This episode in our NYC private school series features a very special guest, Krittika, who was Carrie's classmate at Spence. Her pragmatic parents, who met at university in India and raised Krittika and her brother Josh in Queens, always knew they'd have to do the most to circumvent the failings of the New York City public school system when it came to their own kids' education. They found Prep for Prep, a program founded by educator Gary Simons in 1978 to identify New York City’s most promising students of color and prepare them for success at selective independent schools. Krittika says Prep parents like hers were highly devoted, and recalls Dr. Cornel West's sentiment "I am who I am because somebody loved me." She takes us through the grueling Prep for Prep process, which was 14 months long and meant extra schooling on Wednesday nights, all day Saturday, and five days a week in the summer. With students getting "dropped" each week, Krittika and her peers took college-level courses and read The Iliad, sometimes pulling all-nighters at age 11 (something she's never had to do since).

Krittika was overjoyed to finally end up at Spence, where her classes were stimulating, the rooms were beautiful, the food (muenster bagels!) was delicious, and her peers also watched Glee. While she was keenly aware that Spence was a testament to extreme wealth inequality, she learned to accept the trade-off: that though the school was not made for her, it would be the means for an excellent education and the bridge to a college where she could thrive.

Works cited include Caitlin Flanagan's 2021 piece on private schools for The Atlantic and Vinson Cunningham's 2020 Prep for Prep profile for the New Yorker.