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Look at it this way: Since the school was so rude in its manner of rejection would you really want your child in such a school?
It's hard to take the rejection and we can't help but be hurt by it. After all, we want our children to have the best education available.
Let it go. It is not worth your time and effort. You'll find something that is perfect. Keep looking but don't let that first experience jade further experiences.
Or, we could just mosey over to that school and beat up the selection panel.......not.
OP here:
Oh, trust me. I feel like we dodged a HUGE bullet and am very grateful this was the outcome. I just regret spending all that time at Trinity to have that kind of blow off.
Decisions have been out for a few days now and from talking to friends with kids from different schools, it appears that this was a super competitive year. Not only were applications up big, attrition seems to be down at many schools. The result is that there weren't many, or any, spots available in some non-entry grades. I wonder if this is a one-year thing, or indicative of a long-term trend in the private school scene in Austin? I imagine the growth of out of town applicants will continue as long as the economy is strong.
We applied to a top private school for both our children here in Texas, and our youngest was accepted but our oldest was not. Admissions department told us it was because of space reasons, so we signed our contract for our youngest and kept our oldest in public school. Fast forward and we dive deeply into the new school's activities, lots of volunteering, great relationships with the parents. We gave a lot of money to the school's fundraising activities.
Because of the way private schools work, you typically live your entire lives around the private school process, from sports, to events, to children's and parent's activities. We were well liked at the school, and our oldest child became well known with the administration and other parents.
So admissions time rolls around for the next year and we re-apply for our oldest. We knew through the grapevine that there were 4 open spots for the grade our oldest was applying for so we were pretty excited that we'd finally have the family all together at the same school. We didn't take anything for granted and followed the normal application process, school visit (again) etc. We arrive home from spring break and a simple form letter is waiting in the mailbox indicating "the admissions committee does not recommend [your oldest] for admission." Our simple response to ourselves was like, WTF? They chose 4 new families for those slots over an existing family that actively participated in the community, was (we thought) well liked, etc. It was flabbergasting. Admissions director told us "I'm glad you called for discussion, we felt that your oldest was just average, thus our decision"
At that point, we were at a crossroads regarding our youngest, but we decided to sign our contract for the next year and pay the 20K tuition again, not wanting to deny our youngest the opportunity to attend such a great school. Summer comes around and we change our mind, deciding to apply to another top private school the in the area in the future for both kiddos and just send them both to public school for the upcoming year. We notify the school, and not only did they not mask their disappointment that we would not be returning to send our youngest to the school, but they refused to return any of the tuition we had paid. They were "legally" in the right to do so, but you'd think how they screwed over our family they would have made at least an exception.
Fast forward a bit, both kiddos were accepted at the other school, and both, including our oldest, are flourishing - straights A's and B's, active in sports, activities, volunteering, you name it. For us, the whole experience with the other school is now a fart in the wind, but it was one of the more frustrating and infuriating experiences we've gone through as a parent. At this new school, I've been asked to join next years board of trustees, and I'm certainly not going to forget the experience that we had at the other school when helping lead the direction of this top private school.
This discussion shows me how sad we are as a people. My big wish is to one day see people embrace true sustainability by sending their kids to the schools in their own neighborhoods. Spending the money there and their time there. If people took all that care and love and effort and just made the school near them important all this mess we are in would not exist. It would have to happen as a conscious plan that people agreed on. Idealistic I know.
Austin has some really good schools and some great people. However 100+ people moving here a day all wanting their kids in the best schools is unrealistic, unsustainable and there is no way they could see that because they are on automatic, moving here from somewhere else, following the same patterns. I get it. We are just busting at the seams here.
For us, the whole experience with the other school is now a fart in the wind, but it was one of the more frustrating and infuriating experiences we've gone through as a parent.
Unless the first private school had a 'siblings automatically accepted' policy, I don't understand where your assumption that the school being right for one child translated into it being right for both. Your post not only implies but outright expects that, because you gave time and money to an institution, they should've waved your other kid on through. They were communicating something to you and rather than process and internalize it, you kicked over the cart and left.
That is every bit your prerogative and I'm glad things are working out. Perhaps it was for the best. But you could at least allow for the fact that people who think about this stuff twelve hours a day knew what they were saying when they gave you bad news and they likely knew of the possible repercussions - and they said it anyway.
I also can't help but observe how intertwined your role in the school system (board of trustees) seems as important to you as your kids'. Possibly the administration of school #1 is thinking only about the kid, whom of course they do not know as well as you do; but also about their system, which they know better than you do.
I have two brothers - of the three of us, all had public school for at least a few years; one had private school after 3rd grade and the other two had a mix with one being almost wholly in public school. We're pretty different guys and needed different things. We would have likely had a similar experience. May I suggest that you value the information you're getting, even when it's 'bad news,' particularly in light of how much you liked school #1 prior to receiving it.
This discussion shows me how sad we are as a people. My big wish is to one day see people embrace true sustainability by sending their kids to the schools in their own neighborhoods. Spending the money there and their time there. If people took all that care and love and effort and just made the school near them important all this mess we are in would not exist. It would have to happen as a conscious plan that people agreed on. Idealistic I know.
Austin has some really good schools and some great people. However 100+ people moving here a day all wanting their kids in the best schools is unrealistic, unsustainable and there is no way they could see that because they are on automatic, moving here from somewhere else, following the same patterns. I get it. We are just busting at the seams here.
Even 30 years ago, I saw the private school conundrum in the Atlanta area(when it was the fastest growing place in the universe...with traffic MUCH worse than Austin's). I couldn't believe a mom would drive 60 miles round trip...twice a day!... to get their kiddos into private schools(sometimes TWO different schools) when the neighborhood schools were fine and would have been fantastic with that same effort put into them by the parents. It was almost automatic that those kiddos would attend private school even though the neighborhood schools were so much more convenient(and certainly of high standards). I guess it's not a new phenomenon, just a strange one.
That is every bit your prerogative and I'm glad things are working out. Perhaps it was for the best. But you could at least allow for the fact that people who think about this stuff twelve hours a day knew what they were saying when they gave you bad news and they likely knew of the possible repercussions - and they said it anyway.
I also can't help but observe how intertwined your role in the school system (board of trustees) seems as important to you as your kids'. Possibly the administration of school #1 is thinking only about the kid, whom of course they do not know as well as you do; but also about their system, which they know better than you do.
Don't think for a second that private schools, especially the top tier ones, operate with an altruistic mind.
In our case, the 4 slots that were open in the grade that our oldest applied to went to far wealthier and more prominent families. That's how top-tier private schools work. An incoming large company CEO, a legacy family, a board of trustees recommendation through the grapevine, etc. It's a simple fact of life - these school's focus are advancement (raising money) and bright students that can bring more prestige to the school. It's basically a self fulfilling prophecy of more NMSFs, Ivy League acceptances etc which leads to more $$, which leads to capital campaigns that result in huge construction projects that typically benefit insiders at the schools, since many families send their kids to these top tier private schools for the business contacts. That's also why these schools have formal offices typically called the "Office of Advancement." And typically the top executive leaders of these schools draw HUGE salaries.
Fortunately - the end result is an outstanding education and environment for the students, since all the parents (who are dropping 20K per child) are on the same page and have mostly the same objectives.
Trust me, I'm a tier-1 private school insider and I know how this stuff works on a day to day basis. Don't think for a second I don't know exactly how things played out for my oldest and the application and admissions process. We are a very successful family (my income exceeds 1M a year), but we don't come from a prominent background, don't have a famous last name, aren't legacies, and we don't run in local society and high-social circles, and I'm the CEO of an extremely successful but lesser known technology business.
You clearly have some idea of what you're referring to. It is difficult to address this subject while evading your appeal to authority. I don't question your authority. You did describe a fair number of people in Austin, however, myself included. My job title is the same as yours, in the same field, and probably with the same notoriety. We could probably share a number of stories. On the East coast we call them Development Offices, though.
You have perspective I don't have in that you've got kids going through this now. You also clearly know this particular school quite well and I don't. Nonetheless, I would never be so naive as to say that the things you mention aren't factors. Permit me the observation, as someone with some experience developing admissions systems for Ivy league institutions and some first-hand experience with East coast private schools, that the reduction of the process to the things you name is just as cynical and incomplete as it would be naive to suggest that they play no role.
You can tell a lot by looking at the admissions committee. Faculty (most faculty, anyway) don't care about the things you mention. The closer to administrators and alumni the committee members, the more incentive they have to consider applications from an 'endowment and reputation' point of view. I have never seen that perspective under-represented but I have also never seen it dominate a process except in cases where a school was new and in desperate need of an endowment or recovering from mismanagement -- headmaster scandals seem to be a common cause -- such that the value of a school pointing to CEO Junior outweighs the equally obvious drawbacks to picking legacy over academic standards. As you point out, these things do often go together, since everybody has similar objectives. But you've also been around the block enough to know that they don't go together as often as they do.
I can't prove a negative and I don't know your kid. Possibly you're 100% right. I merely observe that I have heard the story of 'my child didn't get admitted' alongside the bullet-point list of the parents' bona-fides often enough to know that, sometimes, the difference in applicants on this level, particularly when there are only four spots, is so slight that it's almost impossible not to conclude there is something else going on. But that difference can be the universe.
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