About Avenues

Considering Avenues

Why should parents consider choosing Avenues for their children? Avenues’ key attributes (beyond the core academic quality that every fine school seeks to provide its students) are summarized below.

Educational Outcomes

1. A Global View.

In the 21st century, students who have a highly developed sense of the broader world will have a distinct advantage over those who do not. Avenues takes very seriously its mission to prepare students for today’s global focus. Avenues’ World Course, which includes geography, history, demographics and economic development, will be a centerpiece of the curriculum. And Avenues’ planned campuses in the world’s great cities will make its students members of a unique global learning community.

2. True Fluency.

Even at top schools, many language courses would better be described as “language appreciation” classes, as true fluency is neither their objective nor their result. Avenues is committed to ensuring its graduates are highly fluent in a second language and, for those who choose to do so, a third as well.

3. Study Abroad.

As many parents who have guided a student through middle and upper school will testify, finding and coordinating summer programs abroad for their children is no small task. Further, most of what is offered by providers is difficult to coordinate with the curriculum of the home school. Avenues is committed to designing study abroad programs that are highly integrated with its core curriculum and completely supervised by its staff, initially in programs it creates and runs and ultimately at Avenues’ own campuses abroad.

4. An Independent Learner.

Avenues’ students at the middle and upper school levels will do an amount of independent work that is uncommon in most schools. A key to excellence in college and beyond is the ability to work independently in a highly focused way.

5. An Area of Excellence.

There are three reasons Avenues will work with every student to develop an area in which he or she excels. First, mastery in any arena creates great confidence and self-esteem in students. Second, the lessons one learns mastering one area are transferable to mastery in another. And, third, colleges are looking for students who bring both well-rounded strengths and something special to their student bodies.

6. Arts in Avenues’ Backyard.

Where a school is located matters, and Avenues is situated in one of the most vibrant art neighborhoods in the city and the world. That advantage, coupled with a belief in the educational importance of the arts, will make Avenues a strong destination for artistically-oriented families and students.

7. Competitive Athletics.

Most schools in the city face difficult commutes to even basic athletic facilities or fields. Just three blocks from Avenues’ campus, Chelsea Piers provides more than one million square feet of athletic facilities with hundreds of capable staff. This feature is particularly important to students for whom competitive athletics is important.

Family and Other Considerations

1. Sibling Preference.

Avenues believes strongly that a school should provide sibling preference and will do so. This represents an enormous convenience factor for parents and children alike.

2. An All-Through School.

Avenues will be one of a handful of schools in New York City that provide 15 grades (nursery through 12th grade). This eliminates the time-consuming (and often frustrating) reality of finding a new school at different grade points. It also means, when coupled with Avenues’ sibling preference policy, that all of a family’s children can attend one school.

3. Movement to Other Cities.

For those families who anticipate a future need to reside for a time in another major city around the world, Avenues has unique benefits. Over the next 15 years, Avenues plans to open campuses in most of the world’s great cities. Students enrolled in Avenues will have the ability to transfer easily from campus to campus.

4. Strong College Counseling Services.

Avenues realizes the college record placement of its first ninth grade class (graduating in 2016) will play an important role in establishing the reputation of its first school. In addition to taking great care in selecting applicants for that grade, Avenues is also planning extraordinarily strong college counseling capabilities. Staff will work with all ninth graders throughout their four Upper School years to prepare them for college and will develop a significant working relationship with the admissions offices of top universities and colleges.

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