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Motley Intelligence

Motley Intelligence is the first thing you see when you sign in, and it rides along as a panel on your dashboard, Saved, Smart Match and Settings (on a phone, behind the sparkle button). It knows your family profile, your saved research, and your deadlines, so you can ask it things in plain language instead of hunting for the right screen. You can also try it without an account.

It proposes; you confirm

This is the part worth knowing first. Intelligence never changes anything on its own. When you ask it to save a school, update your address, or start tracking an application, it proposes the change and shows you a card spelling out exactly what will happen — including when the answer is “nothing, that’s already the case.” Nothing is written until you press Confirm, and you can cancel at any point. It also can’t report back that it did something it didn’t; it only sees the real result of your confirm.

The opening rundown

When you open the panel it starts with a short, factual briefing — what’s overdue or due this week, unread news from your monitors, and any fresh research on your saved places — plus a couple of suggested follow-ups. That rundown is assembled directly from your data, not generated, so opening the panel costs you nothing and tells you nothing made up. If there’s nothing to report, the panel stays quiet.

What you can ask (free)

Ask something broad and it names two or three picks, then asks the one question that would narrow it down most, with answers you can tap.

  • About a neighborhood— “what’s Ditmas Park like for families?” It gives our fit read and the scores on our default weights. For a read against your family, ask it to run Analyze for My Family.
  • Rank or compare neighborhoods— by your priorities, rent or commute, or by one score (“the safest in Queens,” “Brooklyn by things to do”). Name two to four and it sets them side by side.
  • What’s in a neighborhood— “is there a library in Park Slope?” or “coffee near Ditmars.” It searches the same places as the neighborhood page (schools, parks, transit, food, family resources, healthcare) and lists them by kind, each with its own Save button.
  • What we thought of a neighborhood for you— your family’s read from Analyze for My Family, if you’ve run one.
  • About what you’ve saved — a summary of your saved schools, neighborhoods, places, and analyses.
  • About an admissions method — what it means, and what it actually asks of a family (an audition portfolio, an SHSAT ticket, an open-house sign-in).
  • How one school admits — its method, its programs, and seats against applicants where the city publishes them.
  • Find a school by name— misspellings included (“Stuyvesent”). It resolves to the real record so nothing gets confused with a similarly named school.
  • Browse by what you want— “Brooklyn middle schools with a strong arts program.” It filters by borough, district, grade band, school type, admissions method, and program focus (arts, STEM, language, sports, academics, clubs).
  • Describe what you’re after— “a Spanish dual-language program in Queens,” “Montessori-style,” “quiet streets near the water.” It searches schools and neighborhoods by what our records say about them, not just their names.
  • What’s due — the same briefing, on demand.
  • What’s coming up for your kids— the admissions timeline for each child’s grade.
  • Your zoned school— worked out from the home address on your profile, or any NYC address you’re considering.
  • How a score works — what goes into it, and how it tracks with neighborhood income.

What it can do for you (free)

Each of these ends in a confirmation card:

  • Save or unsave a school or a neighborhood
  • Save or unsave places in a neighborhood, up to 20 at a time
  • Run Analyze for My Family on a neighborhood; the read is saved in Saved → Analyses
  • Switch which family profile is active
  • Update your home address
  • Set your match preferences (what Smart Match ranks by)
  • Turn a notification on or off
  • Set up your whole family profile — it gathers your children and grades, school preferences, address, priorities, and the optional details a question or two at a time, then proposes the finished profile in one go. This is the primary way in — prefer a form? The wizard covers the same ground.

What it can do with Pro

  • Run Smart Match — for one of your children, in your district, your borough, the whole city, or districts you pick
  • Refine Smart Match — adjust the weights and re-run it
  • Generate a PDF neighborhood report
  • Start tracking a school for one of your children
  • Update a tracked application — its status or its deadline
  • Draft or save a MySchools list for a child applying to middle or high school this year
  • Read a tracked school’s next steps — and check one off, snooze it, or set it aside
  • Get next steps— research a tracked school for the steps the rules don’t cover

On a free account these aren’t available to Intelligence at all — it can’t half-do them or pretend. It knows they exist, so if you ask it will tell you plainly that the tool is part of Motley Pro.

Good things to try

  • “What did I save in Queens?”
  • “Explain screened admissions to me.”
  • “Find K-5 schools in District 15 with a language program.”
  • “What’s my zoned school?”
  • “Help me set up our family profile.”
  • “What’s due in the next two weeks?”

A note on limits

Intelligence reads Motley’s own data. It won’t browse the wider web for you, and if a question falls outside what it can look up it’ll say so rather than guess. If you want an outside assistant to reach Motley’s public data instead, we publish an MCP server — see the MCP page.