How to hold a space at one preschool while waiting to hear from another - suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Accepted to one preschool which requires a deposit and signed contract (with a binding date the day of signature) this Friday. Still waiting to hear from the schools who send their letters out on Friday.

Any feedback from how others have handled this would be much appreciated - thanks!

[Anonymous]

I was in the same situation last year. I did not hesitate to call the preschool that we really wanted to attend. I simply let them know that I had to let another, second-choice preschool know of our intentions and did they think their waitlist would move so that my child would be attending that preschool, our first choice? They were able to reassure me that the wait list would be moving and to hold off on sending a deposit/contract to the other place since we were so high up on the wait list.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

To the PP, thanks so much. Would you mind sharing which school? We are waiting to hear from both Aidan and NCRC - haven't been waitlisted at either, they just don't send their letters out until Friday. Was thinking about calling, but don't want to appear to be a PITA family.

[Anonymous]

I would call on Thursday or Friday, let them know your situation, and if necessary, hand-deliver the contract to the other school on Friday.

[Anonymous]

If you call both on Friday and tell them which preschool you are holding a spot at, I would think they may tell you whether or not you have a spot. That's the day the letters go out, so the decisions are obviously made by then. You may even call earlier this week and ask if you can call on Friday to find out the decision because of your need to send in a deposit to another school. I did this last year at School for Friends and the director called me back that day and gave me the information I needed.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

Thanks to both the PPs.

Has anyone ever done this with Aidan?

[Anonymous]

OP - What school were you accepted at? Maybe we could give more specific info.

BTW - I also called School for Friends and asked Jim (the director) - he gave me the info over the phone. Aidan said they couldn't/wouldn't. NCRC gave us over the phone. St Albans ECC is a rolling list, so there was nothing we could do there and Kinderhaus (near the Cathedral) also gave us a decision by phone.

It doesn't hurt to call. They understand how it goes.

[Anonymous]

OP here.

Thanks. We were accepted at Chevy Chase Montessori, but waiting to hear from Aidan, NCRC, and School for Friends too.

Sorry to hear that Aidan won't give the info, but I'm not totally surprised. They are our first choice at this point.

[Anonymous]

I think Chevy Chase Montessori will be pretty flexible. They are not hard to get into and often have extra spaces left after the process is over from what I have heard.

[Anonymous]

Chevy Chase was too far from us, so I have no firsthand knowledge, but I would wait until Friday, call Aidan and ask. If the letters are out, they're out, so it can't hurt. We applied to all the schools you did (I'm the poster above who called all of the schools). This was a few years ago. We got into and chose School for Friends. Very different from Aidan, but similar to NCRC (especially the fact that both schools admit kids with learning disabilities, etc). There are many more spots this year at Friends, so chances are pretty good, dpeneding on the age of your child. Good luck!! Preschool admissions was more stressful to me than elementary school!

[Anonymous]

Has anyone done this with Little Folks? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - What school were you accepted at? Maybe we could give more specific info.

BTW - I also called School for Friends and asked Jim (the director) - he gave me the info over the phone. Aidan said they couldn't/wouldn't. NCRC gave us over the phone. St Albans ECC is a rolling list, so there was nothing we could do there and Kinderhaus (near the Cathedral) also gave us a decision by phone.

It doesn't hurt to call. They understand how it goes.

I was nervous about calling more than one school to ask since I'm not sure where I want to send my child yet! Did you call all of these schools??? And they didn't ask you to make a decision right away???

I'm such a wuss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - What school were you accepted at? Maybe we could give more specific info.

BTW - I also called School for Friends and asked Jim (the director) - he gave me the info over the phone. Aidan said they couldn't/wouldn't. NCRC gave us over the phone. St Albans ECC is a rolling list, so there was nothing we could do there and Kinderhaus (near the Cathedral) also gave us a decision by phone.

It doesn't hurt to call. They understand how it goes.

I was nervous about calling more than one school to ask since I'm not sure where I want to send my child yet! Did you call all of these schools??? And they didn't ask you to make a decision right away???

I'm such a wuss.

I did call all of the schools to which we applied. No one asked me to commit on the spot - it was quite the opposite. Most of them say "Please let us know in 2 days" (or whatever length of time they needed). They field hundreds - thousands of phone calls per year and most have it down.

[Anonymous]

Wow, thanks a lot. That's really helpful. I'll have to call NCRC on Friday if I haven't heard, plus a few others. Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

Do any of you know if there are more or less non-sibling spots at NCRC this year?