Competition Apparently Up Slightly for Private Schools April 19, 2012, 7:03 pm For a few years, the news on private school admissions has been grim. It was harder to get into some of New York City's top schools than to gain entry to Harvard. Once in, the tuition bill could be higher (not counting room and board, that is). On Thursday, the Educational Records Bureau disclosed that the number of students taking the intelligence tests required for admission at most private schools rose a modest 1.4 percent in the 2011-12 academic year. That followed a 7.7 percent increase the year before. Since most schools do not disclose the number of applications they receive - some schools, like Dalton, claim that disclosing it will exacerbate parental anxiety rather than assuaging it - the number of children taking the tests, known as the E.R.B."s, is often taken as a proxy for admissions competition. The Educational Records Bureau, which administers the test, said that in 2011-12, 4,418 students took the tests used for entry to prekindergarten to fourth grade. Antoinette DeLuca, executive director of the early childhood admissions assessment at the bureau, said the numbers were "a testament to the long-standing reputation" of the private schools, given the general economic climate. Parents can take comfort that last year was not a repeat of 2007-8, when the number of students taking the test skyrocketed 12 percent, to 4,334 from 3,853, before a modest drop in the following two years. But the overall number is now higher, suggesting another hard year for getting into kindergarten at competitive schools like Brearley, Trinity and Dalton.