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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not Visi but currently having this experience at another private school. As someone who has volunteered for admissions offices for years, I’m over the fake song-and-dance during admissions season and feel gross for being a part of it. Honestly, so much (all?) of what schools and even current families tell you is what they wished was true, and not what’s really going on. I feel incredibly cynical about it and now that my child is old enough to apply out, I’m wary of almost every pitch we hear.

The reality is that even in the biggest, richest cities, only 2-3 schools per city have the resources to really offer everything and at a high caliber. Everything else is going to be broadly mediocre with a few standout parts.

I grew up in public schools and really wanted more for my kid. I think private schools that aren’t truly elite are a waste and I’d rather have a well-funded public school from the 80s and the experienced faculty that used to come with that.  [/quote]

NP: Amen!!! We started a new private (not Visi) this year and both DC and I feel outright deceived. They are selling the heck out of these schools these days and the extent of fluff and BS is indeed, bordering on fraud (as another PP said). The saddest part is not only that resulting disappointment but the aftermath, having to consider transfers while managing a growing distrust. [b]Current parents often pile on the misrepresentation;[/b][b] it’s become very disheartening for us. 
[/quote]

I’m the PP you replied to and I have some thoughts on why current parents involved in admissions do this. We applied to a certain school that supposedly offered certain programs. It didn’t happen the first year we were there. It was post-Covid so we shrugged it off. But no one in admissions updated the materials we were sharing with prospective families, and the administration never said X program isn’t happening- so the assumption is it will happen next month, this winter, this spring, etc. Then the next fall rolls around and we all think, hmmm, maybe X didn’t happen because there was that new program, or the teacher was on leave, or we missed it because it’s actually for grades Y and up?

There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance when you’re just a parent and not on the inside of the school and no longer an applying family. If you’ve worked hard to get your kid into a school, you don’t immediately assume the school isn’t delivering on its promises. I think that’s why parents stick around and even buy into the stretched truths and changes realities: are you going to apply out every single school year that doesn’t go the way you imagined it should?

Even worse, I was in a position of volunteer leadership with frequent interactions with divisional heads, and eventually realized that inept administrators were misleading the head of school about their plans and what they were doing. It’s weirdly easy for a teacher or division head to tell the head of school that a project or program will happen at a mid-year review and then when it doesn’t, it isn’t visible until the end-of-year review. And then that person has to have documented inaction before a performance plan can be triggered and they can have a non-renewed contract. So even if you have an energetic head with vision, teachers and admins have long runways for failure.

A year is a big deal in a child’s life, so it’s disappointing to me that school leadership is ok letting those years slip away while they shuffle around inside their bureaucracy. When people criticize others for scrambling to get their kids into better or elite schools, I now stay quiet because I get it now.[/quote]

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