Eleanor Roosevelt High School

Roosevelt's academic strength is largely a product of its admissions filter — with only 99 seats and 5,087 applicants, the 2% offer rate means students walk in already pre-sorted for college-level work. The school earns a perfect 100/100 program richness score across AP courses, humanities, STEM, world languages, and ELL support, offering paths students at most schools simply don't get. District 2's screened peers typically land in the 70%+ range on ELA and math proficiency, and Roosevelt tends to sit comfortably above those averages — though the program's quality, more than any single test score, is what families notice once their kids enroll.

Parents are nearly unanimous in their satisfaction (96%) and in trusting the principal (98%), and teachers rate classroom instruction quality at 94% — a strong endorsement of what students experience day to day. The one notable wrinkle is teacher-to-principal trust at 74%, solid but meaningfully lower than the parent-side numbers and a fair question to raise on a tour. On discipline the school has a clean track record: zero suspensions in 2023-24, only one in the prior year, which puts the daily climate well ahead of the district average suspension rate.

The student body is majority White (55%) with strong Asian enrollment (20%) and meaningful Hispanic representation (12%), with Black students at 5%. Compared to the surrounding census tract — where nearly 80% of adults hold a bachelor's degree and median income tops $138,000 — the demographics mirror the kinds of families who can navigate a screened admissions funnel and the preparation that goes with it. The economic need index of 27.9 (well below the city average) confirms a relatively affluent student body.

Roosevelt sits in the Lenox Hill section of the Upper East Side, where median household income exceeds $138,000, only about 8% of residents live in poverty, and roughly 18.5% of households include children — typical for a high-cost Manhattan area where many residents are empty nesters or singles. The share of adults with a bachelor's degree (80%) is one of the highest in the city and reflects exactly the kind of household that drives a strong PTA. Owning a home here is the exception rather than the rule, with a homeownership rate around 28%.

Three subways are within easy walking distance: 72 St (Q) about 6 minutes, 77 St (6) about 9 minutes, and 86 St (Q) about 11 minutes. East Side families almost certainly walk; kids coming from the Upper West Side or downtown will transfer.