Venting about multiple acceptances (warning: not a pretty sight)

[Anonymous]

If the criteria were things like approach to life, no. If they were things like, we like children to have attended X preschool, yes, we would certainly consider it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the OP and all the other people who are trying to figure out the "secret" to private school acceptance, at the end of the day the best that you can do is to present your child and your family as you are. Let me ask you this if the schools were to up out a specific list of criteria that they want in students and families and you find the you did not match the list would you change your family just so that your child can go to that school?

I agree completely with PP. I don't think there's any "secret" to this process - it's competitive, there are tons of highly qualified and gifted kids in this area with loving and concerned parents. All you can do is be genuine about your child and family and hope for the best.

[Anonymous]

It's competitive, but the playing field is also not level.

Now, is any playing field ever level? Should the playing field be level? Should we care about this playing field, given that the playing field of life is not level? All perfectly legitimate questions, but they don't change the fact that this particular playing field is not level, and that can cause a lot of anguish. Yes, we should and can and will all get over it. But it's a perfectly natural response.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone share the WHY's of a denial? for those of you whose children have NOT been accepted, what reasons are you given? (I am not a private school parent..) I have been thinking of that of late as I have been surfing the MULTITUDE of private school postings...

WHY

[Anonymous]

I think many schools manage to avoid this question by simply putting everyone who's not accepted on their wait list.

[Anonymous]

Come on, people. Private school admissions: this is not a meritocracy. Harvard pretends to be a meritocracy (though it's not, or not completely: alumni kids still get a boost, etc.). But did you really expect a ritzy private pre-school to be a meritocracy? These schools can and will make decisions based on any factors they feel like taking into account, provided they're not illegal. Color of your hair... whether they liked your shirt or your accent... whether your kid smiled enough/too much.... whether they had too much to eat at lunch.... whether they are feeling sick of lawyers that day... whatever.

This is not to say that admissions staff aren't nice people-- they're not trying to play with your mind or anything. It's just that their job is to create a school community that will be to the liking of the faculty, alumns, trustees, current parents, etc-- and that may or may not bear some relation to choosing students based on the values you hold dear.

So yeah, wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world where schools selected students based on their inherent capacities, not on their parent's charms/professions/wallets? It would. Then again, wouldn't it also be nice if we lived in a world where poor kids with uninvolved parents also had a decent shot at these schools? Actually, come to think of it, wouldn't it be nice to live in world with decent public schools? Wouldn't it be nice if we all put as much energy into improving out local public schools as we put into trying to game the private school admissions process?

There's a thought, for all of us. Ask yourself how many hours you put into the private school seacrh and application process. Imagine how much better DC public schools would be if each of us committed the same number of hours to volunteering in our local public schools.

[Anonymous]

Here here. It's truly amazing how people clamor to get their kids into "elitest" schools and then bitch and moan when the schools act elitest and reject them.

[Anonymous]

I posted this a while back. Seems like it's time to revisit it:





It's interesting to me that the issue of fairness comes up so frequently on this board in some form or another. The expectation of fairness applying to the private school admissions process is understandable (given our desire to pursue and obtain "the best" for our children) but seriously misguided (given the realities of the world as we all know it).

The fact that some of us are privileged enough to be able to afford even to apply to private schools, whether they are preschools or ongoing schools, seems to be taken for granted. The fact that others leverage their even greater privilege to ensure entry for their children is just an further extension of the same thing.

What's truly unfair is the fact that our public educational system is not adequate enough for many of us even to consider using it, despite the taxes we pay. What's truly unfair is that the vast majority of families in and around the District live in areas with minimal resources in tersm of education or child care and struggle to figure it all out on incomes substantially different from those of most of the posters on this board (and I include myself in that number).

Please know that I observe all of this with empathy and am awaiting preschool admissions results for my child as I write this. It is painful - especially when children are involved - to learn the limits of one's own degree of privilege. The simple reality is that privilege is not fair, whether is giving or taking away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Please know that I observe all of this with empathy and am awaiting preschool admissions results for my child as I write this. It is painful - especially when children are involved - to learn the limits of one's own degree of privilege. The simple reality is that privilege is not fair, whether is giving or taking away.

Insightful and well-put! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

16:37: I remember your post, and I was impressed by it at the time. I was actually alluding to it, albeit flippantly, in my original post. Yes, you are right, but can't a mother vent?

[Anonymous]

I called one school that I was sure DC would be accepted to. When I received the rejection letter, I called the AD. She hummed and hawwd a lot and went to get the notes. She basically told me that when my child was left alone in the room with other children (my DH was present for all but 10 minutes of the playdate) that my DC played alone for that 10 minute period. That was the reason DC was not accepted. When I spooke to my husband about this he said that he was given a quick tour with the other parents and after 10 minutes, arrived at the room, DC was playing with some musical instruments while other children we playing here and there. No major group activity.

So is this AD telling me that she the 10 minutes my child was observed and she dared to play alone, that was a good reason for rejection?? My husband was telling me that at least 4 of the kids in the room wouldn't even let go of their parents. But my child goes to independantly play with something she finds interesting and that it, she's out????

This whole process has left a bad taste in my mouth. Fortunately, when we took the tour after the playdate we decided that we really disliked the school.

[Anonymous]

Hey all! Stop trying so hard. Over the years, I've noticed that it works for me. We got into some elite schools that we didn't drool over, and were rejected from some less competitive ones. We had a back up: home school with two other kids with hired tutor. My sis did it for a few years until she got her kids into private school. The schools were more curious about these weird homeschooled kids, so they got in in third grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:37: I remember your post, and I was impressed by it at the time. I was actually alluding to it, albeit flippantly, in my original post. Yes, you are right, but can't a mother vent?

As the OP of that post, my answer to this would be abso-effin-lutely a mother can vent

[Anonymous]

And probably the kids who wouldn't let go of their parents were rejected as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And probably the kids who wouldn't let go of their parents were rejected as well.

This makes me so sad because DS was rejected at only one nursery/pre-school - the only one where he had to stay and play without me. He had just turned three, and it was the first time he had ever been left on his own with twenty children and a teacher he didn't know. When I got back, he was strangely and uncharacteristically subdued and wouldn't tell me anything about his "play date." Also, I came back to the school fifteen minutes early, and the guy at the front desk told me that the nursery teacher had just called him to ask if I was back yet. Apparently my son was ready to leave fifteen minutes early.

I got NO feedback whatsoever about his play date from any adult at the school, which now I think is very unkind. If my son was uncomfortable, I would have liked either a teacher or the AD to come out and tell me so I could comfort and distract him.

He did get into our first-choice school, so in the long run, it's fine. But now I'm wondering how he did, and how he felt in that room. My instincts told me he was scared and intimidated. Now I'm pretty sure this was true.

After reading all this, I'm sad I put him through this. I know it's not the biggest deal for most people reading this, but it really annoys me. I wouldn't do it again, that's for sure.