Allen-Stevenson: where toy cars become wind turbines

Teaching

Toy cars in kindergarten, wind turbines in sixth grade

Kindergarten science includes working out which toy car is fastest by testing them. By sixth grade the same instinct has a bigger job: boys prepare arguments for a seminar on the future of nuclear power, then build wind turbines and compare them with standard designs.

The early start

An early start, with a summer-birthday option

Reading starts with phonics and the sounds inside words. Math builds number sense, including how numbers make up five and ten, and a first look at place value.

Writers choose a topic and stay with it across several pages, pairing sentences with drawings and sounding out words they don't yet know. Play is part of the day, inside a predictable structure.

A boy must be five by September 1, 2027 to start Kindergarten. For summer birthdays the school points families to Cornerstones, its transitional kindergarten for younger five-year-olds, which has small classes and pairs early literacy and numeracy with social-emotional growth.

Neither page defines how young counts as young, so a summer birthday is a conversation with admissions, not a calculation.

The older grades

Fifth grade is the hinge; sixth grade asks boys to plan

Fifth graders are still in self-contained classrooms, and their science reaches outward: prototypes aimed at pollution in the Hudson Raritan Estuary. In sixth grade subject teachers take over, and the school treats that year as the point where boys need to get organized and plan ahead for longer projects.

Writing moves from paragraphs to full essays. A boy entering in Grade 6 joins in the year the school's own boys make that change.

By eighth grade, boys complete Algebra I, write literary-argument essays, and collect air-quality readings in the neighborhood to compare with published data from around New York City.

Support and participation

Help, chorus and teams

In Kindergarten through fifth grade, reading is taught in small groups by homeroom teachers and learning specialists together. Specialists also write individual plans for boys who need them and share them with parents when that helps.

In Grades 5–8, a scheduled block called Time With Teachers gives boys room to get help from teachers, catch up or plan longer work.

If your son needs specific learning support, discuss his needs with the school before applying. Ask what help he would receive during the day, what would happen outside school, and what it would cost.

Boys in Grades 5 and 6 can join the chorus. The winter musical is by audition, and eighth graders can also join the technical theatre crew.

In athletics, junior varsity is no-cut and varsity is for advanced players. Eighth graders can choose team practices and games, or the planned activity program instead.

Fall 2027 application

Applying for fall 2027

Submit the application on Ravenna, then book the parent tour, parent interview and your son's visit. The file also needs a report from his current school, and Grades 2–8 add reports from the last two years.

ISEE scores are where the page disagrees with itself. One summary lists them for Grades 2 through 8, but the step-by-step lists ask for them only in Grades 5–8.

Sixth-grade applicants test either way; for Grade 2, 3 or 4, get admissions' answer in writing before registering for the exam.

For fall 2027 entry, Kindergarten decisions come February 4, 2027 and Grades 1–8 decisions February 10, 2027. Qualifying sibling and legacy applicants can hear early on December 9, 2026.

Money and the day

Tuition covers a lot of the day, and aid follows the extras

Lunch, two snacks and school-issued devices are covered: iPads through Grade 3, laptops in Grades 5–8, and both in Grade 4. So are robotics and coding materials and every field trip except overnights.

Families applying for aid use Clarity, and financial-aid applications from new applicants are due December 15, 2026, two weeks after the admissions deadline. Parents who are divorced or separated each submit their own.

Overnights, after-school programs and music lessons are billed at the same percentage as tuition, so an award reaches those extras too.

Beyond the Bell, the extended-day program, runs from 3:30 to 5:45 and costs $25 an hour on its own, with no added fee for a boy enrolled in an Alligator Soup class.

Where it leads

High school planning starts in Grade 7, and a head search is underway

Boys leave after Grade 8, so the next school search starts early. It begins in the spring of seventh grade, when the director of secondary school placement meets families.

Boys help build a list of five schools, and test prep, testing and mock interviews all happen at Allen-Stevenson. The school reports that 93% of students are admitted to one of their top three schools; the page does not say how that is counted.

Graduates go on to New York day schools, boarding schools and specialized public high schools.

The board has hired a search firm and formed a committee, and finalists are to visit campus before it chooses the next head. Families applying for fall 2027 should ask how and when they will meet the new leader.

Allen-Stevenson on new Grade 6 boys, birthdays and support

Ask how a Grade 6 newcomer settles in, how summer birthdays are weighed for Kindergarten, and what support the school will describe in writing.