Motley NYC — Neighborhoods, Schools & Admissions

Find NYC schools citywide by what a family wants — borough, community school district (1-32), grade band (pre-K/elementary/middle/high), school type (public/charter/private), admissions method (zoned, zone priority, unscreened, limited unscreened, screened, language criteria, ed-opt, audition, SHSAT, charter lottery, private, universal pre-K), and program focus (arts, sports, STEM, language, academic, clubs). Use this when the family describes the KIND of school they want; use get-schools when you already have an nta_code and want everything in that neighborhood. For what the filters can't say — a program or approach like 'Spanish dual language', 'Montessori' or 'a strong music program' — pass the family's words as query: results come best match first, each with the line it matched on (match_reason). At least one filter is required (a query counts); each filter narrows the results, so one the family didn't state drops schools they may want. Program focus is tagged on public and charter schools only. Each school carries its Motley ratings out of 100 (ratings_note says how each is built), and url opens the same browse on motley.nyc. Coverage is New York City's five boroughs only: every filter value and every result is an NYC school.

Compare 2–6 NYC neighborhoods side by side across the 9 family-fit metrics (Family Fit, Families, Affordability, Schools, Neighborhood Character, Transit, Safety, Health, Activities). Pass an array of NTA codes; returns a per-metric matrix with each neighborhood's band and the per-metric leader, plus weekday-morning transit minutes from each to the city's main job centers. Non-residential areas aren't scored and are dropped.

Explain one NYC admission entry point or method in full — the plain-English explainer, its typical deadline window, and, when the method asks a family for more than a ranked application, exactly what it requires (audition or portfolio, SHSAT registration, a demonstrated-interest sign-in, a private school's own test/interview track) plus the extra paperwork that comes with it. Pass a method key (shsat, audition, screened, language_criteria, ed_opt, limited_unscreened, unscreened, zone_priority, zoned, charter_lottery, private_admissions, prek_universal) or an early entry point (three-k, pre-k, kindergarten, gifted-talented).

Use this when a family asks how one of Motley's scores is computed — a neighborhood score (Family Fit, Schools, Safety / Peace of Mind, Affordability, Getting Around, Neighborhood Character, Air & Child Health, Things to Do) or the school rating — or whether the scores are biased toward wealthier areas. Returns what the score measures, its inputs and weights, how they combine, its share of Family Fit, its known limits, its sources, and the Spearman correlation (ρ) of the score with neighborhood median household income, with a plain reading of it.

Use this when a family asks for lists of NYC schools or neighborhoods picked by a rule rather than a ranking: zoned schools that beat their district while serving high-need students; high school programs with more seats per applicant; schools where no group is a majority and families rate them highly (kind 'schools'); or affordable family neighborhoods with such a school, and family neighborhoods where no single group is a majority (kind 'neighborhoods'). Optionally one borough. Each list is defined by its stated rule, not ranked by quality, and carries that rule, its true count and its first members.

Find which NYC neighborhood (NTA) an address or coordinate is in. Pass a NYC address the family gave (placed with NYC's official address directory; include the borough when you know it) OR lat+lng. Returns the NTA code, name, borough, a link to the neighborhood's Motley page, and a decision-ready family-fit summary. Use this to turn a real-world location into a neighborhood you can pass to the other tools.

Use this when a family asks what's in one NYC neighborhood, or where a kind of place is in it: a library, playgrounds, subway stations or bus stops, coffee, groceries, restaurants, things to do, family resources (rec centers, farmers markets), healthcare (pediatricians, urgent care, hospitals, dentists) or public, charter and private schools. Searches every place we map inside the neighborhood's boundary by name, street or kind (query), or lists every place of one kind (kind); with neither, returns what kinds of places are there, with counts. Results are grouped by category, with a link to each school's page and to the neighborhood's page, which lists every place. Use the nta_code from search-neighborhoods or find-neighborhood.

Use this to turn a school's name into its DBN — the official name, a common short form ('Brooklyn Tech', 'PS 321'), or a DBN to confirm. Returns candidate schools with their district, neighborhood, admission method, Motley ratings out of 100 (ratings_note says how each is built) and Motley page; the matching row's dbn is the input get-admissions-demand takes, and a DBN no lookup returned matches nothing. K-12 schools only (public, charter, private).

Get kids' activities and businesses in a neighborhood — classes, sports, arts, tutoring, etc. Use count_only for category breakdown, or limit/offset to page the full list (reports total/returned). Each place's last_refreshed is when we last confirmed it was still listed.

Use this when a family asks how a specific school admits students or how hard it is to get in. Returns the school's admission method in full (what it asks of a family, and when), its programs with seats and who may apply, and — where NYC MySchools publishes them — seats vs. applicants per program with a competitiveness band that is Motley's own, not a DOE rating. Most middle schools, and all charter and private schools, have no applicant counts. The counts describe the whole applicant pool and are not a per-family probability of admission. Takes a DBN; find-school turns a school's name into one.

Get the full NYC school-admissions reference: every entry point from 3-K and Pre-K through Kindergarten, Gifted & Talented, and the 10 admission methods (SHSAT, audition, screened, language criteria, Ed-Opt, limited unscreened, unscreened, zone priority, zoned, charter lottery) — each with its typical application window. The methods carry a live program count plus a special_badge naming any extra ask beyond the standard application (an audition, a test, an open-house sign-in), null when there is none; optional band/governance filters narrow the count. Knowledge only.

Use this when a family asks what's coming for their child — which NYC school applications (3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten, Gifted & Talented, middle school, high school) they'll make, and when. Pass each child's current grade, or an age (0–5) for a child not in school yet. Returns every transition in the next two years with the city's published dates where it has announced them, and the typical window where it hasn't. Typical windows are marked typical_window and are estimates until the city publishes the year's dates.

Find neighborhoods most similar to a given one based on a 9-dimension score vector (family density, wealth, education, safety, transit, etc.). Returns similarity scores.

Get full details for a single NYC neighborhood including demographics, raw 0-100 scores, location, and a family-readable interpretation (labeled score bands + cached editorial blurbs). Use the nta_code from search-neighborhoods.

Get a decision-ready, family-readable summary of one NYC neighborhood: a one-paragraph fit verdict, what stands out and what to weigh among its Family Fit scores (`tradeoffs`), labeled score bands (e.g. 'Peace of Mind: strong (78/100)'), and cached editorial blurbs — with raw scores still available, weekday-morning transit minutes to the city's main job centers, and a link to the neighborhood's Motley page. The interpretation-first front door; start here when a family wants an answer, not a data dump. A non-residential area (park, cemetery, airport, institution) isn't scored, and the summary says so.

Get family resource counts for a neighborhood: recreation centers, playgrounds, libraries, hospitals, farmers markets, ADA subway stations.

Get safety and health environment indicators for a neighborhood: crime complaints, collisions, HPD violations, air quality, lead levels, asthma rates — plus a family-readable interpretation of the Peace of Mind and Air & Child Health scores.

Get schools within a neighborhood — public, charter, and private. Includes each school's Motley ratings out of 100 (elementary and middle schools on grades 3-8 state tests, high schools on graduation and Regents results; ratings_note says how each is built), grade levels, contact info. Use count_only for a quick summary, or limit/offset to page the full list (the response reports total/returned).

Use this when a family asks which elementary school is zoned for a specific NYC address, such as an apartment or building they name. NYC draws school zones building by building, so pass the street address exactly as they typed it — building number and street, ideally with the borough — never the device's location. Returns the zoned K-5 school, the neighborhood, and how zoned admission works; some areas, like all of District 1, have no zoned school.

Rank NYC's residential neighborhoods by what a family cares about — the same ranking as Best fit on motley.nyc. Pass ranked priority words, most important first: families, schools, affordability, character, getting-around, safety, air-and-health (and synonyms such as crime, rent, transit, commute, kids), plus two factors — parks or playgrounds (the share of homes within a 10-minute walk of an NYC Parks playground) and diversity (how evenly residents spread across five census groups). Or pass per-metric weights for the seven scores. To rank by ONE score alone ('safest in Queens', 'rate Brooklyn by things to do'), pass sort_by instead (Family Fit and Things to Do included); the answer's sort_by.measures says what that score counts. Optionally scope to one borough. Returns the top neighborhoods with a fit score and the score breakdown, which factors counted, any priority words we don't measure (unrecognized_priorities, which added nothing to the ranking), and a best_fit_url that opens the same ranking on motley.nyc. A deterministic weighted sort over neighborhood-level data, not a per-child school match.

Search and filter NYC neighborhoods by borough, by name (typos and nicknames like 'Bed-Stuy' or 'UWS' included), or by a description of what a family wants nearby ('near the water', 'brownstones and big parks'). Returns NTA codes, names, boroughs, and centroid coordinates; with a query, name matches come first and each result says what it matched on (match_reason). For ranking by a score, use rank-neighborhoods instead.