NYC Private Schools

NOW is the Time: NYC Private School Admissions Consulting... If your child will be going through the NYC private school application process for 2021 Manhattan, Brooklyn, Riverdale or Westchester private school admission, now is your time to get started getting help.

This is your family's chance to work with Emily Glickman, one of NYC's most experienced and respected private school consultants. Emily has been featured in every major New York publication as well as many from around the world. In her twenty years in practice, Emily has been trusted by thousands of educated, distinguished New Yorkers and countless relocating families from around the US and the globe.

For 2019-2020 admission more parents than ever wanted to book with Abacus Guide; we had to turn many families away. For 2020-2021, help your child get into NYC's best private schools by signing up early.  Now is the Time.

Call today 212-712-2228 or email best NYC private school consultant.

Education entrepreneur Chris Whittle, a co-founder of Edison Schools and Avenues, is  founding a new Brooklyn school this fall, named, appropriately enough, "Whittle School". The initial description of the school sounds a lot like Avenues:

Whittle School plans capacity for 90,000 students in 15 countries, with much of its leadership from China, India and the U.S. "We were building from scratch an organization that was very intentionally bi- and tri-cultural," Mr. Whittle said. "It's been very challenging."

Here at Abacus Guide, we will be waiting and seeing before recommending this new school to our clients. We certainly foresee that there may be strong demand from international students from East and South Asia, as their parents and school consultants frequently call us for help finding schools.

Whittle still owes $5.8 million to his previous start-up, Avenues. According to Leslie Brody at the Wall Street Journal:

Avenues officials said Wednesday that Mr. Whittle still hadn't paid the debt and that they are seeking to force a sale of his estate in Long Island's East Hampton, which they say was appraised at more than $100 million. It sits near the Atlantic Ocean with a view of Georgica Pond.

"Chris has failed to meet his commitments to Avenues," said Jeff Clark, president of Avenues: The World School, by email.

• David Shaw made a hedge trade on his children's academic futures, donating $1 million every year for ten years to Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Princeton, and half that to Brown and Columbia. Just solid asset management, according to Dealbreaker.
• The Meritocracy Trap: A new book argues that rather than being a democratic ideal, acquisition of status and wealth based strictly on merit has been a disaster for America. The Wall Street Journal review.
• Why not auction off college seats to the highest bidder, wonders a Harvard enrollment manager.
• More South Korean academics have been caught naming their kids and their friends' kids as co-authors on scientific papers in an attempt to help them in securing a university place.
• The Varsity Blues scandal is the subject of a Lifetime movie. Watch the trailer.

GRADE ENTERING	NOTIFICATION MAILING	PARENT REPLY DEADLINE NOT LATER THAN NOON ON
Kindergarten	Mail or email on Friday, February 7	Friday, February 14
2, 3, 4 year olds	Mail or email on Thursday, February 27	Thursday, March 5
Grades 1-8	Not before Tuesday, February 4	Tuesday, February 25
Grades 9-11	Not before Thursday, February 13	Thursday, March 12

At this season of Thanksgiving, I was thrilled yesterday to receive this note from one of my former Private School Admissions Support Program clients:

<Top Brooklyn Heights private school> really is the perfect school for our son and our family. He feels happy, supported and cared for by the teachers and staff, which is all I really want for him at the end of the day. So a big thanks to you for helping us get here. It is moments like this that bring pure joy and I am so grateful for you and your help. Thank you so much, Emily.

And another from a current client going through the application/interview process:

That is probably the only downside to being finished very soon with this whole application process — we won’t get our cheerleader replies from you, which <son, husband> and I appreciate so much. Thank you Emily!

For the past 20 years, I have been grateful for and honored by my ongoing relationships with my wonderful clients. It is the best part of my job.

The Atlantic has an insightful new article that exposes how powerful the advantage of playing a "rich kids sport" can be for getting into top colleges: The Cult of Rich Kid Sports. These rich kid sports are water polo, squash, crew, lacrosse, and skiing, activities that require money to learn how to play.

At Harvard, nearly 1,200 undergraduates—or 20 percent of the student body— participate in intercollegiate athletics.

Early in the Harvard admissions process, recruited athletes receive special treatment. Most of the school’s 42 sports have liaisons that relay the coach’s preferences for incoming athletes to the admissions department. Nearly 90 percent of recruited athletes gain admission to Harvard, versus about 6 percent of applicants overall. These athletes make up less than 1 percent of Harvard’s applicant pool but more than 10 percent of its admitted class. (The other 10 percent of Harvard’s players are walk-ons who likely have also benefited from high athletic ratings in the admissions process.)

It's terrific that people are learning about how much sports impact admissions at prestigious colleges. This has repercussions for racial and socioeconomic diversity as well as for overall academic excellence.