Does anyone have perspective on who applies to private high schools? Aren't most wealthy families already set with their kids already at private? Is it mostly high-performing public school kids, or are there a many private schools that end after middle school?
All sorts of students from all across the city and outside the city apply to private high schools. Many kids at private k-12 want a new school after being with the same kids for 9 years. Some switch to more academically challenging schools while other switch to less challenging schools. Many kids at SS schools want to switch to coed. All k-8 students (a lot of all boys schools) need new high schools. There are also kids from Westchester, LI and NJ who go to top private city schools. They would never travel for lower school, but they do for HS. Also lots of public school kids from both Manhattan and the outer boroughs travel long distances for good schools. Some schools give out great financial aid to star public school students. DC's new classmates who entered 9th grade at private school are very diverse racially, geographically and socio-economically. Their educational backgrounds are from all over the place from both publics and privates. 9th grade is all about getting everyone up to speed coming from such diverse backgrounds.
Thank you! Do some schools give merit-based financial aid for high school? Not only needs based?
@Anon I can't speak to all schools, but the kids getting financial aid from schools I'm familiar with are strong students who the school wants but those families can't afford full tuition. So it is merit based in that that way. However, if your DC is a strong academic candidate but you can afford to pay tuition, you will not get aid. A lot of aid goes to faculty families which is really important to keep the community tight knit. And it's not only poor families who get aid. There are middle class families who aren't in high paying fields who get partial aid.
Agee with PP and I’ll add the other socioeconomic set of high income but not truly wealthy and so need to be mindful of funding college + retirement who make the choice to move for HS (in our case, MS) but don’t think the expense is warranted for ES too.
My DD had been at SS and wanted to transfer to coed for HS.
Do you think it's more competitive to get in at preK/K or 9th?
Following. From what is re with K it's hard if you aren't legacy etc. For 9th though you need to be really smart- there is less criteria to assist a 4 yo on but plenty for 9th grade.
DC applied to both K and 9th to different schools and both times were competitive. However, the experiences were totally different. K applications is more about the parents since a you can't really judge a 4 year old. All you're hoping for on the day of the K interview is that your kid won't cry and will look cute. Parents have to write an essay and get interviewed. There are just not enough data points to make any meaningful judgements on such a young kid. 9th grade admissions is totally different because the applicant is a fully formed student with real grades, teacher recommendations, test scores and a personality for the interview. There are now a lot of data points for the schools to judge. The parents still get interviewed and have to write a parent statement, but there is just so much more raw data to work from. Applying to TT vs. 2T vs. 3T at K is a joke since the process should just be a lottery at that point. For HS, a strong student can stand out on his/her own with his/her own merits and it's less about the parents. Of course the parent's college legacy status does come into play...
@anonymous I totally agree with this. I'm the poster above who had a DD in SS. We weren't a legacy and K admissions were VERY stressful for me because I felt like it was so hard to stand out. She was a bright kid and very personable, but she wasn't a prodigy with an amazing talent or hook. It felt more arbitrary and definitely like it had a lot to do with us as parents. Ninth grade was also really competitive but I was more relaxed. First, she could have stayed at her SS so that dialed the pressure down. She wanted to make a change, but it wasn't do or die. Also, she had a strong academic profile--high grades, good scores, national awards/recognition, good ECs and strong recs. We figured her odds were strong to get in somewhere really good (and she did). But it was really competitive because the pool of applicants is very strong. Privates are taking kids on third base at that point.
This year? People willing to pay for in-person school, and you can bet there will be plenty of them.
At our downtown public most wealthy people apply at MS or HS. It doesn't make sense to send a little kid all the way uptown when the local public is so good and easy.