the supply/demand dynamic enough that private schools seats would be empty or the admissions competition would abate materially. If families end up dropping out here and there (or even more than here and there), there will always be more than enough people waiting to write the check and take the seat. I speak from experience, being one of said hopeful check writers and having a number of friends in the same situation.

how humch to privaTE schools cost?....30k on avg? or do some charge 15k? 20K where can i find a list?

Also not surprised over here. Still plenty of people who will do everything they can to cut other costs before they switch from private to public, especially if their kids are already in a private school they really like. We have one child in private and by all accounts probably should not devote that much of our income to tuition, but we do - and I am sure we are far from alone in that regard.

er1to9 - pre-school - 2 year old programs for 1.5 hours a day two days a week can be $10-12K per year. the programs get more expensive as the kid gets older and attends more hours/days per week. I know that the median for private school kindergarten in Manhattan is over $27K per year.

We recently went through the application process with a number of schools on the upper westside and every open house/tour was packed and apparently had been that way for months. We were lucky to get in to our top choice which was also willing to give us financial aid (25% reduction in tuition). I recommend asking for financial aid to everyone going through the process. More than one school was willing to offer it to us and all indicated that almost every single family had requested it this year. Preference was going to families who already had kids enrolled. I tell all of our friends who have new borns not to buy a house or move to an area until you figure out the school situation and your options 2 years down the road. Otherwise you end up having to commute with your kid everyday to a school in another nab which doesn't sound so bad, but for some reason (inclimate weather, early morning meetings at work etc...) it total pain in the arse.

I feel sorry for your kids that they are being raised and going to school with all those dreadful bores on the UWS. Maybe some day they will escape.

Yup. My advice - rent/buy in an area with a good public school as backup and good commuting distance to a number of preschools. Can't go wrong.

divvie -
You seem to think that families wanting to live in Manhattan is a trend that will continue to grow. I'm leery. I think it was a fad. And now that thousands of young families no longer have access to multi-million dollar payouts, does it still make sense for them to raise their brood in the city? I can't imagine that it does. I think it's just a matter of time until the pendulum swings in the opposite direction. The question is this: when the tides turn, what will a family-sized apartment in Manhattan be worth?

It also costs a fortune to raise kids in NYC burbs. Westchester ain't cheap.

"My kid just got into the pre-school of our dreams. The competition was fearce."

;o)

glad you caught that ;)

Fairfield and Bergen counties are not cheap either. And, many kids there go to private or boarding schools. Much better to send better colleges out of private schools than out of public schools in general. It's not ideal but it is the reality and has been that way for a very long time. BTW stories are that there have been a few drop-outs from private schools likely for financial reasons, so it is now possible to get in at many grade points.

petrfitz: We "dreadful bores" have nothing better to do than pick on your spelling.

Seriously, though: the pre-school of your dreams? Even dreadful bores dream about more interesting stuff than the perfect pre-school.

sidelinesitter/ue10021: Slots are most likely to open up at schools with small endowments and limited financial aid resources. Most schools are doing what they can to help families that are in trouble, and schools with deep pockets can go the extra mile.

Admittedly, there will be some parents who won't accept help, or even let on that it's needed. The stigma of financial aid runs prety deep in some circles.

"pretty deep", that is.

"More than one school was willing to offer [financial aid] to us and all indicated that almost every single family had requested it this year."

Okay, that makes perfect sense, and explains why people are lining up for the elite schools.

that article turns my stomach a little bit...kind of like the pageant tots...

10024 - congrats on getting FA. Our preschool doesn't offer it. We will go public unless we get FA for private K-12 - as stated always remain in a good zone. Petrfitz - I hope you were kidding about the preschool of you dreams comment and know how ridiculous it really is. Believe it or not kids get into top privates out of daycare too. You would actually be better off at a lesser known preschool unless you are very connected than coming from a big name school with no connections. Then you are last on their list to push for your first choice school.

West 81st. I make my living in pre-school media. I find pre-school fascinating. The school where my child is going is truly unique. It is a totally different way of learning. There is nothing more interesting in seeing a child put on the right path that could change their life or the lives of many others. Seeing them learn, create, interact......

On the other hand what you find interesting - going to open house after open house on properties you will never buy. That is the definition of a bore..

ccharley - thanks for telling me how pre-schools work. I make my living as one of the top pre-school media execs in the world. But you know better.

You dont even know what school I am talking about.

Pterifizz -- warm congratulations on your getting into Head Start!

Petrfitz--your last two comments were totally uncalled for. I am a casual reader of this site because of my personal interest in real estate in general--I own a couple so I don't need to side with any view of the world expressed in this site. But raising discussion to the level of a mini internatial conflict is not healthy.

oh sorry the only place more boring and full of bores than the UWS is the UES.

if you're gonna be a scold--learn how to spell. better yet, don't scold--it's totally uncalled for.

What exactly does one write in an essay about one's 5 year old? Perhaps we need to stop reading "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You" so frequently...

you have to write essay's on your 2 year old as well. There is a lot to say if you know your kid.

petrfitz, if you really think that 'the only place more boring and full of bores than the UWS is the UES' then you obviously haven't been many places. i don't plan to live above 14th street either, but people in this thread are talking about fairfield county and bergen county. you really think the UWS is more boring than darien?

Yes I do.

and by the way, if you think that your preschool has found 'a totally different way of learning' you are in for a big surprise because human biology being what it is there are not 'totally different' ways of learning being discovered, and there certainly aren't any that are the sole province of one particular nursery school. that's just silly.

once you pass the nursery school stage there are great private schools in this city for young kids--the best of the best, by far, is Bank Street School for Children--but i think a good public school is definitely the way to go. ghettoizing your kids with a bunch of other rich kids is not going to do them any favor.

"There is a lot to say if you know your kid."

I know my kid can't moo yet. We're still working on it :)

Happyrenter - you have no idea what you speak of. I am sorry that you dont think that there are any possibilities in the world other than those that you know. I think that very attitude is what is wrong with our country, and our educational system. There are and there are many different ways of learning. We dont even know of a fraction of them yet.

a different way of learning is one thing. 'a totally different way of learning' that is 'unique' to one particular preschool is something else. educational fads come and go, but real progress in education happens slowly and carefully over time. any school claiming to be unique and to have its own totally different way of learning is clearly in the fad category.

i'm quite involved in the field of education, and it is amazing how many people think they have found the educational holy grail. that's just not how it works.

i am glad that my kids are not going to your school. You gave up. You are the problem.

ah, i just say that you make your 'living in the field of pre-school media.' no wonder you love educational fads. pre-school media? isn't it amazing that kids learned perfectly well without expensive, trendy videos, soft-ware, and other absurdities that shorten their attention spans and make them passive media addicts?

i am not involved in passive media. You like to judge. You like to restrict things to your current beliefs.

my school? no, you misunderstand me. i'm a hedge fund manager not a teacher. i'm involved in school reform.

dude, you are sending your kids to some cultish fad school "of your dreams." that is utopian nonsense. there is no one perfect school, there is no perfect solution to all are educational problems. yes: i have given up on the idea of an educational holy grail because that idea has done enormous damage to education in this country. and you are soon going to find out just how dangerous and wrongheaded it is.

oh, so you are hawking unnecessary active media then? what's wrong with books, building blocks, markers, and paper?

kids are being educated out of their creative capacities by people like you. Kids dont grow into creativity they are born with it. They are educated out of it by "educators" like you.

"Kids dont grow into creativity they are born with it. "

exactly. that's why they don't need mass-produced, for profit media products foisted on them. they are naturally creative. so let them create and discover the world around them for themselves.

yes anything "for profit" is bad. I work with both non profit and for profit. I dont draw boundaries and see things as black and white like you do.

lol wait a minute, i get it. you are sending your kids to a preschool that uses your products! that's what makes it so brilliant. you're really drinking your own coolaid bro.

no petrfitz, the problem isn't who you work with. it's who you are. you are a person plying schools with unnecessary and harmful fad utopian products, and you are doing it not for the good of children but to line your own pockets. kids in nursery school do not need media products of any kind, they are a waste of money.

nope. wrong again. just the opposite

oh, so you are sending your kids to a school that wouldn't go near your products, and THAT'S what makes it great?!?! lol. wow, so you really are selling junk that you wouldn't even want your own kids to use.

charming.

you are bitter. ignorant. and speak of things you know nothing about. and very wrong.

so you think three year olds need to be saturated with more media products? you can keep making the empty assertions "you are wrong," "you are ignorant" etc. etc. but since you make no arguments for your position those are pretty meaningless statements.

you believe that young children require expensive media products? evidence, please.

Some thoughts on the schools discussion

cccharley - I think your theory on whether it is better to be the less connected family at the fancy pre-schools or go to a less known pre-school where you get some placement love from the director reflects the conventional wisdom that I hear on this topic, but I also think it's wrong. I know several families that felt that they got a lower tier K-12 school than they would have liked because they were last in line for their fancy preschool director's attention, but none of them got shut out entirely. We were at a much lesser known pre-school and despite a genuine effort by the director were shut out for private K. Other families in my child's class were in the same position. The evidence that I see suggests that the idea that ongoing (K-8, K-12) schools want to diversify the pre-schools that they draw from is more hope than reality.

10024 - Don't agree that asking for financial aid is a good strategy for everyone. If the choices are don't apply or apply and ask for aid, you go with the aid, but all else equal it has to be an admissions disadvantage vs. the many applicants for whom the tuition is not a problem. You had a great outcome, but it's not the best advice for every applicant. See also West81st's entirely correct observation about the stigma of financial aid, for example in these school communities - I have heard terms like "a financial aid family" used to describe/categorize people and brand them as to some degree outsiders.

watchnwait - The fact that some schools have the resources to offer aid to some families does not explain why people are lining up for private schools. That surely adds to the line, but the core market is families for whom tuition is not a stretch, and there are easily more of those in Manhattan, even today, than there are seats in desirable schools.

you dont know what media products mean.

petrfitz: If you aren't willing to describe just what it is you do (and I can understand why you wouldn't want to share details on a public board), you can't expect informed commentary.

The sad reality, IMO, is that most people in your field are charlatans like Julie Aigner-Clark, and many "innovative" educators are BS artists, or worse. You may be an exception; there's no way to know, because you haven't provided enough information. I believe the scorn you're getting here reflects the prevailing distrust of your industry.

I'm pretty sure Shakespeare, Einstein, Gandhi, et al. did ok without "media products" and educational fads infiltrating their preschools.

West81st - well done cheap shot at Baby Einstein. Well deserved too

and the problem with public school is?
my sister went to public elementary school, public high school, princeton, and MIT.
i went to public elementary school, public high school, harvard and oxbridge.
my brother went to public elementary school, public high school, harvard, berkley and is a professor at stanford.

send your kids to a good public school. the idea that you would want to put them into an environment in which financial aid is stigmatized is just gross.

west81st,

not only that, but he describes 'dream' schools and 'totally new' ways of learning. yawn. how many times have we heard that? kids don't need 'totally new' ways of learning, they need a loving, supportive, creative, tough, expansive environment in which to grow and learn. and the fewer 'innovative' media products the better.

"I have heard terms like "a financial aid family" used to describe/categorize people and brand them as to some degree outsiders"

This is all so bizarre...

Petrfitz: Perhaps you do media ON BEHALF OF pre-schools? That's a totally different field. It's hard to tell from what you've posted whether you produce media, or work with THE media, or some combination of the two.

"lol wait a minute, i get it. you are sending your kids to a preschool that uses your products! that's what makes it so brilliant"

Hopefully kids will be able to spell property with your media products ("fierce" and not "fearce")

happyrenter could not agree with you more. smart kids will do well anywhere including public school.

smart kids do average anywhere especially when they are taught by unthinking bores like happyrenter and when the parents dont actually get involved with their education.

uwwsmom and happyrenter - you guys are right the status quo is the only way to go. Your kids will blossom under the same old tired educational system that has failed so many. I think that your kids have bright futures as drones.

yes petrfitz, and i'm sure your brilliant, innovative media products that you sell to the unique preschool with a totally different way of learning are just the ticket to increased parental involvement.

Don't feed the troll!

uwsmon - Bizarre? Yup, pretty much. To orient yourself to the mindset, look back at the Crain's article, which features examples of some of the dominant private school parent mindsets. 1) the desperate need to isolate oneself from the unwashed public school masses (by spending $30K+ on the last choice private school over PS 6?!?) and 2) the wounded pride and frustrated sense of entitlement of the mother whose son goes to a "prestigious" preschool, got a high test score and got shut out. The numbers say that it has to happen to someone (in reality a lot of someones) but everyone thinks that someone will be someone else.

hr - I'm with you in principle on public school (same background as you minus the oxbridge; sister and wife similar pattern), but the overall cost-benefit analysis is more complicated. I see the socio-economic environment as a cost (unlike many parents who are seeking out that comfortable lack of diversity), but there are benefits in attention (student/teacher ratio, likelihood of the school noticing and addressing development issues) and breadth of the program (one stop shopping for academics, sports, music, after school programs, etc.) that argue for private. Personally I think it's about a push between a good zoned public and most private schools on the core elementary school curriculum - arithmetic is still arithmetic, etc. - but the private schools have a much fuller offering overall. For example, my child's very well regarded neighborhood public school doesn't have a gym, so no PE and no sports for the older elementary grades.

yep petrfitz, no one ever got a decent education until your media products and dream preschool came along. you have found the holy grail and your kids are going to be universal geniuses because of the media products you subject them to and the miracle cult school you have enrolled them in. my kids, who will attend a high quality public school, learn to play instruments, diagram sentences, draw, swim, bike, sing, read, debate, and make sandcastles will obviously be complete failures without innovative media products and fad educational programs. thank you so much for enlightening me.

i bet your kids use my works and you have or had them all over your house. I will gaurantee you that.

oh yeah my kids will go to public school as well. there is no public pre-school in NYC.

i don't have kids yet. but when i do, i guarantee you i won't have ANY preschool media products of ANY kind in my house.

ok sure - just card board boxes and imagination for your kids. Any how my works are in your school.

petrfitz is this a joke? you think kids need a 'totally different' way of learning and yet you are sending them to public school? you think this public school is going to go off the reservation with your educational cult?

they may be in most schools preschools, i don't know. i hope they aren't. preschools should not waste their money on media products. perhaps that's what i will look for: a preschool with no mass-produced media products of any kind. that would be a great mark of quality.

card board boxes and imagination: that sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?

but happyrenter you are forgetting this..with his amazing media products kids will learn to spell like him :)

sidelinesitter: Great posts.

What do kids do in a 30K per year preschool? I can't imagine how preschool could be worth that....would love to be educated on the subject. Are we talking 3,4 and 5 year olds?

NYC has a few schools the G&T - that buck the traditional system. I also have hope that other charter schools will come to fruition and change the status quo. This is after all New York..

What sounds pretty nice? - you sitting in a rental for the rest of your life paying 50% of your measely take home pay to some landlord while your kids playing with cardboard boxes knowing that their parents didnt invest wiely and wont be able to pay for their college education? Yeah your life sounds awesome.

"My dad thought that renting was a financial strategy...."

petrfitz, I have to ask: are you a kids' book illustrator? (just a wild guess)

petrfitz,
talk about not knowing what you are talking about. i am a happy renter because i SOLD my apartment in 2007. my take-home income, which i do not make by ripping off schools with harmful 'innovative' media products, is big enough that i have enough $$ that work is a choice not a necessity (i'm 27), and the vision of a 3 year old playing with cardboard boxes and imagination, rather than with mass-produced junk media products, is lovely not because it is cheap, but because it allows the child to create, rather than imposing on them.

and renting is part of a financial strategy, yes.

They're paying 30k so that their kids can play such stimulating games as "Jojo's Fashion Show 2" and "Egg vs. Chicken."

er1to9: central tendency is 24k-34k for 1-12 grade.

wait, how did my beautiful and brilliant child become a drone ;). You know, the one who would NEVER get rejected from a private school. I can't keep up. So be it.

agree with happyrenter here. i will also add that watching TV or playing video games all day is harmful to kids mental development.

happyrenter - sure. we believe you.

blossom16 - Preschool is more in the 12-15K range for a half day five days a week (the typical schedule). Full day program (less common) is more $. There may be other variations and I assume these would be priced accordingly. It's a high cost business - real estate in Manhattan, people intensive (2 teachers in a class of, say, 15 kids, plus school director and other admin), insurance, materials and supplies, etc. I have never tried to pencil out the budget on a napkin, but I don't imagine anyone is clearing a big margin on this. Yes, this is 3-5 year olds.

For K-12, I'd be a bit higher than patient09's estimate. $30-34K seems to capture most of them. This is real school, not half day play school.

LOL at this post. Bottom line for us is that we love the facilities and teachers at privates and the fact that they are (theoretically) able to filter out the "wild" kids. As for socioeconomic diversity, one can argue that PS199 & 6 have less diversity, although they have fewer of the very rich or very poor. However, none of the private schools that our kids can get into from our preschool (no kid has gotten into Trinity/Collegiate/Brearley in living memory) would be worth my 30k+/year. At this point, we are happy with neighborhood public and will retest ERBs in a few years, if kids score well, we'll reapply in an off-year.

Do the parents know that many of their precious kids who attend elite private schools end up going to "B" colleges because they either lack the motivation to get top grades, or did not inherit Mom and Dad's "smart" genes?

Absolutely, my partner & I both went to private schools and know many ne'er-do-well trust fund kids. However, the poorer set at privates are generally very motivated & take full advantage of the facilities there.

Hubby and I have already discussed this. If we get a dud, we get a dud (or two or three). Life goes on...;).

btw - diagramming sentences was always so satisfying, wasn't it?

Ok, I'll weigh in here. My parents were both public school teachers and I went to public school, Ivy college, etc. But the public school I went to was the only one in town. Everybody went there, rich and poor, smart and dumb. (Exception: some, but not all, of the Catholic kids.) New York isn't like that. Your child will have no opportunity to meet any rich or even middle-class kids, or even the really bright kids in public school. It's a terrible pity, but there it is. My kids went to Trinity where they got an education that was exceptional in some ways (Stellar Latin and Greek departments) and disappointing in others (there are wonderful history teachers there but my kids didn't get them.) They also got a skewed view of how much money is "normal" -- but we corrected that at home. We're in the "poorer set" and our kids' friends tended to be from that set also -- they had professors, scientists, artists, writers for parents. We liked them. We even liked some of the Rockefellers and Lehmans we met. Hey, some rich people are interesting.

Trinityp: I agree with 100% on your point that public school in NYC, even the PS6s, 199s lack a good mix of kids simply because so many kids have been taken out to privates, G&Ts, Hunter/Anderson, parochial & Jewish schools. If your kid does not score well on the ERBs at 4/5 or OLSAT, you are SOL in public if your kid is the kind of child that does okay but would benefit from a push or brighter/more hardworking peers.

"Your child will have no opportunity to meet any rich or even middle-class kids, or even the really bright kids in public school"

I'm not so sure how this math works. No one seems to dispute that private school seats are scarce, yet according to this theory there are enough of them for all rich and middle class kids and all bright kids regardless of family finances, leaving none of the above in public school. You know what, I'm going to run this theory by a friend who is a partner at Goldman Sachs, has a PhD in something highly technical and sends his kids to PS 6. Or another friend who is a math PhD, is a partner in a hedge fund, has kids who are scary smart and also sends them to PS 6. Maybe they can explain it to me. Or maybe they actually fit the theory because post meltdown bankers and hedge fund guys are no longer even middle class?

Uwsmom: until you're there, it's easy to be insouciant about how you don't care if your kid turns out to be a dud. My partner & I are both very good at math. Not math geniuses, but let's just say we can both teach math at the college level. While I don't let it show, it is sometimes frustrating that my oldest doesn't seem to be eager to do math problems & worksheets...

oh goodness, I wasn't serious about the "dud" comment. It's just a household joke...my husband trying to be funny, really. It's so incredibly insulting to call a child a "dud" that it's actually kind of funny, b/c well, we would never do such a thing....Sorry, should have kept that one at home.

The parochial gerrymandering in this town is astounding. 1080 Fifth and 1100 Park are both on the north side of 89th, but zoned PS6. 1095 Park is diagonally across the street from 1100, and on the south side of 89th, but zoned PS 198. It is next door to Dalton for goodness sakes.

I'm delighted that Goldman Sachs partners are sending their kids to public school. That's good news for the citizenry. My kids have graduated (or were graduated, for the pedants among us) and it wasn't at all the case when they went. We didn't feel we had a choice, and luckily we could afford Trinity when they were accepted. College is almost cheaper - no sitter to pay!

trinityparent - let's not get carried away now. I said "partner," not "partners." There very well might only be one. In truth, for all my equanimity about public vs. private in the elementary years, I have to admit that even I lose enthusiasm for my own argument when the discussion turns to middle and high school. I doubt that I'll see it as a choice either. Which brings me to one of the stronger arguments in favor of going private from day 1 (assuming you have the option and don't mind the cost) - getting in the door so you don't have to roll the dice on getting in later when the stakes are much higher.

xellam - I'm not sure it's parochial gerrymandering. The border has to be somewhere and wherever it is there will always be a building just on the other side.

I know there has to be a line, but wouldn't it make more sense for that line to be on the south side of the street, not the north? 1075 Park, on the SE corner of 88th, is PS6. Just seems odd to me. And I don't even have a horse in this race at the moment; no children yet.