New Yorkers who are used to getting what they want are languishing on private school waitlists or having to make due with their bottom choice kindergartens and preschools — and they’re not happy about it.
A pandemic-era baby bump coupled with concerns about public schools made for a boom in applications for the limited number of slots at private kindergartens and preschools. When decision letters went out last month it was, according to some, a bloodbath.
Moms are “losing their minds,” right now, education consultant Sharon Decker told The Post.
Another admissions consultant, Alina Adams, notes that so-called “top tier” schools — or TTs, such as Dalton, Spence, Trinity and Brearley — have always been challenging to get into. They might field as many as 1,000 applicants for 50 seats, many of which are already taken up by the children of faculty, legacies or siblings of older students.
But this year, popular schools just outside of that elite realm — such as Ethical Culture, Avenues, Trevor Day and Brooklyn Friends — also turned away people in droves.
In years past, Adams estimates that 80 to 90% of her clients who can afford to pay full tuition — now upwards of $70,000 at many schools — would get into such institutions. This year, she said, it’s more like 50%. “I’m definitely seeing waitlists at schools that in the past a family would be a shoe-in.”
The Moms of the Upper East Side (MUES) Facebook group has been filled with woeful posts.
“Waitlisted for 3 schools and rejected from 3. So much hard work and time put in for a disappointing outcome,” lamented one anonymous mummy on the 37,000-member group.
“We got waitlisted for 4 privates,” wrote another. “I am a little bitter.”
A confluence of factors have made admissions this year especially competitive. The main reason, Whitney Shashou, Founder and CEO of Admit NY, an admissions consultancy, is that the products of the pandemic baby boom are just reaching school age, so “The cohort is much larger.”
Politics are also at play.
Many parents in wealthy neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, Tribeca, and Battery Park City who would send their kids to excellent public schools have applied to private schools this year as backups.
Adams said families are anxious their kids won’t get into the public schools they are zoned for because of Governor Hochul’s 2022 Class Size Law, which limits kindergarten to third grade classes to 20 students.
“It used to be as a rule that if you are zoned for a school you were 99% likely to get a seat,” she said. “Now parents are worried that they are going to be zoned out of their own public schools.”
Some are also spooked by statements Mayor Mamdani has made about phasing out the gifted and talented program in New York City public elementary schools. “Every time an administration changes the rules, families get nervous,” Decker noted.
One Manhattan mom of a five-year-old boy said they applied to 12 schools, got seven outright rejections and were placed on four waitlists. The only acceptance they received was from their “last pick,” which they almost didn’t bother applying to.
“I just didn’t know what I was getting myself into this year,” she told The Post. Given how well her child did with preschool admissions, she was expecting better results. She also suspects that some schools, such as Riverdale, tell parents they’re on a waitlist to soften what is essentially an outright rejection.
“I am looking back now wondering what would have happened if I did things differently,” she added.
Still, she’s grateful the director of her preschool pushed for them to apply to the one school they did get into. They’ve put down a deposit and will send there child to there next year but potentially try to transfer for first grade if it doesn’t work out.
“It’s this whole thing of keeping up with the Jones,” she said. “You want to go into these fancier tier-one schools.”
Adams said she has clients putting down deposits — typically $5,000 to $15,000 — on their bottom-choice schools but planning to forfeit the cash if they get in somewhere.
“The waitlist will move,” she said. It’s just a matter of when.
Others are planning to hold their kids back a year and re-apply for kindergarten next year. After all this, Adams thinks clients will be more cautious about how they approach admissions moving forward.
“Some parents only applied to the equivalent of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and if they did, it is entirely possible they aren’t in a school right now,” she said. “This year has really scared people.”
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