I have been giving my popular High School talks for over 15 years. I did it in church halls and playspaces with my easel and bad “jokes” and the giant directory. Then Covid changed all that. The millennial children stepped up and got me online. You asked for a recording so you could watch more than once, on your own time. Once again the millennials to the rescue! The talk is now pretty, easy to use, and available whenever you want it. You have it for 48 hours, and I have been told that while it is helpful to watch the colorful graphics, it is just as easy to listen to, and there are natural b ..read more

Now that I have a Youtube channel, and refreshing my feed every 5 minutes. I am also seeing other people’s interesting information. I thought I would give you a little survey of some worthwhile clips to view, particularly if you are doing your own SHSAT prep. “Hack the SHSAT” Tyler gives a concise explanation of scoring strategy, that I describe as “working smarter rather than harder” in my HS talk. You can read more from the old but accurate NY Time story “Scoring Quirk Throws Balance Into Question” Tyler has a ton of other videos on his channel including speed runs of the test. Info on verb ..read more

There is a lot of information to wade through in this process, so it is a good idea to stay chill and spread it over time. You can get swept into the hysteria of this process in the fall, but if you do a few things early, you can avoid that panicked feeling. Consider if you are going to prep for the SHSAT. There is no one way to do this. It depends on your child and your expectations. Some schools have deals with tutoring companies for a discounted class. Some people sign up for small group or individual tutoring in the winter or spring of 7th grade. There are also intensive workshops in th ..read more

The DoE is now putting the random number in your MYSCHOOLS profile when you begin the process to apply for 3k or Prek. It is a hexadecimal 32 digit list of letters and numbers that kinda looks like your computer’s serial code. The only characters that really matter are the first two. The sequence goes from 0-9 and a-f. The “best” number is 00. The “worst” is ff. If you care to know, it is all explained here, including a chart that has estimated what % of people have a higher number than you. SUPER IMPORTANT: Don’t freak out about your number. It is only used as a tie breaker when there are can ..read more

If you are looking at the “numbers” on MY SCHOOLS and the totals don’t add up, it is because the City knows generally how many people decide to take other offers. More students are placed at a school than official seats available. When the inevitable happens and kids choose to go to Specialized HS or charter or private there are not big empty gaps. This is why the wait lists may not more a lot (or at all) at many popular schools. Here is a sample from the Directory: Millennium has 117 general ed seats and 33 SWD seats. Total 150 seats in the Freshmen class. They made offers to 190 students la ..read more

Everyone calls the middle school and high school processes a “lottery”. While there is a random number involved on occasion, it is really not a lottery. Calling it a lottery conjourns up a linear process, probably involving a hat. Happily or not, this is way more complicated…and fascinating. It is a matching algorithm that won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. It is commonly called “the Stable Marriage algorithm” aka “the Medical School Match”. Everyone is assigned a random number, but that is not the sole determiner of placements. When there are more candidates with the same priority, tha ..read more

Sigh. I get it. I am that person. Unfortunately, the DoE doles out information on a need to know basis. They don’t help people who want to be proactive and it often ends up as an exercise in frustration. If you push too hard, you will absolutely make this much harder for yourself than it actually is. This is a particular challenge for private school families who are considering transitioning from private to public, who are coming from a different culture and are afraid of missing something. My recommendation? Consider Lao Tzu and follow the watercourse way. “Water is fluid, soft and yielding ..read more

Gifted and Talented is back baby! and it is more opaque and imprecise than ever!! If you were interested in G&T for kindergarten in fall of 2023, that process is over and placements have been made. If you are interested in moving your child from their current program for a change at first through fourth grade for the fall of 2023, you have until May 15 to apply. You can only apply if your child has been identified by their course grades to be eligible and you would have received notice from the DoE. Read this to find out what you actually get and don’t get at G&T. This is a large city ..read more

The 10th grade application process exists, but specific information about it is rarely seen on the DoE’s website. I have only found one mention of it under “who can apply?” buried in general high school information. The answer is: A current eighth grade or first-time ninth grade student. That’s it! Here is the story of the 10th grade transfer. The waitlists that were in place in 8th grade for a 9th grade entry, go away in fall. In the fall of 9th grade, there is an opportunity to do a new application for a 10th grade transfer. There is always little to no information on the DoE website about t ..read more

According to the DoE high school placements will be coming out through MY SCHOOLS on Thursday March 9. If your child took the SHSAT, the results of the test, and LaGuardia auditions as well as your main application results will be listed there. You will receive an email when your results are available. They often stagger the results because MY SCHOOLS would crash if everyone went on at the same time. Here is the thing. Life is uncertain. You can prepare and calculate and hope. It is hard not to fall in love with one place or another, but you can’t engineer your placement. Your mission is to pr ..read more