Considering all the lip service private schools pay to “no first choice”, it is amazing what is going on behind the scenes. I have never seen so much brokering going on as I am seeing this year, the top tier schools going at it as much as any of the others. With the financial crisis, private schools are trying to get a sense of how many accepted kids will actually enroll. As a result, many families are hearing from their preschool directors now, several weeks before the official reply date, about schools’ interest in them.
Even when it’s good news, families are not necessarily happy. A number of my clients, told of multiple schools’ interest in their child, don’t feel ready to commit. Sometimes people have not even finished visiting schools. How can they tell their preschool director that they will definitely send their child to one school? They feel rushed, adding stress to an already stressful process.