“You don’t have to cave under the unbearable weight of preschool pressure,” read the sub-headline of my 2008 article called “A Tale of Two Mommies” that appeared in Our Town and the West Side Spirit.
By the time I wrote the piece, my children were into the tail end of grammar school. I was familiar with the anxiety and frenzy (not to mention expense and self-esteem issues) from when I applied to preschool for Luke and Meg in the late ‘90s. I was surprised that a decade later, the craze continued. I’m having a harder time believing it now, five years and one recession later. And all over this practice of going to school for half a day, a few days a week.
This article in The Daily Beast is the same type article that I saw 15 years ago, about how the right nursery experience is the key to a child’s academic success (aka getting into Harvard).
In my article, I highlighted two mothers I knew, who had come from different backgrounds, yet their children ended up at the same private high school. Here is an except:
“One mother lives on Park Avenue where her husband is the building’s super. Their child attended parochial school for pre-K and grammar school. They gave more volunteer time than money to the school, but supported financially whenever they could.
The other mom lives in an Upper East Side penthouse. Her child attended private school from nursery through 8th grade. The amount of money spent on tuition, plus generous donations to the institution’s development fund, could wipe out the debt of a small country.”
I ended my story with the adage: “It’s not where they start, parents, it’s where they finish.” So, where did the two students go after they graduated from 12th grade together?
The super’s child is in Washington, D.C., matriculated at Georgetown. Penthouse kid attends a small, well-respected institution in the northeast, which is part of a group of liberal arts colleges nicknamed The Little Ivies. Seems to me they both did pretty well.
Allow me to add another variable into the mix: two former basketball and baseball teammates of Luke went to public school from pre-K through 12 right here in New York City. One is going to Bard, a private liberal arts college on the Hudson, and the other is at University of Pittsburgh–a large, public university ranked in the top 100 Best Colleges by US News & World Report.
Some New York parents may be disappointed to learn that there’s not that much disparity among where students can end up college-wise, regardless of how much money parents invest in their earlier education. I imagine that a few private school supporters count on the extra tuition dollars to secure a spot at a top school; others will want to hear that private school kids screw up altogether; and there are those in public school who will want to hear that it’s their kids who end up in the Ivy League.
Sorry. College has become hard to get into for everyone. Most seniors end up somewhere in the middle — at good, quality schools that they and their guidance counselors deem the right fit. There are indeed private, parochial, as well as public school kids, who end up in the Ivy League. There are also people in those three groups who decide they’re tired of the academic grind and take a gap year, or want to forgo school entirely and go to work.
When your child is applying to college, the application asks about grades, naturally, but also about interests, community service and the kind of person your child has become, a self that developed long after nursery school –a place, by the way, that colleges don’t concern themselves with.
Private, parochial, public: If children are in reputable academic environments throughout grammar and high school, and have parents who take a real interest in their education, they will succeed.
Wherever you end up in September, good luck.
Lorraine Duffy Merkl is a freelance writer in NYC and author of the novel, FAT CHICK, and the upcoming BACK TO WORK SHE GOES. Learn more about her writing at lorraineduffymerkl.com.
