<p>Here’s something that everyone should read - and we thought that getting admitted to college was a big hurdle… <a href=“Exclusive: Inside the Cutthroat Preschool Wars - ABC News”>http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=1915973&page=1</a></p>
<p>I wonder what they do with those $500k gifts. How much construction paper and crayons can they use?</p>
<p>You could finance a few rebel armies with the amount of cash these istitutions generate.</p>
<p>Every spring there are two predictable local-to-NY news stories.</p>
<p>One is the cutthroat pre-K admissions process, the other is the eye popping increase in independent (private) school tuition. This year’s was something like “Horace Mann tuition greater than Harvard”.</p>
<p>Most of these stories are planted by the private school advisor/tutor industry.</p>
<p>I’d like to hear the name of a $500K donor who’s child was not admitted to Fieldston.</p>
<p>Does anyone know where these kids ended up getting in (or not getting in, for that matter)?</p>
<p>Yikes! Seeing that craziness, it’s amazing I got in. But that was so long ago. It seems much worse now.</p>
<p>You might also want to check out this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=111494[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=111494</a></p>
<p>Lemonjello, do you walk around wearing a sweatshirt with the name of your nursery school on the front?</p>
<p>Anyone else hear something a bit too familiar in the parent’s gushing language describing ‘fit’ ?</p>
<p>Whether it’s nursery school or university, the sight of privileged parents crawling over their dignity to give their already over-privileged children a ‘leg-up’ is not pretty.</p>
<p>
dstark, how did you know? Was it that obvious? :)</p>
<p>In all seriousness, no I don’t. Those parents are crazy. If you read the other thread I gave the link to, you’d notice how critical of the whole preschool thing I am. I hope I didn’t send the wrong message.</p>
<p>Lemonjello, I was just fooling around.</p>
<p>Wild Child got kicked out of 4 year old preschool on his 5th birthday. His older sister was the star of the first grade. It was all quite traumatic at the time, but one of my business associates said, “Hey- that’s awesome! That kid is going places!” Made me feel a little better.</p>
<p>My kid went to Head Start. Free-- if you’re poor enough.</p>
<p>Mine did 6 hours a week at the local Y–not free but darn close.</p>
<p>Fieldston/Ethical has an excellent track record of college admissions - Fieldston students go to the Ivies and top LACS.</p>
<p>I actually do have a sweatshirt with the name of my pre-school on it. I went there from 4’s to grade 6 and still thank them regularly for the excellent education I received. And yes, I wear it from time to time.</p>
<p>My younger D wears the shirts that she has gotten with her summer camps over the years- Discovery Park- pacific science Center- the Woodland park zoo- she was little when she got them- but being she likes to wear them much snugger than she used to they still work!</p>
<p>I went to the 92nd street Y when I was little, and let me explain what all the hype is about. The teachers there really are better than anywhere else. They can tell you the difference between a 3 year old and a 3 year 3 month old. They make sure that kids get to play outside no matter what the weather’s like (they put up a covering over the playground when it rains). And most importantly, the school gets you into any K-12 school in the city. It’s really hard to get in anywhere no matter how smart you are in New York, so parents try anything that might help.</p>
<p>although I will admit, nobody’s ever asked me what nursery school I used to go to, and it’s not something that I’m really proud of or otherwise. It’s nursery. It doesn’t really matter. Although had I not gone there, it may have been harder to get into my school. All in all, we were very happy with the school and it was worth it.</p>
<p>Of course, it wasn’t 25k when I went. It was probably half that. I went in the early 90’s. I’m in 10th grade. I think I’ll be applying to either Columbia or Penn when the time comes. Oh, and my parents never hired tutors when I was 2 or anything like that. They weren’t ridiculous. And we didn’t pay our way in. My mother’s brazillian, so that added diversity to the classroom, which is something the Y really valued. </p>
<p>It was awesome.</p>
<p>This kind of story always baffles me. Who ARE these people? My kids all went to a co-op nursery school, which they (and I) loved. They played, they colored, they did crafts, had peanut butter sandwiches and apple juice for snacktime, and ended each morning playing out on the small playground. I enjoyed my ‘duty days’ where the moms prepared the snacks, supervised activities, and even cleaned the toilets! My girls all are imaginative, creative, intelligent, and successful kids, and the three who have gone through the college admissions process have all been admitted to excellent schools. I can’t imagine how this happened without us paying $25 thousand each year. Unbelievable.</p>
<p>you’re not from New York, are you? </p>
<p>It’s a different world here. It’s impossible to get into good schools here, and to be admitted into a good kindergarten, you have to go to a good nursery school. </p>
<p>I think it’s horrible how early they start you, but there’s not much you can do about it. In a city where everyone is struggling to be the best, you shouldn’t expect something different. </p>
<p>And when you do pay (I think it was 14,000 when I was little), you are getting more than other kids do. We had an incubator in the classroom where we had duck eggs. Every day, 2 kids would do what reminds me now of a lab. I mean, a lab for little kids, nothing complicated. Then, the ducks hatched and we got to take them home for a day. </p>
<p>We did a lot more than coloring. And they’d never make the parents clean toilets.</p>