NYC Private Schools

If your child will be going through the application process for 2017 NYC private school admission, now is the 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.

Last year more parents than ever wanted to book with Abacus Guide; we had to turn many families away. 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.

Academy of St. Joseph, a Catholic School downtown serving prekindergarten - 8th graders, shared news with Abacus Mom today:

Dear Emily,

I trust this finds you well. I wanted to reach out to you to say hello and to share some exciting news from the Academy.

We had our first graduating class in June. These graduates are now attending some of the finest High Schools in the city: Horace Mann, Fordham Prep, Trevor Day and Xavier High School. We are so proud of their stellar placements.

Since we last spoke, we have added a Science Lab and an Art Space to our school.

We now have provisional membership with NYSAIS. They have been a wonderful network of educators to be supported by.

We have an upcoming Open House on September 27th, if any of your clients are interested.

Kindly, Angela

Angela M Coombs Head of School Academy of St. Joseph 111 Washington Place New York, New York 10011

Wetherby School NYC?  Wetherby School, the elite London private school that Prince George will attend, will open a New York City branch, to be called Wetherby-Pembridge, in 2017. Will British posh translate?

Both schools are owned by the education company Alpha Plus Group. New York's Wetherby School will be housed on the Upper East Side on East 96th Street, in the building last occupied by Manhattan Country School, which will move to the West Side.

London's Wetherby School previously educated Princes Charles, William, and Harry. British mothers desperately phone the school as soon as their children are born to try to win them places. From the Daily Beast's Inside Wetherby, London's School for Princes:

Kate Middleton has bowed to the inevitable and is to allow her son, Prince George, to be educated at Wetherby, the same private school Prince William and Prince Charles attended, and long famed among aristocratic Londoners for being the city’s most exclusive and intensively academic private “pre-prep” school.

Opening a new New York City private school is a challenging business.  For New York families, the question will be if the British school's elite reputation and well-respected offerings translate.  It will be fascinating to observe if New Yorkers are willing to view Wetherby-Pembridge as a peer to top Manhattan and Brooklyn private schools. Having a royal connection may give this new Manhattan international school a leg up in attracting discerning families.

How many times can you take the ISEE when you are applying to NYC private middle and high school?

The Educational Records Bureau, taking advantage of an easy source of additional revenue, has changed their testing rules so students applying to 5th - 12th grade can take the ISEE one to three times per admissions season. From their site:

Starting in August of 2016, students may register to take the ISEE up to three times in a 12-month admissions cycle, once in any or all of three testing seasons.  The seasons are Fall (August-November), Winter (December-March), and Spring/Summer (April - July).

The ERB states that "ISEE does not encourage multiple testing, but we do offer students and families that option." By offering this option, and splitting the seasons so that students can easily take the test in both fall and winter (November and December), the ERB in fact does encourage multiple testing.   In response to the testing rules change, many families have been anxiously contacting me, wondering if their children should sign up for multiple test dates.

The ISEE, an admissions test required for admission to most NYC private middle and high schools, competes with a rival admissions test, the SSAT, offered by another company.  Students have always been able to take the SSAT multiple times, which contributed to the SSAT's popularity.  By changing the number of times students are allowed to take the ISEE, the ERB should gain more test-takers as well as more students taking multiple tests.

In my experience, taking the ISEE or the SSAT once is usually enough.  For more information or to sign up for my NYC private middle and high school educational consulting program, email New York's best private school consultant.    

Deciding where to apply for next year?  If you prefer a lower-profile school that is more likely to stay out of the news, you may want to take into account that Donald Trump is a Columbia Grammar and Prep parent.

From Alex Campbell of Buzzfeed:

Trump’s foundation donated $50,000 to the school (Columbia Grammar) that same day. The program from this year’s event, which Trump did not attend, lists him as having contributed several items to the school’s auction.

Columbia Prep’s academic reputation doesn’t quite match Dalton’s, but it attracts plenty of the city’s most well-to-do. This can be a source of frustration for the school’s neighbors on West 93rd Street, who have complained in the past of chauffeurs in Bentleys clogging street traffic.

Columbia Grammar and Prep's longstanding head, Richard Soghoian, will retire after the 2016-17 school year.

We received this email from Trevor Day School today:

Dear Trevor Community:

I am writing to announce one of several upcoming strategic initiatives at Trevor. After extensive discussion, data collection, and market research, we are excited to announce a reduced cost structure for our Pre-Kindergarten program. It is our belief that this step is an essential one in reinvigorating our Pre-K enrollment within a highly competitive market of independent, neighborhood-based, and Universal Pre-K options.

The new Pre-K annual cost, effective for the 2016-2017 school year, will be $27,000. This cost is competitive with other high-quality Pre-K programs in our school neighborhoods and around the city. This change speaks to our commitment to the long-term affordability of an independent school education and to furthering socioeconomic diversity at our school.

For more information about our Pre-K program, please contact Emily Walker Bracchitta, Director of Lower School Admissions, at 212.426.3317 or ebracchitta@trevor.org. We are thrilled to be able to make such a magical foundational education available to even more families.

How is Avenues college admissions? Clients have been asking me how Avenues does in college admissions ever since the school opened. In 2016, for the first time, students will be graduating from Avenues The World School and going onto college. Avenues has just published where students got in.  See the Avenues College Admissions List for yourself.

Avenues has a lot riding on where students go to college.  If Avenues students don't get into big-name colleges, parents won't want to send their children to Avenues.  The school will not be successful and profitable. Understandably then, Avenues has an impressive college counseling program, called the "Mastery Program". Avenues college admissions tactics are explicitly defined in school materials:

Beginning in the ninth grade, we counsel students on how they can make strong academic and extracurricular choices that reflect the values of Avenues. These values include: academic excellence; identifying and pursuing academic and extracurricular passions through the Mastery Program; engaging in our community—as well as in communities abroad—in ways that bring about social good; becoming proficient in more than one foreign language; and building a portfolio of writing, artwork, design projects, social innovation pursuits, internships, athletic achievements and international experiences that will distinguish them in the application pools of selective colleges and universities.

Over the coming years, as the school becomes more selective and established, the Avenues college admissions list should continue to include many sought-after college brand names.