The Kindergarten Wars

by Alan Eisenstock

  “We have a two-page application and not much room for people to write things,” he said. “We do that on purpose. But there are people who still write on every line, ‘See attached.’ And they’ll send a ten-page, single-spaced typewritten thing. To me, that sends a message. The message is they’re always going to be in my office because everything is not going to be just so. And their child is so precious. ‘Oh, they asked. They must really want to know all about him.’ Yeah. I’d love to read ten pages about your kid.”

  Red Flag #2: Regurgitation

  For what reasons would Hunsford School be a good fit for your family philosophically?

  Hunsford’s philosophy takes into consideration the uniqueness of each child. Alex is eager to learn. She took her first dance class this summer and emulated the teacher’s every movement and wanted to learn. Further, Hunsford places a strong emphasis on academics while teaching in a very comfortable environment.

  Katie Miller peeked over the top of the Hunsford application, and whispered, “I’m kind of quoting what they said in their . . . thing. Is that a no-no?”

  “To me, the number one red flag is people who pull stuff right out of the catalog,” an admissions director said. “Or right off the Web site. Word for word. What do they think, I’m not going to recognize it? People do it all the time, every year. Amazing. Blows my mind.”

  A school head added, “The point of the written application is to create talking points so when I’m in the interview I can refer to what the parents have written. I will key a couple of things that are important to me to bring up. I don’t want people obsessing over what to write. And don’t think, What answer do they want? It doesn’t matter. I care about what you value. That’s essentially it. I think that parents make choices as parents. And I think that the application tries to get at what kinds of choices are important to you. There really isn’t a right or wrong answer. The application is just an opportunity for parents to express themselves a little bit so we can get to know the families in the interview. If what they say is right out of the brochure, I write that down. It’s a red flag. I want the parents to be real.”

  Red Flag #3: Nut Jobs

  What individual or family activities does your family enjoy?

  Last summer, our family spent three weeks in Tibet following the Dalai Lama. The moment we began our inward and outward journey, Hannah and the Dalai Lama connected in some deep metaphysical way. They would communicate totally without speaking but it was clear to everyone in the ashram—and to the Dalai Lama himself—that Hannah is a child blessed with an old soul and that perhaps she was a shaman in another life. She is certainly wise well beyond her four years.

  “When a parent writes something that’s nuts?” said MK, director of admissions at Longbourne in New York. “Big blinking red flag.”

  “Normally people are very guarded in writing their applications,” Brianna, director of admissions at the Hunsford School, said. “Often the applications are only marginally related to the people who write them because so many people are taking notes on the tours, writing down buzzwords they hear that they send back to us on the applications. You get a lot of that. When someone goes way over the top, it’s easy to spot.”

  Dana Optt at Pemberley said, “To me, one of the most important questions is, ‘What individual or family activities does your family enjoy?’ I’m really looking to learn about the family. Tell me about family trips, taking bike rides, that sort of thing. You don’t have to wow me. In fact, the more low-key, the better. Don’t tell me that your family toured the Sistine Chapel last summer and little Johnny or little Mary had a spiritual awakening at the age of four. I’m not buying it. I’ll bet they were bored to tears. Don’t go nuts on the application. When in doubt, talk to your preschool director. Most of them are sophisticated about the process. They’ll catch the stuff that’s off-the-wall.”

  Occasionally, though, something falls through the cracks.

  A few years ago, a family submitted an application to Pemberley in which the parents described their child in such an over-the-top way that Dana dreaded meeting them.

  There’s nothing left, Dana thought. This kid has done everything. He’s like the messiah or something.

  They didn’t stop there. One morning Dana’s assistant, Gail, came into Dana’s office. She was clearly trying to suppress a smile and failing.

  “You just got a package,” she said.

  “Okay, bring it in,” said Dana.

  “I’d really like to but I can’t. You’re gonna have to come out into the hall.”

  Dana followed Gail out of her office. In the middle of the hallway stood a five-foot-high package swaddled in brown wrapping paper. Dana ripped off the paper and found herself staring at a huge picture of the messianic child from the application, a photograph that the parents had blown up and mounted into a giant, self-standing poster.

  “Help me understand,” Dana said after staring at the picture in stunned silence. “Why would anybody do this?”

  “You should see the size of their wallets,” Gail said, finally allowing her laugh to escape.

  Dana whirled back into her office, called the parents, and told them to pick up their picture immediately. They arrived within the hour. Dana met them in the hallway. But instead of an obnoxious, haughty couple, she found two sheepish, deeply embarrassed, down-to-earth people.

  “We are so humiliated,” the mom said.

  “I have to know. Did somebody here give you the idea to do this?” Dana asked.

  “No,” the dad said. “It was all our idea.”

  “We’re feeling so much pressure that we wanted our child to stand out,” the mom said. “We knew the minute you called that we’d made a serious mistake.”

  Dana was confused. The people standing before her in the hallway seemed totally unlike the people who appeared on the application. She actually liked these people. They were humble, awkward, nervous; they were normal. Later, she phoned their preschool and spoke to the director.

  “Did you see their application?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’m gonna fax it to you.”

  Dana then told her about the picture. The director was stunned. She knew this couple as model parents, ideal candidates for Pemberley. In the end, Dana dismissed the giant photograph as an aberration and admitted the child into Pemberley.

  “They are the most amazing family,” Dana said. “The process had freaked them out. The trick is to be able to separate the people who are acting crazy from the ones who are truly nuts.”

  Be a Person

  “When you write your application, there are two things you can do,” an educational consultant tells her clients. “Distinguish your child in some way and show your passion for the school, your dedication, and your intention to work hard. And do your homework. Pay attention to the culture of the school. How is it different from other schools? Think about that.”

  New Yorker Shea Cohen knew that she had to somehow distinguish her son Liam on her application. She found this a challenge.

  “Liam takes art class. That’s really it. He tried soccer, didn’t like it. He hasn’t really done that much. I mean, he’s four,” Shea said. “What’s outstanding about him is his personality. He’s so sweet, just a nice, nice kid. He’s very caring. He always looks out for the other kids, always tries to include them, loves to share his stuff. If he gets a new toy, he can’t wait to show it to his friends.”

  Shea also thought it was important to write about their family. “I think the schools want to know who you are. What is your parenting style? Are you the kind of family that has your kid running from activity to activity all the time? Is your kid one of those programmed kids who goes from soccer to karate to art class? Or are you people who do a lot of family activities? That’s more who we are. So we talked about our family, and the types of things that we do together. Finally, we talked about how we viewed Liam as an academic. What we think his academic potential is. We talked about his intellectua
l curiosity. We talked a lot about his early reading. We couched it in terms of his being precocious. In other words, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, our son read early, isn’t that phenomenal?’ Didn’t do that. We put it in terms that it has given him something he loves. It has expanded his mind and his world. Because his ability to read has enabled him to ask lots of questions about the world around him, about the things he’s reading. And it gives him more and more mental activity, which shows us that he really needs to be in a place where he’s intellectually stimulated. Liam is not a kid who wants to run in the park all day. Overall, we were to the point and specific. We wanted to paint a picture of our kid. We wanted the schools to get to know him. The worst thing you can do, I think, is to use a lot of adjectives. Your kid ends up sounding like a cliché and not a person.”

  Standing over the stove, stirring a box of rigatoni noodles into a steaming pot, Katie Miller prepares dinner for Alex and her two-year-old brother, Nick. When the pasta is finished, she will toss it in a bowl with butter and Parmesan cheese, the kids’ favorite.

  “The last thing I wanted was to get caught empty-handed and find out I’d missed the deadline. That’s why I started way ahead of time. I’m glad I did because I’ve seen Hunsford twice and I’m going back and I’ve seen Evergreen once and I’m going back there. That’s what the luxury of time gives you.”

  Katie stirs the pasta slowly, then lays her wooden spoon down on the counter, where it teeters near the edge.

  “I know this is important, but I’m trying to be as chill as I can. Some people are losing sleep left and right. When we went on the Pemberley tour, there was something about being among those parents that didn’t fit. I consider myself more relaxed and laid-back and I didn’t feel that I could ever be relaxed and laid-back with them. I felt a lot of anxiety around me that night. It was cutthroat. Way too cutthroat for me. I do think the admissions directors try to minimize the trauma as much as they can. They want people to feel comfortable at their school, but let’s be honest. We’re trying to get in and they’re looking for people to take. If there were a few more schools in this town, it wouldn’t even be an issue.”

  Katie checks the timer. Less than a minute to go. She wipes her palms on her apron, then absently picks up the spoon.

  “I wish I could just settle for our local public school. I wish I could. I was talking to somebody yesterday who said, ‘But your local school is getting better.’ That’s not good enough. In the beginning, I was feeling guilty when I started looking at private schools. I tried. I was open. I went to my public school. I visited, took a tour, asked questions. I wanted to know what I was saying no to. I wanted to know what everybody was complaining about. My attitude was, why is everybody being so snooty? Then I went on the private school tours and I saw that the private schools are far superior. More than just the reading and writing. The kids are going to learn to read and write anywhere. That’s not the issue. It’s who is my child going to become at the end of these seven years, nine years, thirteen years? That’s the issue. Who is my child?”

  A sea of white foam bubbles up in the pasta water. “Well, at least the applications are in. I think I’m in pretty good shape. We’ll see. We’ll find out next March.”

  The timer goes off, a series of high-pitched staccato beeps, sounding the alarm.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  So Many Fabulous Families

  The thing about interviews is you know you’re not always going to get honest answers. You’re going to get what they think you want to hear. It’s a little bit like a blind date. You know that everybody’s going to be on their best behavior.

  —a private school director of admissions

  Shrink Session

  What are admissions directors looking for in the interview?

  In two words: normal and nice.

  “All schools are looking for someone who is going to bust her butt, work hard, and be present. Every school wants normal folks. Nobody wants an obnoxious parent who is going to make everyone’s life miserable,” a school official said.

  Educational consultant Emily Glickman expanded on this. “What you have to do in the interview is present a picture of an easygoing, pleasant family who is going to fit in well with the community and not cause any waves. No school wants parents who fight with teachers, who are demanding, or who are always making appointments with the school head. They want to enroll manageable parents.”

  But how do admissions directors find out who’s naughty and who’s nice? Beyond taking the word of preschool directors, who may have their own agenda when it comes to placing as many of their parents in top schools as they can, or the recommendations of the applicant’s friends, admissions directors have to rely on their observations and instincts during the interviews.

  “It’s a total shrink session,” Dana Optt said. “I know people come in here and they are very stressed out. I try to look at the process from their perspective. Plus, I am representing Pemberley. I am the first line. What you are going to remember is how I made you feel. I will do damage to the school if I don’t give you the time and attention you need. I want you to feel that I am interested in you, which I am, and that you have an absolutely fair shot of getting in. You have paid a hundred dollars. I owe you that. I want you to feel, ‘Okay, they spent time with me, they spent time with my kid, they showed me the school, they answered all my questions, and they treated me with respect.’ And when the interview is over, I ask myself, ‘Was I really fair? Did I have the right perspective? Did I jump the gun? Did I read the body language wrong?’ It’s intense for you and for me.”

  For some admissions directors, the key to “normal” may lie in how much parents talk about themselves.

  “I try to steer the interview toward the kid. That’s what it’s all about for me,” an admissions director said. “I want to know about the child’s personality, her quirks, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses. Just talk about her.”

  Dana Optt, like many admissions directors, considers herself a keen observer of human behavior. “I study body language. I watch how the two of you relate to each other. Are you on the same page? Who dominates? Is she going to let him speak? Does he want to be here? I watch the whole display. I get it all, the soft push, the hard push, and of course the name-dropping. Are you gonna go there? Are you gonna get into Who We Know? Are you going to try to impress me? Or are you just going to stick with your kid? It’s also how you talk about your kid. If you ask me about algebra in first grade and you express deep academic concerns, I will note that. If you go on and on about how incredible your kid is in T-ball, I’ll write on my form, ‘They’re going to need specialized math and they believe their child is the next Barry Bonds.’ We’ll never make them happy. Cross ’em off.”

  “I really love the interviews.”

  Edgar Mantle, head of Evergreen School, leans across his desk. He balls both hands into fists and pushes himself to his feet. “I enjoy relating one-on-one with families. Chatting. I like that.”

  Edgar gallops to a three-tiered metal filing cabinet planted in the corner of his office. He yanks out a drawer, licks his fingers, and rustles through a row of manila folders. He stops three folders from the back.

  “Aha,” he says, and snaps at the folder with his middle finger as if flicking away a piece of lint. He licks his fingers again, pulls a single sheet of paper out of the folder, and peers at it.

  “Here we are. This gives an idea of how it’s done.”

  He returns to his desk, sits back down, and places the sheet of paper in front of him. He runs his palm down the page, smoothing it out as if it’s wrinkled. “When I sit down in my interviews, I refuse to have a standard set of questions. I read the application carefully. I see what leaps off the page. I then write down a couple of ideas about what I want to get the parents to talk about. I want them to talk about themselves, their kid, philosophy of education, what they’re looking for. I try to be folksy. There are a lot of times at the end of a talk I have with parents where t
hey’ll say, ‘Isn’t there going to be an interview?’ I say, ‘I think that’s what we just had.’ For me, it’s a kind of feel process.”

  He taps the sheet on his desk. “Having said that, and recognizing that this process is far from a science, although I don’t know if I would call it an art either . . .”

  Edgar slides the piece of paper across his desk. Across the top in bold type is the heading Evergreen School Form For Parents’ Admissions Interview. Tucked immediately below is a cluster of lines requesting: “Child’s name,” “Date of birth,” “An only child?” “Sibs’ name(s) and age(s),” “Who toured? Mom____Dad____,” “Mother’s name,” “Dad’s name,” “Mom’s work,” “Dad’s work,” “Nursery school,” and “Other schools they are considering.” Below this are a few more lines for comments after: “Notes from current school,” “Notes from application,” “Notes from Evergreen visit,” and “General comments.”

  Edgar scratches his head, then rakes his fingers through his hair. “Every application is graded,” he says. “Each person who participates in the process—myself, the kindergarten teachers, admissions director—gives a number 1, a number 2, or a number 3. In our system, 3 is the best. When you’re only giving people three choices, you also have minuses and pluses. We all grade each application. A straight 3, chances are, is going to get in. We start looking to shape the classes after that. We start looking beyond the 3s. Now, what makes a 3? For example.”

  Edgar nods at the fifth line on the page. “Nursery school. I look here and I might say, ‘Oh, I’ve known so-and-so who’s run this nursery school for years.’ That’s a good recommendation.”

  Edgar lifts his shoulders in a shrug massive enough to wriggle out of a winter coat.