1
Corbett Preparatory School of IDS
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK3-8·~578 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordable
Tuition$19.2K/yr
TypePrivate
Students~578
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
Best Independent (non-religious) Pre-K Schools in Hillsborough County
Independent rankings of Independent (non-religious) Pre-K schools in Hillsborough County, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
103 schools indexed0 director-verifiedUpdated this week
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AdmitCompass tracks 103 independent (non-religious) pre-k-level schools in Hillsborough County. Annual tuition ranges from $7.6K/yr to $24K/yr, with a median of $12.9K/yr across schools that publish a number. Tampa has the highest concentration with 60 schools, followed by Lutz (7). 65 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 63% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.
Admissions processes vary by school. AdmitCompass surfaces the deadlines, test requirements, and tuition for each campus on its detail page, so families can build a balanced reach / target / safety list. Every school is re-verified through direct outreach to admissions teams; data is refreshed on a 180-day cadence and timestamped on each profile.
Showing 10 of 103 Hillsborough County schools
- 2Livingstone Academy - Seffner
Seffner·Hillsborough County·Grades KG-12·~172 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$12K/yrTypePrivateStudents~172 - 3South Tampa Microschool
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades KG-08·~133 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$12.5K/yrTypePrivateStudents~133 - 4The Riverview Montessori School At Rivercre
Riverview·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-05·~114 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$17.8K/yrTypePrivateStudents~114 - 5Livingstone Academy Autism Center
Valrico·Hillsborough County·Grades KG-08·~110 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$18K/yrTypePrivateStudents~110 - 6Southshore Montessori Ii
Apollo Beach·Hillsborough County·Grades KG-06·~94 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$17.8K/yrTypePrivateStudents~94 - 7Center Academy-riverview
Riverview·Hillsborough County·Grades 04-12·~89 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$15.5K/yrTypePrivateStudents~89 - 8Lee Academy For Gifted Education
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-12·~83 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$17.7K/yrTypePrivateStudents~83 - 9Lutz Learning Center
Lutz·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-06·~82 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$10.5K/yrTypePrivateStudents~82 - 10Montessori House Day School 1
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-06·~78 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$13.1K/yrTypePrivateStudents~78
How we rank these schools
Built relationships, not scrapers. AdmitCompass ranks schools using a composite score that blends four signals: enrollment size (a proxy for stability and program breadth), tuition reasonableness within the local market, freshness of our most recent verification, and a small bonus for schools with full admissions detail published on their profile.
Public data comes from the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and each school's own admissions pages. The information that actually matters to most families — acceptance rates, deadlines, what a director cares about — comes from direct interviews with school directors and admissions coaches across our active markets.
We do not publish scoring weights or per-axis thresholds. That keeps the moat intact: the rankings reflect actual conversations with people inside schools, not a formula anyone with a crawler could clone. Every profile is re-verified on a 180-day cadence, and the "last updated" date is timestamped on every school page.
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Frequently asked questions
What's the average tuition for pre-k schools in Hillsborough County?
Across the 103 schools on this list, annual tuition ranges from $7.6K/yr to $24K/yr, with a median of $12.9K/yr. Many schools offer financial aid, sibling discounts, or accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — check each school's detail page for current aid policy.
How competitive is admission in Hillsborough County?
Admissions selectivity ranges from open-enrollment (most charters and parish schools) to highly selective (top independent K-12 programs). Each school's profile page lists deadlines, test requirements, and any published acceptance rate.
Do these schools accept Step Up / FES scholarships?
65 of the 103 schools on this page accept Florida's Step Up For Students / FES-EO / FES-UA scholarships. That covers most or all of tuition for income-eligible families. Each school's detail page lists the specific scholarship programs accepted.
What's the smallest and largest school on this list?
Fortress Christian School is the smallest with 1 students; Icon Preparatory School is the largest at 691. Smaller schools tend to offer more direct teacher contact and tighter community; larger schools usually have more elective and extracurricular breadth.
Is this list updated?
Yes. We re-verify school data on a 180-day cadence through direct contact with admissions teams, plus cross-checks against FLDOE, NCES, and published school sources. Each school profile shows the date of its most recent verification.
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