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Private School Parents Confess
ON THE INTERVIEW PROCESS
Sucking Up Subtly
“Should you send an ‘I love you’ letter to your first choice? In the past, it was key, but now it’s seen as an act of desperation. Instead, you basically have to bribe your preschool director to tell the school you’ll definitely come. It’s just the same thing, but through back channels.” — West Village mother awaiting a kindergarten-admissions decision
Forcing Sick Kids to Play
“Schools hate when you reschedule play dates. So when my 3-year-old woke up with a fever of 102, I had to decide: Send in a sick kid or keep her home? It felt like I was going to be denying her a Harvard education because of one small cold. But am I a horrible parent for forcing a sick child to interview?” — Tribeca mother awaiting admissions decisions for kindergarten
Dads Who Need Sedation
"When we took our daughter for her play date, my husband freaked out. First, he froze when we met the admissions director. Then he started making uncomfortable jokes about pot to other parents. Then he accused another little girl of stealing our daughter's sweater. I practically had to give him a Valium halfway through." — D.C. mother awaiting admissions decisions for kindergarten
Interview Envy
“At Dalton, the big question is, did you get an interview with Babby? [Elisabeth "Babby" Krents is Dalton’s admissions director.] The perception is, if not, then you’re wasting your time—there’s no chance your child will get in. So my wife casually mentioned we did speak with Babby to another couple we’re friends with over dinner, and the other woman literally leapt across the table at her. Well, it turns out they didn’t get a meeting with Babby.” —Upper East Side father of twin eighth-grade girls
Sick With Worry
"I literally made myself sick getting our son into kindergarten. I developed a rash. I threw up before interviews. When he got rejected from our first choice, I had such a bad migraine that my husband had to take me to the emergency room." — Boston private-school mom, now applying to kindergarten for her second child
What to Wear
“For my husband and I, we began obsessing. What should we wear? Should I get my hair done? How much jewelry is over the top? But then, it turned around and we began to scrutinize the admissions offices: This one is a little shabby, this one a little corporate. At our first choice, we thought it was the worst sign when we interviewed with an assistant gym teacher in his office, which was the size of a closet. Turns out we got in.” — Tribeca mother of a sixth-grader on last year’s admission process
Ratted Out By the Kid
“Don’t bribe your kid to behave during the interview or play date. One child asked for her $20 on the way out the door, and the admissions officer heard it. Let’s just say it reflected poorly.” — Victoria Goldman
If You're a Celebrity, Use It
“If you’re rich or know the right people, you want to trumpet it, but at the same time, you need to act down-to-earth and modest. It’s a delicate balancing act. I had one client, the unknown husband of a well-known celebrity, who was calling admissions offices only to hear that the schools were no longer sending out applications. Obviously, the wrong spouse was calling. The actress needed to call, and act really nice, and even doing that, their kid needed to get decent ERB scores.” — Emily Glickman, founder and president of Abacus Guide, a Manhattan-based admissions consultancy
Lost in the Mail
“We heard the post office was dropping a day of service, and of course it would start February 11, the day admissions letters go out. Why are they doing this to us?” — Brooklyn father awaiting admissions decisions for his 4-year-old son.
Kathleen Kingsbury is a writer based in New York. She's a contributor to Time Magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
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Thanks for making me feel better about not being able to afford private school! Many public schools (including ours) might be subpar, but at least the sign-up process is a cinch.
How sad to be so frantic over pre-school. My daughter attended a regular neighborhood pre-school, then 12 years of public school - and still got into (and graduated from) an ivy. I'd rather focus on my child's unique potential and not worry about fitting her into an arbitrary mold.
Relax parents. Just send the kids to Catholic parochial schools.
Low tuition, economic diversity (and diversity is ipso facto good, isn't it?), buy one uniform a year, no-frills basics emphasized,
and no horrible little snobs to put up with.
I'm glad to know Catholic schools have improved. Back in my day there was no diversity, we were all Catholic, and white, with no wider world view. That did, at least, teach me to think for myself.
What everyone needs to remember is that admission to these elite schools is by no means a guarantee that your child will be admitted to a good college. Remember colleges embrace diversity of all kinds. Harvard, for example, will reject perfect students from these elite schools because they have too many applicants just like them.
An excellent public school or Catholic school can be a winning choice if your end game is to get your kid into the best college.
Cheenthere, that must have been a very long time ago. In many cities, Catholic schools are heavily non-white and non-Catholic.
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Shallow parents, shallow kids, Elite schools won't change that.
tomfarr and Cheenthere: While diverse, the parents usually have one thing in common: a strong commitment to their kids' education.
With one kid in Bronx Science, one graduated from there, and another graduated from Stuyvesant, I feel pretty smart myself. I saved hundreds of thousands (which I don't have).
Oy vey!!! My husband is a sort of big macher in Washington, D.C....career, not appointed...in the private sector...not a lobbyist. Our daughter got into all of the top private schools and we have elected to home school her. Not inexpensive, but convenient and conducive to family happiness and contentment.
She is in high school now and progressing well. Home schooling provided her with the ability to become an actress and she has built up an impressive resume of work.
This girl knows how to apply for a job, get the job and keep the job. She is ready for the world whether or not top colleges accept or reject her.
This article is a prurient exercise in peeking at the insecure upper middle class and their self centered dramas. If people really live like this, they deserve what they get and..if not....we are all just voyeurs taking joy in the unimportant conceits of endowed idiots.
I really wonder sometimes what the deal is with the elite private school. Do these parents want their kids attending because of the solid academic base it will give them, or do they want their kids to attend because of the solid social boost it will give them?
While public school is, particularly at the primary and elementary levels, usually a disgrace, there are many excellent public schools out there. And there are excellent private schools that don't cater to the social elite. If you want what is truly best for your child, hunt for the best education, not the best label.
Private schools are led by the nose of their accreditation organizations which only care about diversity. (I am still waiting to see the scientific evidence that this does anything other than make guilty white people feel better). Goals for "diversity" at these exclusive schools is 25% with scholarships paying for much of the effort. As schools wrestle with their financial conditions and contributions to the annual fund are down, scarcer scholarship money will be applied first to existing students, so if you are trying to get in and can pay, it will be a plus this year.
Always seemed to me that the culture at many of these schools -- including the parental focus on status, as evidenced here -- can be unhealthy for these kids and does not prepare them adequately for life outside the bubble. The people I know who are most successful in life are not the ones who went to my prestigious Ivy League college -- they went to public and often state schools, and emerged with good values, a strong work ethic, and a high comfort level in dealing with people unlike themselves.
How sad. My siblings and I all attended public schools. A couple went to college. One went on to dental school and became a dentist graduating from the Univ of Md. Now her 2 twins have gone through public schools and now both are going to be dentist. My sister graduated magna cum laude. Both of her twins are doing very well. None of them went to elite schools. My sister has her own practice and when her twins graduate they will be joining her practice. All having gone to public schools and a good college. Why do people put so much pressure on their children? I will never know.
Putting huge pressure on a 2-year-old makes it more likely that the kid will: A. flame out, or B. become a Type A ballistic missile that nobody in our hypernetworked world wants to work with. Either way, the kid's education will be good but his prospects, not so much. Let's be honest, these parents are schmucks, they didn't achieve their dreams and so now they go crazy trying to push the kids. Sad.
Appalling. When people wonder where crooked CEOs come from I can show them this article. All this panic aboout preschool, so they can someday get into supposedly elite colleges. As if the graduates of those schools don't have their fingers all over the mess we're in now. A fine education, indeed.
"My daughter was just in a funk that day..." I love how these parents refuse to consider the possibility that their kids didn't score in the top ten percent because they aren't in the top ten percent.
If these kids grew up to serve their country I might not be so annoyed. But they'll grow up like their parents: to serve themselves, while sneering at the lower and middle classes for their poor manners and belief in God. Off to an Ivy League school and a Wall Street job, or to Harvard Law. They'll pretend to care about the environment and minorities by writing checks and being earnest at cocktail mixers, but they'll cheat on their taxes while voting for more of them.
These people are the death of the Republic.
You are pretending that these parents still have enough money left to pay for private schooling. While they may not be Wall Streeters, I know from headmaster friends that there were plenty of students who didn't return for this semester due to lack of funds. Over the summer, other kids may get the bad news. Somehow, they'll learn to make do, study hard wherever they are, and survive not having attended one of the elite schools.
Perhaps, this is also a midstream correction that was needed.
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The school admissions process does not get any less frenzied, especially in large, wealthy, urban areas. So many "good kids" and so much competition. When it comes time for college, these parents will have to spend an awful lot of time atoning for their sins of commission and omission on behalf of their darlings. The sad thing is, sometimes the subterfuge actually works.
Regarding the Portland family, the "liberal" thing to do shouldn't be trying to get into an elite private school because you're so afraid of the unwashed "them" in the public schools. I still don't see how liberals fretting about changing the public education in this country can make it better if they have no belief in it now. They may be pleasantly surprised if they checked out their better local public schools.
And as for future performance, the parents' commitment to their child's education seems to have a far greater impact than whether the school is public or private.
Obviously sending your kid to public school doesn't mean they can't grow up to be a doctor, lawyer, or ibanker, and sending them to private school doesn't guarantee that they will. But, private school does stack the deck in their favor. I'm not sure if this stat is representative, but at my East Coast Liberal Arts College, about half the student body came from public school and the other half from private. That ratio is way out of whack with the ratio of public school to private school students nationally, heavily favoring private school students. I don't think the students who graduated from my college are on average any better off spiritually, emotionally, or even intellectually than graduates of most other colleges and universities around the country, but on average, they do have higher incomes. So, if that's what you want for your kid, maybe it's worth it to spend $15,000 on a kindergarden admissions counselor.
As a first-tier rejectee from DC private schools (and 2nd tier attendee), I'll just self-indulgently say that I had to develop a lot of character and personality bc I couldn't cruise along on my reputation.
Thank you.
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