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Middle School Placement/Exmissions

Our Middle School Placement Process

Placement in a choice middle school is our end goal and acceptance of our graduates into their first choice school is the by-product of our fine education.

We begin the placement process in the spring of a students’ third grade year by discussing with families any thoughts they have about where they envision their child attending school beyond ARS. When students are in the fourth grade a variety of admissions officers from school in the city are invited in to present their schools and speak to the students. Students in third, fourth and fifth grades routinely undergo standardized testing each year, which is useful if any testing is required by the schools to which our students apply for admission.

By the end of the summer prior to fifth grade, every family has a working list of schools to which they will apply for sixth grade tailored to their family’s aspirations and the student’s capabilities. The lists vary in length and breadth, but our success rate is extraordinary for placing our students in their top choice schools, even as admission to the top choice schools has become more and more competitive.

School applications, essay writing, interviewing and school touring skills are all afforded academic time and attention by our fifth grade teacher, who is instrumental in the placement process.

Our students seek middle school placements at a wide variety of schools. Approximately one third will go to public schools (select schools included), some will go to independent schools and some to parochial schools. It is rare for multiple students in the same class to seek admission to the same ongoing school. Our students have great success in attaining entrance into the school of their choice. The exmissions process begins in the spring of 4th grade when every student, along with their family, begins to do research about middle school options. By the fall of 5th grade, with the help of their classroom teacher and our Head of School, the list is reviewed and finalized. Our Head of School works with every student in the application writing process as well as in the preparation for their interviews. The result is that our families do very well in securing spots to their top choices. Some of the schools our graduates have been accepted to are the following:

  • Bank Street School For Children
  • The Brearley School
  • Booker T. Washington Middle School MS54
  • Brooklyn Friends School
  • Brooklyn Independent
  • The Calhoun School
  • The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine
  • The Chapin School
  • Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School
  • Columbia Secondary School (MS-HS)
  • The Dalton School
  • De La Salle Academy
  • The Dwight School
  • Dwight-Englewood School
  • Ethical Culture Fieldston School
  • Friends Seminary
  • Greene Hill School
  • The Harvey School
  • The Hewitt School
  • Horace Mann School
  • The Knox School
  • Leman Manhattan Preparatory School
  • Marymount School of New York
  • The Nightingale-Bamford School
  • Poly Prep Country Day School
  • Riverdale Country Day School
  • St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's
  • The School at Columbia (TSC)
  • The Spence School
  • Trevor Day School
  • The Town School
  • Stephen Gaynor School
  • Washington Waldorf School
  • West End Secondary School
  • York Preparatory School