COVID baby boom kids are stuck on NYCs posh private kindergarten waitlists and parents are freaking out
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 ...