1
The Dalton School
New York·New York County·Grades K-12·~1,330 students
Director-verified
Verified by directorCo-ed
Tuition$65.8K/yr
TypePrivate
Students~1,330
Best Pre-K Schools
Independent rankings of Pre-K schools, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
687 schools indexed13 director-verifiedUpdated this week
Not sure which fits your child? Take the 2-minute match quiz.
Get your top 5 matches — ranked by grades, budget, location, and your child's strengths.
School type
Grade level
Verified
Choosing a pre-k school is a multi-year commitment. AdmitCompass tracks 687 pre-k-serving schools across our active markets. Annual tuition ranges from $1.5K/yr to $145K/yr, with a median of $12.6K/yr across schools that publish a number. 356 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 52% 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.
See also: Pre-K, Elementary, Middle.
Showing 10 of 687 schools
- 2Trinity School
New York·New York County·Grades K-12·~995 students
Director-verified
Verified by directorEpiscopalCo-edTuition$64.9K/yrTypeEpiscopalStudents~995 - 3The Spence School
New York·New York County·Grades K-12·~760 students
Director-verified
Verified by directorTuition$64.6K/yrTypePrivateStudents~760 - 4St. Francis Preparatory School
Fresh Meadows·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~2,500 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$12.1K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~2,500 - 5City and Country School
New York·New York County·Grades PK-8·~200 students
Director-verified
Verified by directorCo-edTuition$60.5K/yrTypePrivateStudents~200 - 6Archbishop Molloy High School
Briarwood·Queens County·Grades 9-12·~1,560 students
CatholicCo-edAffordableTuition$12.6K/yrTypeCatholicStudents~1,560 - 7Indian Rocks Christian School
Largo·Pinellas County·Grades PK-12·~1,280 students
Accepts scholarshipsChristianCo-edAffordableTuition$18.5K/yrTypeChristianStudents~1,280 - 8Seffner Christian Academy
Seffner·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-12·~1,230 students
Accepts scholarshipsChristianCo-edAffordableTuition$14.5K/yrTypeChristianStudents~1,230 - 9American Youth Academy
Tampa·Hillsborough County·Grades PK-12·~1,223 students
Accepts scholarshipsIslamicCo-edAffordableTuition$12.2K/yrTypeIslamicStudents~1,223 - 10American Heritage School - Plantation
Plantation·Broward County·Grades PK-12·~2,800 students
Accepts scholarshipsNone (nonsectarian)Tuition$32.5K/yrTypeNone (nonsectarian)Students~2,800
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.
Narrow your search
Combine filters to get a tighter shortlist.
By Grade Level
By School Type
Other Locations
By Affordability
By Religion
By Program / Specialty
Frequently asked questions
What's the average tuition for pre-k schools?
Across the 687 schools on this list, annual tuition ranges from $1.5K/yr to $145K/yr, with a median of $12.6K/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?
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?
356 of the 687 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?
Faith Christian Academy - Falcon Academy is the smallest with 1 students; Forest Hills High School is the largest at 3700. 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.
Related lists
Adjacent searches families often run from here.
See your child's personalized match
Our 2-minute quiz factors in grades, budget, location, and goals to surface the best-fit schools from this list.