<p>there was a philosophy/program called the Better Baby Institute. For the uninitiated, this was an expensive flash card system where the parents would flash letters/pictures of presidents/colors/shapes and after a time (9 months or so) basic math principles.</p>
<p>"And the public high school process is significantly worse than anything, ANYTHING that private schools throw at people. The difference is that at the public school level, there are more peole who are less savvy and every year thousands of kids get no placements for high school at all, which necessitates another application round entirely – one which doesn’t even guarantee your child a seat in your borough.</p>
<p>^^^ Ain’t that the truth (and increasingly, you have to be pretty savvy to negotiate the elem process).</p>
<p>I think it would be better to read the complaint than the article. The article says that the complaint “suggests” she has lower chances at Ivies. The “suggestion” comes by citation of an article about pre-school/Ivies chances. Also, as her lawyer says this is a fraud case - she didn’t get what she thought she was promised. So, other than not being able to relate to people who’d pay $19k for a preschool, I think she’s got the basis for at least making a complaint.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4: I don’t know the name of the program except for Better Baby Institute. I wasn’t interested in using the program. Among the things that bothered me about it was the cult like atmosphere where your child shouldn’t associate with children who weren’t in the program. But, yes, this was in the early/mid 80s.</p>
<p>And I looked at the preschool that my youngest attended. The tuition/temple membership for part days is well over $14,000. There wasn’t any childcare when we went there. So, everyone was out by 3.</p>
<p>And SlitheyTove…I suspect you know the Mommy and Me. :)</p>
<p>The headline of this story was designed to make this mother look absurdly elitist and out of touch. Paying $19K/year on pre-school is not consistent with my values (not to mention my budget). But I don’t think it’s ridiculous for someone to pay that much (and, come to think of it, it’s not so much more than I did pay for a very good daycare a decade or so ago). It could very well be that the pre-school in question sold itself on the promise of test prep and didn’t deliver. If that’s the case, shame on them for preying on people’s insecurity and vanity. </p>
<p>Questions of different values and choices notwithstanding, I’d wager that any mother who’s not perfect can imagine a tabloid’s worth of unflattering headlines that could be written about her. Here’s one about me that’s completely true but not, I protest, an accurate reflection of the job I’m doing as a mom: “Upper middle-class mother in suburban Chicago wastes two nights a week on ‘American Idol’ but claims she ‘is too busy’ to take her daughter to mall to get new shoes.”</p>
<p>absweetmarie I am laughing with tears rolling down my cheeks. Too true!</p>
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<p>Oh, man. My tabloid article would be a disaster. Tonight’s headline: “Supposedly health-conscious mother is really more like frying the “baked potato ‘fries’” in the oven, with all the olive oil she puts on there, and completely ignores the fact that the oil might have reached its carcinogenic ‘smoke point’ because she put the oven on so high to make up for lost time.”</p>
<p>Okay, that would more be the synopsis, but you get the picture. “Healthy Organic Meal Mom Really Serves Oil-Slathered Cancer Potatoes” would be the headline.</p>
<p>In reading other articles about the lawsuit, what I find interesting is that the child attended the school for the 2009-2010 school year. Evidently, the mother was enough satisfied with the school’s performance during that school year to register and pay for a second year.</p>
<p>“Upper middle-class mother in suburban Chicago wastes two nights a week on ‘American Idol’ but claims she ‘is too busy’ to take her daughter to mall to get new shoes.”</p>
<p>Absweetmarie, that’s the funniest thing I’ve read this week!</p>
<p>I suspect the mom didn’t like the school, took her daughter out, realized the fine print says she can’t have a refund, then made the excuse that since the school wasn’t teaching what they said they would teach, that she was entitled to refund for breach of contract. I doubt the mother really thinks the Ivy League education was endangered.</p>
<p>You’d think someone from such an “augustulus-ian”* institution would stoop so low to examine lowly excrement?!!
<em>Gasp!</em> The vapors-Higgins! Fetch me some smelling salts and some pearls to clutch!! <em>shudder</em>:D:D</p>
<p>Personally, I wondered if one component of such tests is if a group of toddlers could have afternoon tea with the deportment and speech patterns of the most refined middle-aged upper-crusty-types while dining on cucumber sandwiches and biscuits. Bonus points if they’re able to perfect their “disdainful stance”…nose elevated at a minimum of a 45 degree angle.** </p>
<ul>
<li>So I took some liberties with the Latin I never learned IRL. Sue me. :D</li>
</ul>
<p>** To be fair, far too many classmates and teachers from my HS have mastered this aspect so well that it has become an artform. Had a lot of fun trying to cut them down to size by sticking the proverbial foot/banana peel right into their path and laughing when their elevated posteriors are unexpectedly introduced to the lowly ground. Instead of reading from the “great” literary/scholarly canon as a pre-schooler…I learned more from Woody Woodpecker, Looney Tunes, and The A-Team during that stage of my life. <em>Horrors!</em> :D</p>
<p>I currently attend Harvard and I thought I’d pitch in my two cents.</p>
<p>I think this is extremely sad for the child. Imagine what sort of pressure she has to go through ALL her life under the kind of crazy, obsessive mother she has. It honestly does not matter where you went to school (preschool, elementary, or even secondary school) to get into an “elite private school.” And that’s speaking from a personal experience. </p>
<p>Good Lord. I really hope there is someone more sensible than the mother in the family for the child’s sake.</p>
<p>“It honestly does not matter where you went to school (preschool, elementary, or even secondary school) to get into an “elite private school.” And that’s speaking from a personal experience.”</p>
<p>My D1s personal experience corroborates that too, per my post #174. But I wouldn’t know if that’s the norm for the NYC private schools; I only know that she got in. </p>
<p>But your comment about “secondary school” seems kind of odd, do you mean transferring in mid-high school to Collegiate is equally likely from Stuyvesant as it is from Seward Park High School, or whatever that has become these days?</p>
<p>(You do know that the “elite private school” being referred to, which she might be hoping her kid will get in to, is a NYC kindergarten/ elementary school, do you not??)</p>
<p>I may be a bit off, but I’m thinking 2014collegebound means private college/university when discussing getting into an “elite private school”.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I knew a few kids and an acquaintance who did transfer out of Stuyvesant or other specialized high schools for private schools like Collegiate, Exeter, Andover, etc. </p>
<p>From the ones I met, they tended to do so because the mostly well-off parents moved out of NYC, excessively long commutes, cutthroat “sink or swim”/no handholding environment, finding the heavy math/science emphasis wasn’t for them, and/or a desire among some well-off parents to limit their upper/upper-middle class kid(s)’ exposure to the “unwashed upstart masses”(Read: Mostly immigrant poor/working/lower-middle class student body.). </p>
<p>On the other hand, I knew about as many kids who came to Stuy from private middle schools because they felt the tiny nurturing private school environment filled with mostly upper/upper-middle class kids was too stifling and sheltered for them. Some of them had siblings who continued to attend private schools either out of personal preference or because they failed to score high enough on the admissions exam.</p>