Smart City Kids

What Smart City Kids does

Smart City Kids is a New York City-based educational consulting firm founded in 2001 that provides admissions guidance, tutoring, and advisory services to families navigating the private, public, boarding, and special education school landscape from nursery through college. The company operates through two interconnected brands: Smart City Kids, which delivers wraparound consulting services including school selection, application strategy, interview preparation, and parenting support, and Smart City Tutors, a wholly-owned subsidiary offering individualized academic tutoring, standardized test preparation (ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, SAT, ACT, Regents), and executive function coaching using the SMARTS program and Orton-Gillingham certified reading instruction.

The firm's core technology consists of proprietary educational methodologies rather than software platforms, including certified Orton-Gillingham reading instruction, the SMARTS executive function curriculum, and customized diagnostic testing for standardized exams. Its content infrastructure includes a 100+ article blog, a YouTube workshop archive, and Eventbrite-hosted public workshops that serve as top-of-funnel marketing and community-building assets. The business model is professional services-based, with quote-based pricing, multi-year consulting contracts, and a reported 98% first-choice admission rate for full-service families that signals premium positioning.

Smart City Kids generates revenue through three primary streams: individual family consulting fees, tutoring services through the Smart City Tutors division, and customized workshops delivered to corporate Work/Life teams and independent schools. The company serves a hybrid customer base spanning individual families (primary), corporate employers (secondary), and educational institutions (secondary), with all operations concentrated in the greater New York City metropolitan area. The firm is privately held, bootstrapped, and founder-led by CEO Roxana Reid, with no disclosed external funding, parent company, or institutional ownership.

Name

Smart City Kids

Legal name

Smart City Kids

Website

https://smartcitykids.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Smart City Kids is a New York City-based educational consulting firm providing private school admissions guidance, tutoring, and advisory services to families from nursery through college across the NYC metropolitan area.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Educational Consulting Services

NAICS

Educational Support Services (611710)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHSAAAIAO

Transition & School-Readiness Support for Special Needs Children

Home & Personal Services/Childcare, Babysitting & Nanny Services/Special Needs & Inclusive Childcare Services

SECONDARYEDAKAKAJ

Autism Parent/Caregiver Education & Training (School-Linked)

Education/Special Education & Learning Support Services/Autism Support Services (Educational)

SECONDARYEDAAAFAN

Youth-to-Adult Transition & Life Skills (Independent Living, Soft Skills)

Education/Adult & Continuing Education/Community & Public Education Programs (Libraries, Community Centers)

Keywords

• School admissions consulting
• Educational consulting
• Standardized test prep
• College admissions advising
• Executive function coaching

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Educational Consulting Services: Admissions consulting fees for guiding families through private, public, boarding, and special education school admissions from nursery through college. Services include application guidance, school selection, interview preparation, and parenting support.
2. Tutoring Services: Individualized tutoring sessions covering academic subjects, test preparation (ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, SAT, ACT, Regents), executive function coaching, and group tutoring. Smart City Tutors division serves NYC families.
3. Corporate and Institutional Workshops: Customized workshops for corporations and schools on parenting, education, admissions, and relocation topics. Provided to Work/Life teams and educational institutions.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Smart City Kids is a NYC-based educational consulting firm that guides families through the private and selective public school admissions process from nursery through college, paired with its subsidiary Smart City Tutors that delivers individualized academic tutoring, standardized test preparation (ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, SAT, ACT, Regents), executive function coaching, and special-needs support. Services are delivered one-on-one or in small groups via in-person and virtual channels, with supplementary corporate workshops and institutional consulting for employers and independent schools.

Product overview

Smart City Kids operates as a premier educational consulting firm with two primary service lines: Smart City Kids (educational consulting and admissions guidance) and Smart City Tutors (tutoring services). The core Smart City Kids brand offers wraparound services spanning educational assessments, parenting support, and comprehensive admissions consulting for private, public, boarding, special education, and college placements from nursery through higher education. Smart City Tutors, the company's tutoring sub-brand, provides individualized academic support including test preparation for standardized exams (ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, ACT, SAT, Regents), general academic tutoring, executive function coaching using the SMARTS program, and group tutoring sessions. Both divisions share the same New York City headquarters and provide complementary services under unified brand management, with workshops serving as a cross-divisional offering covering admissions, parenting, and educational topics.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Smart City Tutors: A subsidiary providing academic tutoring services including test prep (ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, SAT, ACT, Regents), K-12 academic support, and executive function coaching. Operated from tutors.smartcitykids.com.

Products and services

• Smart City Kids (Educational Consulting) Core consulting practice guiding families through the NYC private, independent, boarding, and selective public school admissions process from nursery through college. Delivered one-on-one with senior consultants (many former admissions directors) via in-person and virtual channels.
• Smart City Tutors Sister brand offering individualized academic tutoring, test preparation, executive function coaching, and specialized reading support to NYC students K-12.
• Standardized Test Preparation

Quantifiable outcome

• 98% of full-service families are admitted to their first choice school
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• ISAAGNY (Independent Educational Consultants Association of Greater New York)minorOthersProfessional association membership displaying ISAAGNY logo on website, indicating adherence to professional standards and ethics in educational consulting practice.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Collegewise: National college admissions counseling and tutoring firm with a multi-office footprint including NYC. Comparable admissions consulting service model targeting families navigating competitive college applications.
• Top Tier Admissions: Boutique admissions consulting firm offering personalized college and graduate school admissions guidance. Comparable premium, customized service model targeting high-achieving students and families.
• IvyWise: NYC-based educational consulting firm offering admissions counseling, test prep, and tutoring across K-12 and college. Most directly comparable peer — same geography, same target market, same service mix, and similar premium positioning.
• Signet Education: Private tutoring and college admissions counseling firm serving students in NYC and other metro areas. Directly comparable one-on-one tutoring and admissions consulting service stack for similar affluent family clients.
• Ivy Tutors Network: NYC-based private tutoring and test prep company serving students from elementary through high school. Comparable local tutoring service stack targeting the same NYC family demographic.
• Compass Education Group: Independent educational consulting network providing admissions guidance and tutoring with a strong NYC presence. Closely comparable service offering and customer base, with a network model that competes for the same family relationships.

Broad incumbents

• Princeton Review: Long-established national test prep and admissions tutoring brand with broad name recognition. Overlaps with Smart City Kids' SAT/ACT/ISEE prep offerings but operates at much larger scale and with a more standardized, classroom-based delivery model.
• C2 Education: National tutoring and test prep franchise with broad geographic footprint and standardized program offerings. Larger, more productized competitor serving a similar test prep and tutoring need but with less bespoke admissions consulting depth.

Emerging players

• PrepScholar: Online test prep platform with adaptive SAT/ACT/SSAT/ISEE programs. Adjacent competitor for the test prep portion of Smart City Kids' offering but differentiated by self-service digital delivery rather than 1:1 human tutoring.
• Crimson Education: Global, tech-enabled admissions consulting and tutoring platform with a growing NYC presence. Comparable admissions consulting service but differentiated by scale, technology layer, and global reach; represents the digital scaling model Smart City Kids does not employ.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@smartcitykids5025
• Xx.com/smartcitykids
• Facebookfacebook.com/SmartCityKids
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/smart-city-kids-inc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Smart City Kids