Mission Admission!

Few years earlier I was having this conversation with my best friend:


Me: So when are you planning for baby 2?


She: Are you crazy? We are already struggling with Pre.KG admission. I don’t want to go through it again.


Me: What?


She: You won’t understand unless you go through itt. School admissions are acting as effecting contraceptive these days……


That time I couldn’t comprehend the toughness behind school admissions. My father is a retired employee of public sector bank which meant transfer to new city every three years. Many a times we have landed in a new city without securing admission in schools. Within few days we will undergo the process of entrance exam, meeting the principal and Ta-da admissions will be over.


I never knew the pain of what parents were undergoing for last few years in Chennai. When I was pregnant someone asked me,


‘Did you apply for the ****** school admission?’


‘I think you are mistaken me for somebody else. This is my first child.’ I replied innocently.


‘oh no you don’t get it.’ She was completely annoyed. ‘You should register to that school atleast when you are five months pregnant. You are late now. But still go and try.’ She said consolingly.


That conversation left me baffled. I did browse to find out that what she said was true indeed! At the moment admissions for the year 2021 is closed by the school!


It was when R turned two years, I decided to plunge into school admissions:


Coming to schooling in Chennai these are the various boards:

• State Board/Matriculation: They have lost out charm post ‘samacheer kalvi’ implementation

• CBSE: This board has become bare minimum standards for many parents. So for a school with 100 seats there are atleast 3000 applications. Watchman in the school, shooes away the parents without formal admission email from the school.

• ICSE: They are more cultured than CBSE schools. Here watchman points to the board hanging in the school gate which says refer to school website for details.

• International: They give you a very warm welcome and show you around the school. Parents get a mini heart attack seeing the fee structure, wherein one year of school fees exceeds total education expenses of your life.

We couldn’t decide on which board to choose so decided to go along with the flow and decided to try all the boards. We made shortlist of schools in the near by vicinity and started learning about its admission process.


Most of the schools have siblings quota, alumni quota, quota for teachers and remaining few seats are available for public. Say if the school has 100 seats open to public almost 1000 application swarms in easily. Those applications are filtered in terms of: annual income of parents, distance from house to school, second language chosen, Mother should be educated not working , Whether availing school transportation etc. Grrr…Looks like we had more chances of spotting polar bear in Thar Desert than getting the school admission.


Added to it even if your kid is short listed there will be an interaction round.

We started exploring about the interaction round ‘Where mostly kid will be asked to identify shapes or colours, sing a rhyme and will be given a chocolate to check whether kid says ‘Thank You’. This gave us sleepless nights. We were afraid what would happen if R snatches the entire box and says it’s ‘miiine’ as he does regularly.


In one of the school we applied they asked us to write an essay on our parenting techniques. So for someone who never followed any technique this term was new to us. Again we sought Google’s help to learn what parenting technique is and submitted that essay. We never heard from them since. I hope my son never gets to know that poor essay of his mom denied him the admission!


We decided throw the towel and try for LKG admissions directly next year. It was a colleague of mine, who opened my eyes regarding the matter. If getting admission in Pre.KG is like climbing a hill, getting admission in LKG is like climbing Mount.Everest. Most schools have their seats filled in Pre.KG and don’t have even a single seat open for LKG.


Finally we received a mail from a reputed school to bring R for an interaction. When we reached the venue they told that there will be a group interaction round for parents along with the principal as well. R was taken to a room where several other kids who had come for interaction were playing. He was given a ball and asked to play with it, which he happily did. Meanwhile all the parents were called for interview with principal and it was to get the expectations of parents about the school.


Couple of days later, we received the mail which said ‘We are pleased to offer….’. It was the best sentence I read in recent times in lines of ‘Salary is credited…’. Mission accomplished and we can breath in relief till his college admissions!

 

@creativemumma: Oh oh. Hope you narrow down soon. Where are you based upon? I too prepared a similar excel sheet for school admission.

 

True. Paying fees for single child itself gave me heart attack, not sure what would have happened if it's twins. They call it admission fees in most of the schools here!

 

This school scores well in safety aspect. Hope it lives up to the expectations. I agree with you on parent's have a greater role in grooming kids personality