1
PS 321 William Penn
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades PK-5·~1,250 students
NCES
Co-ed
TuitionFree
TypePublic
Students~1,250
NYC
Best Pre-K Schools in NYC tuition-free
Independent rankings of Pre-K schools in NYC, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
11 schools indexedUpdated this week
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School type
- Charter4A free public school run independently of the school district.
Religion
- A private school run by the Catholic Church.
- A private school rooted in the Jewish faith.
- A private school with no religious affiliation.
Grade level
Specialty
Affordability
- Tuition-Free131
- Under $20K list21
- Accepts Florida scholarships that help cover tuition.
Verified
Director-verifiedRolling out
Looking for the best pre-k schools in NYC? We track 11 K-12 options that serve pre-k grades. All schools on this page are tuition-free charter campuses. Brooklyn has the highest concentration with 5 schools, followed by Astoria (3).
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.
See also: Under $20K list, ≈$0 with scholarship.
Showing 10 of 11 NYC schools
How we rank
We rank by how well each school fits your family — academics, cost, distance, and values. Never by size, popularity, or payment (schools can’t pay for rank). The coarse admission-likelihood band is always free.
- 2PS 122 Mamie Fay
Astoria·Queens County·Grades PK-8·~1,100 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~1,100 - 3Success Academy Williamsburg
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades K-8·~850 students
NCES
SecularCo-edReach · admission likelihood · freeA stretch — we’ll show you how to make the application stronger.
TuitionFreeTypeSecularStudents~850 - 4PS 58 The Carroll School
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades PK-5·~820 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~820 - 5PS 8 Robert Fulton
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades PK-5·~670 students
State-licensed
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~670 - 6PS 76 William Hallet
Long Island City·Queens County·Grades PK-5·~660 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~660 - 7PS 17 Henry David Thoreau
Astoria·Queens County·Grades PK-5·~580 students
NCES
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~580 - 8Success Academy Upper West
New York·New York County·Grades K-4·~500 students
NCES
SecularCo-edReach · admission likelihood · freeA stretch — we’ll show you how to make the application stronger.
TuitionFreeTypeSecularStudents~500 - 9Success Academy Cobble Hill
Brooklyn·Kings County·Grades K-4·~470 students
NCES
SecularCo-edReach · admission likelihood · freeA stretch — we’ll show you how to make the application stronger.
TuitionFreeTypeSecularStudents~470 - 10Spruce Street School (PS 397)
New York·New York County·Grades K-5·~360 students
State-licensed
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePublicStudents~360
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
Are these schools tuition-free?
Yes. Every school on this page is publicly funded — either a charter or a tuition-free public-school-of-choice option. Families pay no tuition; standard public-school district enrollment rules and lottery procedures apply.
How competitive is admission in NYC?
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.
What's the smallest and largest school on this list?
Hellenic Classical Charter School - Queens is the smallest with 280 students; PS 321 William Penn is the largest at 1250. 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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