How to Get Into Collegiate School NYC: 2027-28 Deadlines, Entry Grades, Testing and Tuition

What is the Collegiate School acceptance rate?

Collegiate does not publish an acceptance rate, an applicant count or an admitted count, and none of its admissions pages give one. Figures that circulate online are estimates, not school data. What Collegiate does publish is the size of its Kindergarten class: “Approximately 50 new students are admitted into our Kindergarten annually” (Collegiate, Apply to Kindergarten). The school describes itself as “a small school of 673 students housed in one building,” with a 6:1 student to teacher ratio (Collegiate, Who We Are).

In our view, the Kindergarten intake and the limited Grade 9 places are the useful numbers for planning, because those are the two grades Collegiate opens every year. Our guide to the most selective NYC private schools puts Collegiate alongside its peers.

Which grades does Collegiate admit for 2027-28?

Collegiate admits new students at Kindergarten and Grade 9. For Grade 9 it says “New students are admitted to grade 9 annually. A limited number of spots are available based on attrition” (Collegiate, Apply to Grade 9). Every other grade is a non-entry grade (Collegiate, Apply to a Non-Entry Grade).

Families applying to a non-entry grade submit the application, an optional photo, a work sample and parent copies of one to two years of report cards; the full process opens only if a place becomes available. In our view, a family set on Collegiate should plan around Kindergarten or Grade 9 and apply to other schools in parallel for any other grade.

What are the Collegiate deadlines for 2027-28?

The application for Kindergarten and Grade 9 is due November 16, 2026, the same day as the financial aid application (Apply to Kindergarten; Apply to Grade 9; Affording Collegiate). The remaining items are due January 4, 2027, and Collegiate says only applicants with complete files are considered.

Applications are accepted until November 16, but Collegiate warns that the required appointments “may be subject to an appointment waitlist after available slots have been filled.” In our experience, a family that submits the application as early as possible, rather than on November 16, has a better choice of visit dates.

What does the Collegiate application require, including the ISEE or SSAT?

Requirements differ by entry grade, and Collegiate says personal recommendation letters are not required for either (Apply to Kindergarten; Apply to Grade 9):

• Kindergarten: the application, an optional photo and an authentic work sample (an image or text document, not a video); a school report on the Collegiate or ISAAGNY form, sent directly by the current school; an in-person applicant visit, where boys are observed and assessed in small groups by Lower School teachers and admissions staff; and a 30-minute virtual parent or guardian interview on Zoom. A parent tour is optional.
• Grade 9: the application, optional photo and work sample; the ISEE (school code 333565) or SSAT (school code 2493), with results sent directly to Collegiate; an official transcript plus parent copies of the two previous years of report cards if they are not on the transcript; recommendations from a current English teacher and a current math teacher; and a required one-on-one visit in which applicants meet with Collegiate teachers for a conversation.

Collegiate publishes no score range or cutoff. Kindergarten applicants take no standardized test; they are assessed during the small-group visit, which runs at 3:30 pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Our ISEE preparation guide covers the Grade 9 test, and our guide to private school interview questions covers the conversation.

What does Collegiate cost, and how does financial aid work?

Tuition for 2026-27 is $72,070, and Collegiate had not posted 2027-28 tuition when we checked on November 5, 2026 (Affording Collegiate). Collegiate says its $7.2 million financial aid budget “bridges the gap between what a family can reasonably afford and the full cost of attendance,” and that “Currently, 19% of Collegiate students receive financial aid.”

Aid is need-based only: “we do not offer merit-based scholarships.” Collegiate reviews income, assets, expenses, debts, household size, employment status, medical costs and childcare needs, and families reapply each year. It says its aid can cover as much as 99% of tuition for families who qualify, typically those earning $100,000 to $150,000 or less per year. Families apply through Clarity by November 16, 2026, and Collegiate covers the Clarity fee for new and returning families through a waiver code from the admissions office (Affording Collegiate). Collegiate does not publish an average grant.

Where do Collegiate graduates go to college?

The University of Chicago is the college Collegiate graduates enrolled at most often in 2022 to 2026, with 32. Collegiate lists the colleges its last five graduating classes enrolled at, with counts (Collegiate College Guidance). By our calculation, the list records 266 enrollments at 73 institutions; 68 of them, or 25.6%, were at the eight Ivy League universities, and Chicago alone accounted for 12%.

The formal college process at Collegiate begins in the winter of junior year, when juniors complete a reflective questionnaire in December and January and then meet with one of the two college counselors; families are invited to a meeting after spring break (Collegiate College Guidance). The Chicago and Williams counts show a school whose graduates spread across research universities and liberal arts colleges rather than a single pipeline; our list of the most competitive colleges gives context for those numbers.

How old is Collegiate, and how does it compare with other Manhattan schools?

Collegiate says “Our school was founded in 1628” and calls itself “The oldest K-12 Independent School for Boys in New York City” (Collegiate, Who We Are). Its timeline shows how the date was settled: a historian questioned the earlier founding date of 1633 in 1933, and research from 1977 to 1984 moved it from 1638 to 1628. The school was renamed The Collegiate Grammar School in 1887, when it was “still coeducational but no longer free”; 1892 was the last year girls were admitted; a coeducational kindergarten ran from 1935 to 1961; and the school separated from the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in 1940. In 2018 it moved to 301 Freedom Place South after 125 years at West 77th Street, and in 2024 Bodie Brizendine became its first woman Head of School (Collegiate, Our History).

The view of Oriel Admissions is that families comparing Collegiate with coeducational schools should start with the calendar, because the Grade 9 deadlines fall within one week: November 13 at Dalton, November 15 at Trinity, November 16 at Collegiate and November 18 at Horace Mann. Our guides to Trinity School, Dalton, Horace Mann and the Upper East Side and Upper West Side schools cover the same steps.

Frequently Asked Questions About Collegiate School Admissions

Sources: Collegiate, Apply to Kindergarten, Collegiate, Apply to Grade 9, Collegiate, Apply to a Non-Entry Grade, Collegiate, Affording Collegiate, Collegiate, Who We Are, Collegiate, Our History, Collegiate College Guidance, Trinity School Admissions 5-12, Trinity School Tuition and Financial Aid, Dalton Steps to Apply, Affording Dalton, Horace Mann Admissions, Horace Mann, Applying to Grades 6-11, Horace Mann Tuition and Financial Aid.

About Oriel Admissions

Oriel Admissions is a college admissions consulting firm advising families nationwide on elite university admissions strategy, with offices in Princeton, New Jersey and New York. Our team pairs deep admissions expertise with a distinctive 360 approach spanning academic planning, extracurricular strategy, essays and application execution. To discuss your strategy, schedule a consultation.