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Therapists: NYC Parents Are Insane From Private School Admissions Process
By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 19, 2012
Modified Mar 19, 2012
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By
Jen Chung
Published Mar 19, 2012
Modified Mar 19, 2012
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Another bit of ammunition to show that the private school admissions proces will send parents into a frenzy of questionable behavior. Some therapists have revealed the bizarre stuff parents will do to the Post:
- Ask what kind of fancy handbag they should bring to the interview.
- "A single mother she consulted pretended to be a lesbian — to make her child’s application more unique."
- One wife berated her husband for making an "off-color joke at a school tour" (he was nervous!).
- "One couple started seeing her for marital issues but spent many of their sessions fighting about applying to private schools."
- "One pregnant client asked whether she should induce on Aug. 28 so her child could be considered for kindergarten before the Sept. 1 cutoff date."
- Parents say, "I just have to leave the city."
One therapist says, "I end up being a psychiatrist as well as an admissions consultant." Wait until their kids apply to Harvard... oh, wait, it's tougher to get into private school than Harvard.
When we interviewed former private school admissions consultant Karen Quinn (she wrote the novel, The Ivy Chronicles, based on her experienced), she told us:
There was a woman who hired an actor who pretended to be her husband through the parent interviews for her daughter’s kindergarten application. She thought the child would have a better chance if she came from a traditional family. The kid got into an excellent girl’s school and then the couple got a fake divorce the next fall. Then there are parents in the midst of real divorces, who can’t stand to be in the room together, but who pretend to be happily married because they know schools won’t take kids whose parents are going to be too difficult. I once heard about a father who put on a twenty-slide PowerPoint presentation pitching the advantages of his family and child over other applicants during a parent interview. Early in my practice, I had a client, a dad, who got so enraged over the admissions process during a meeting at my apartment that I actually feared for my life. I went in the kitchen and hid the knives.
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insane
parents
private school
private school admissions
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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