Kindergarten? It's competitive in L.A.
THE VELVET JUMP-ROPE
It's been a hysteria-prone season for parents of preschoolers jockeying for the coveted slots at top-tier private schools.
IT was a nail-biter of a month. But at last the news is in: The idle chitchat, the intense speculation and competitive jockeying are over, and families throughout the Los Angeles area are either exulting in victory or wallowing in defeat.
It's kindergarten acceptance time, the make-it or break-it moment when L.A.'s top private schools mail their acceptance and rejection letters, then conveniently take off on spring break to dodge the hysteria. And by all accounts, this year has been especially brutal.
"Most people received their letters on Good Friday," says Hancock Park mom Chesney Hill. "But all the moms call it Black Friday."
Although the numbers are still being tallied, consultant Jamie Nissenbaum, whose company L.A. School Mates helps parents plan an admissions strategy, has seen nearly a 20% increase in applications for schools that typically cost $20,000 a year. Parents who would've applied to four or five schools last year are now applying to seven or eight and are even considering -- gasp -- public school.
"I've seen parents with kids as young as 11 months schmoozing top admissions directors at fundraising events," says Nissenbaum. "Even siblings . . . are no longer guaranteed spots at certain schools."
Desperate for a new edge, parents are turning to private consultants such as Nissenbaum, padding admissions essays, plying admissions directors with lattes and sending family snapshots with recorded messages. When all else fails, there's always the time-honored tradition of name-dropping.
"It's been a really, really difficult year," says Ruth Segal, director of Wagon Wheel nursery school, a preschool often considered by parents to be a feeder for the city's most coveted kindergartens. "I've had so many mothers calling crying because they didn't get into schools." Segal spent much of last week working the phones, trying to find spots for students who got shut out.
Private schools in the Los Angeles area are now receiving up to 10 applications per opening, says Jim McManus executive director of the California Assn. of Independent Schools, and the quality of applicants is getting better. "The competition just keeps getting stiffer," he says. "And it's causing a lot of stress and agony for everyone involved."
