Let me just start by saying that I’m a computer engineer, I love data, and this site is totally catnip to me.
The first thing I did was create a spreadsheet and then look up each of my candidate schools in NYC-SIFT. My spreadsheet had columns for data that isn’t in NYC-SIFT but can be derived from the SIFT dataset joined with my personal preference: out-the-door time (how late my kid needs to wake up in order to get to the school by starting bell), the percent of students that are of my own race, and custom criteria (average combined SAT score, presence of AP Music Theory offering, presence of a certain desired language, etc)
Then I used the NYC-SIFT Advisor to add more rows to the bottom of the list. The advisor tool was great for discovering new schools in my borough and then I used the Facebook group to learn about each one. Finally, I went back to NYC-SIFT to fill out the custom columns and sign up for open houses.
This is a time-intensive process and I don’t know how people survived in the days when your RAN was hidden from you and there was no NYC-SIFT. I am thankful I didn’t have kids any earlier than I did, ha ha! Many thanks to Adrian, Amelie, and all the other parents who have paved the way for parents like me!