(Or more specifically, in the process of applying to Kindergartens as a Parent in New York City)
Here we are. I’ve been promising this blog to our podcast listeners for literal months, and for our biggest MTCA groupies it has become the most popular question of the moment: “How are things going with your Kindergartener – we’re waiting for that update?!”.
Well, you will wait no longer…here it is. For those who are coming newly to this blog, the inspiration for it (aside from the sweet parents out there who are just infinitely curious about my family life!), was that I kept making jokes throughout the year about HOW MANY PARALLELS there are between the College Theater Audition Process and the process of applying to Kindergartens in New York City. Of course, we all tend to make parallels to what is happening in our life at any given moment, and it’s not the first time I related part of parenthood to my perspective on the College process, but this year really felt notable. Time and again, I would say “okay, now that is REALLY like the process” and then “Well that is EXACTLY like the College Process”, sometimes comedically and sometimes with all of the painful vulnerabilities involved.
I’ll go through a bunch of the parallels here at the end (which as a preview, can range from: School-List-Numbers to doing Prescreens to Coaching to Scholarship Negotiations to Competitive Percentages to Waitlists and Safety Schools), but I thought a bit of background might be helpful for those who don’t live in New York City and are like “what are you talking about? Don’t you just…go to Kindergarten?”. If the following doesn’t scare you away from wanting to move here and have a family, then you might just have enough grit to become an actor! Hah.
New York City has some incredible educational opportunities and truly amazing schools, they also have some unacceptably poorly-performing public schools
In New York City, the Public school process essentially works by lottery, but a lottery weighted with Zones and Districts. I won’t get into all of the math and specifics of it, but basically if you live within the District of a given Public school, you have a very good chance of getting into that school (though not a guarantee), and if you are in the smaller Zone you have essentially a guarantee. And every child is guaranteed a seat at a public school, but it may not be one that you want. And then, just like the college process, it gets much more complicated from there. Certain schools have different eligibilities (like for their “Gifted and Talented” programs) or for Artistic Requirements (see our “audition” for the Special Music School below), and some have other specific preferences they offer, like one of our Most Competitive programs that gave priority to students in our specific district (Spoiler Alert: we didn’t get in!). And pivotal to this whole process, part of the “why” this is so insane for many parents, is that while New York City has some incredible educational opportunities and truly amazing schools, they also have some unacceptably poorly-performing public schools. In my opinion, the delta between the two is disgraceful in a city as wealthy as New York – it seems (to my non-expert opinion on this topic) like the top-level funding is not necessarily the issue as much as it might be in other areas of the country, and it may be more the fault of other institutional problems (meaning all of the schools are actually pretty well-funded on a per student basis, but some still really struggle), but that’s a whole other Podcast/Blog to get into. But just so you understand a bit of the context and some of the reasons of why my wife and I (and so many other parents who do this process) put ourselves through this – it’s not just the tantalizing upside of some of the amazing schools that are out there, but also the frustrating downside of some local schools where grade-level opportunity and even basic safety are not always the norm.
So we have the “Why”, now let me give you a bit of the “What” before we dive in and make the fun connections. So what did we do in this process?
What we Applied to:
Essentially we applied to approximately 26 schools (I say approximately because it’s hard to know exactly how to count different programs within different schools – Dual Language, Gifted and Talented, etc…much like many of you have that struggle with different majors like Acting and MT!). Of these 26 schools:
- 18 were Public School Reaches* (or to use our more familiar MTCA language “Most Competitive” Schools),
- 3 were Public School Districted Matches (Still “Competitive” Schools, as we would discover!),
- 5 were Private Schools** (which were essentially an odd combination of “Match” and “Safeties” in this process – Safety in that they were our last choice of school in our personal hopes, but “Match” because there is still a pretty Competitive Audition process involved).
[*2 of the 18 had special outside “audition” requirements outside of the usual application process, including a different two-tiered prescreen and callback system for both]
[**All of the Private Schools have intricate audition and interview processes which involve both child and parent. These steps are both for them to audition you and also to pull you in and sell you on the school if you DO happen to get in. Does this sound at all familiar to any of you?]
Does that seem insane? 26 schools for Kindergarten? Well, it sure did to us as well. Like many of you all, it didn’t start out that way. We originally were going to do a couple of public schools, maybe some of the popular reach schools that have noted gifted and talented programs, and then try to hit some of the local schools we were districted for that felt like they would be acceptable alternatives to the local zoned school we knew we didn’t want to attend. That didn’t seem so overwhelming. That was a year ago.
Then, like many of you, as we engaged in the process, we talked to families in our neighborhood who had gone through this before, and we fell deep down the rabbit hole. We learned about the Private School process, which at the beginning of this I would NEVER have pictured myself applying to a Private Kindergarten (For what its worth, I still remain deeply, philosophically opposed!). The advantage of the Private School process is actually in its subjectivity as opposed to the randomness of luck – the process is still very competitive, but here my charming wife and I, alongside our bright and adorable child, could actually succeed at standing out from the crowd, as opposed to just being a number on a page. Or a roll of the die. So that part, of having a bit of control in the process, was enticing, even if I remained morally opposed to the idea of it.
[An insert here: as insane as our process and these numbers feel between Public and Private schools, this is without us actively considering Charter or Parochial Schools, which is a whole other path some NYC Kindergarteners choose to explore. Those are really viable options for many families, though they didn’t feel right for ours given the nature of our specific child.]
Which brings us to this fall, when the visits began in earnest. Private schools, Public Schools, all of it. And the applications. Oh my, the applications, and don’t forget the Scholarship applications as well! And the interviews? You would like to hear my thoughts on my own family and education, ma’am? Well yes, of course! And is my 4 y/o a gifted and talented genius who will fit in beautifully at your school? Well, she is not actively throwing a tantrum at the moment of this audition – does that count for something? And yes of course she also plays Chess on weekends and does Calligraphy each night before bed, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
And then the topper of them all, the auditions
And then the topper of them all, the auditions. For the Private Schools these essentially looked mostly like playdates, where she would go into a room with some strange adults and some other students and the adults would observe them, ask them questions, etc… on the whole, not too unreasonable. But for two of our specific Public School Reaches, they involved a more rigorous testing process. For one school, we had to pay a $375 “testing fee” (+ $50 admin fee, of course, gotta get that admin fee!) so that we could meet with a child psychologist on a random weekend who would administer a 4-year-old appropriate academic test. This was the test we were warned that we were not supposed to COACH our child for or they could be disqualified, though we later discovered that many parents DO actually pay for “test prep coaching” for their 4 year old children. Now, I run a coaching company for a living, and even I think this feels a bit beyond the pale! Needless to say, this was our first experience with a Prescreen Rejection – she didn’t pass the first round of the test, which was both infuriating (“What is wrong with any test that doesn’t count MY child as a genius?!”), but also ultimately much easier to handle knowing early on that this school wasn’t in the cards.
And the other “audition” was for a Music School, which is a public school that focuses children in music at an early age and also boasts really strong academic scores for their students. We were excited about this possibility and even felt like we might have an “edge” here – not only was our child exposed to music at an early age, but she has a real musical aptitude from both sides of her family, and it manifests in a great sense of pitch, tone, all of the things. And if there could ever be a bit of nepotism that might go our way, we had some good friends with kids who went there, and we do, ya know, have a Grammy award currently sitting on our toilet at the moment. If a bit of favoritism could maybe go our way in this process, we would be willing to look the other way. And yet, not to be. We did pass the first live prescreen audition (Our first prescreen pass! yay!), but didn’t pass the second round cut. This was our first experience with our own logistical failures as parents – she was almost certainly hangry as that second audition happened right at her normal lunchtime – could we not have set her up better for success with some carbo-loading? Amateur mistakes from supposed professionals.
But so, you might be thinking – Charlie, so far you’ve only told me about negative results. Surely, good news must be waiting around the corner right? So, sure, let’s get to our final results…
Our Results:
Public School Acceptances (out of 21): 0 Acceptances [19 Waitlists, 2 Rejections]
Private School Acceptances (out of 5): 3 Acceptances [2 Waitlists]
So after all that insane process of over a year of planning and preparation, the only Public school we were officially accepted to and offered a spot in was our original “zoned” school, which we did not apply to at all because we found it unacceptable in the first place, which prompted this whole crazy process. Again, because of the nature of NYC rules, if you don’t get any of the schools you apply to you automatically are assigned your Zoned school.
You’ll note the 19 Public School Waitlists, which are automatic in this process for any school you apply to and don’t get into – you get a random waitlist number that can give you some indication of your chances – some are completely out of reach and some are potentially feasible. More on that in a bit.
And for the Private Schools, we ultimately did extremely well. Of course. The one thing I resolved would absolutely not happen at the beginning of the process now becomes a distinct possibility.
The Biggest Difference:
Now it’s worth noting here, as I’m about to have some fun and go into some Takeaways and Parallels between the processes, that by far the biggest difference in these two processes (apart from perhaps the age of most of the applicants), is that a large overarching factor in our Kindergarten process was pure luck. I was really able to draw the parallels when it came to the prescreens and of course the artistic music audition, and the private school interviews and that part of the process really carried a lot of parallels as well. However, the biggest factor in our poor Public schools results (aside from those two auditions) was the luck of getting a bad initial lottery number. Really not much we could have done differently there as parents without learning how to hack the mainframe. And while some of our MTCA parents like to speak toward the “luck” of the college audition process, I do like to try to clarify those ideas as more being about subjectivity primarily rather than truly luck. There is still luck involved in the college process for sure (you too could get a tough audition time and end up with a hangry auditor!), but primarily when I call the college process a “subjective meritocracy” I really do mean that. What exactly defines the difference in artistic merit from one talented 17-year-old to the next can be splitting hairs, of course, and is incredibly subjective, but ultimately they are genuinely trying to pick the best class of students for their school at the college level based on how they perceive the idea of merit. And that really parallels the private school process for our 4-year-old applicants, where what exactly we are judging at times can feel a bit beyond me, but there they are actively seeking students they want. Whereas with most of those public school applications really we were down to luck of the draw. (And being hurt by factors like the admitted nepotism of siblings getting preference, and not being in Zone/District of that school).
I will say, that knowing how much of it is luck still doesn’t make the disappointment much easier, which brings me to…
The Parallels/Takeaways:
- The biggest and most obvious Parallel for me, after 20 years of guiding families through this college process, is the emotional experience that the parents go through. I had witnessed year after year of our MTCA parents living and dying with their child’s success and failures, and while I think parenthood in general gave me increased empathy to what they were going through, this specific process gave me a deeper level of understanding of it. Especially what I understand now is the idea that you can intellectually understand it’s not “you” in the room, and it’s not ultimately “your” responsibility for how they do exactly, but you are still going to feel responsible for it. Whether that’s because you could have fed them lunch beforehand or because you should have paid for that darn Stanford-Binet coaching, or maybe just had her do some more puzzles instead of playing so much pretend all the time. For years I would mock our parents who would listen at the door to their child singing and try to determine how they were doing, and yet there I was, in that psychologists weird office hallway, listening to the clicking and clacking of puzzle tiles and thinking “is that a confident clack? Why isn’t she moving faster?”.
- The other part I really understand from a different perspective is the idea of what a school might do in “picking a direction” for my child. Especially since I started guiding this process from a very child-centered view (I was little more than a child myself then!), I used to empathize with our MTCA parents only from the perspective of my own parents (who both hated the idea of BFA for me, especially a conservatory-style one!). But as my wife and I looked at the broad scope of different schools, which of course we’re now only picking a kindergarten here, but in many cases you are choosing K-8 or K-12, I could really see the different paths I would be setting my child on. And I better understood some of the things our MTCA parents would say, when it seemed to me that they were being a bit obstinate or not listening to their child. It is my experience that the vast majority of parents we work with are primarily concerned with what they think will be best for their child – what will ultimately set them up for success in life, whatever that success might look like. And before your child has an ability to define success for themselves, what can you really use but your own definition? This is where our MTCA parents are really navigating that transition into trusting their own child’s intuition and what they think their child wants, while also adding in their own expertise and years of wisdom. But obviously for our 4 year old, she doesn’t have any of that yet for herself. So whether she attends a private school or a public school, a music school or a dual-language program, a gifted and talented accelerated program or an under-resourced school struggling but doing their best for their students, we are really in charge of setting that path pretty actively. After years of advising parents “listen to your child, they are sitting right there and it seems like they know what they want” I was actively CRAVING having a child who would be able to articulate any of that. We still are trying to apply some of that idea – what child is actually in front of me, and what is ultimately best for this specific human being and what she has shown me in her 4 and a half years of life? But also, we do have to stand in and make some of those decisions based on the best information we have at the time, and stay open to the possibility of change. And of course some of my feelings about it all are purely my own bias – it’s not my child who is philosophically opposed to private schools (at least not yet!). But it was interesting to me having watched our MTCA parents for years navigate OUT of that mode of primary-decision maker, to then have to firmly step into it.
- On the other hand, one of the most joyful parallels of this process was that I was able to apply all of the years of expertise in the Scholarship negotiations that we guide you all through. That parallel was almost a perfect match – and really worked well for us in the private school process. From what we listed as a possible contribution for us (and being a bit aggressive there), to the experience of making specific additional asks of a few schools, comparing what other schools offered us, and writing explanatory letters of our financial situation. Both in knowing what to do and knowing the tone of how to do it, I felt a lot of comfort in that certitude. (Again, a level of real understanding here of how little bit of control can be joyful to cling onto in a mostly uncertain process). And we ultimately found a lot of success both in the power of “No” and the power of “Yes”. Being able to say at the end of the day “we are ready to sign on the dotted line if we get those few thousand more” was really effective for us.
- Another real win of a parallel was the idea of Authenticity that we talk so much about on the podcast, and that we preach in our audition and interview process for our MTCA students. The idea that our job is to walk in the room and really be ourselves (the best versions of ourselves, yes, but still our true selves) served us really well in the part of the process where we had some parental control, which were those private school interviews. Occasionally my wife and I would turn to each other and say “okay, now was that TOO honest?”, but I think for the most part we succeeded at really showing them who we were and talking about who our child actually was, without being tempted to paint the picture as too idyllic or rosy. This ultimately is holistically good for the process in that it means that kind of school that would accept our family can be the right actual school if they are doing their jobs well, but I also think it ultimately also gave us a bit of a competitive edge. People are really good at sniffing out authenticity, and if it feels like people are performing an idea of who they think they want to see, it’s going to be less attractive than something true. Of course this was likely easier for us since the stakes were low as these private schools were not ultimately where we wanted to end up.
- Which leads to another strange parallel which isn’t such a perfect one – in the timing and pressure of this specific process, alongside the timing pressure you all get in the college process. Like with all of you, our final decision day is May 1st, but our Private Schools make you operate on an entirely different timeline. Which means if you truly want the “safety” and protection of the Private Schools, you have to do that whole process, find out in early February, and then put a deposit down at one of the schools in Mid-February, despite the fact that you don’t get any of your public school results til the end of March. This differs from your process mostly, where short of waitlists or unique situations you shouldn’t have to be putting down multiple deposits and ultimately losing them, though it’s unfortunately standard in this Kindergarten process. But where I really felt that frustration was in the idea of feeling like nobody “has your back” – that each individual school (and in this case, the unified Private Schools vs the Public schools in their processes) were doing what was best for them and their numbers, and not what was best for us as families. It’s both understandable from their position (they would lose a lot of students if they waited for the Public school results), but also really frustrating. The same way we talk about the necessity of Czar of the college audition process, I wished we could have one in this. Someone to call “Foul on the Play!” when they ask for a large deposit before you even get all of your results. And with both processes, because of the competitive numbers, you understand why schools do it how they do it, but you also know that people who have less resources and less information are going to get confused and make mistakes which could cost them money and potentially a spot at the school they ultimately want. And that latter part is definitely true of both processes.
- Which leads me to another amazing parallel, which is the actual competitive numbers. I have such a vivid memory of sitting next to my Mom in the Carnegie Mellon orientation and them talking about the competitive numbers (at the time I think it was something like 2500 applicants for 24 spots, which is less than 1% admission rate). And my mom was scoffing that this was more competitive than an Ivy League school (which is mostly true, though I think a bit deceiving, as we’ve discussed)! But then there I was, all those many years later, sitting in an auditorium full of what felt like a thousand parents being told that they were only 17 open spots we were all vying for. And the woman to my left said “wait a second, this is worse than Harvard!”. And right she was. The two schools even used the same opening line! “Most of you sitting here will not ultimately be getting in…”. It’s amazing how you feel that is a kind gesture but it also raises the competitive hackles of every parent in the room! Well, now I want it even more!
- The other parallel I noted down at many times throughout this process was the urge to be DONE. Just the urge to KNOW. In our life this is because we might literally be making future housing decisions based on this information – if I can just know where she’s going to school I can plan the rest of my life around it. But I’ve seen that so many times throughout my years of doing this with the college process, too. It often makes our families make what I think are ultimately poor “Early Decision” choices, and also makes them sometimes commit to schools while there is still information out there on the playing field. But after all the anxiety, all the waiting, all the not-knowing, when you have a school that says “I want you”, it’s so tempting to just commit and be done. I really get that. Luckily for us the part of the process where that was happening (the Private Schools) still came with a hefty enough price tag that I resolved to continue looking and finish our process out, but I also think the years of experience really helped there. I’d seen families make those mistakes and also families reap the rewards of their patience. Just reminding myself, like we do our families, that they will ultimately have an option and their child will attend school in the fall. And that is still true for my family, despite these potentially discouraging initial results.
- Which leads me to our last, most important parallel, being the idea of WAITLISTS. Well, my child is on literally 19 of them. I might just have to attend our “Waiting on a Waitlist” webinar on April 3rd as a Parent this time! But really, I now have one more opportunity to practice what we preach, and practice good waitlist discipline and best practices. Emotionally and psychologically, we are moving forward as if those waitlist are not going to happen, with us being grateful for the safety option we have of a really excellent private school, which after much negotiation is manageable for us, even if it’s still highway robbery (FYI, the sticker price of these Private schools can be anywhere from 60-80K a year!). But then strategically, we are going to follow the same waitlist procedures that we tell all of you to follow! We are going to be a bright and shiny but squeaky wheel, regularly present in their inboxes in fun and creative ways, while not overstaying our welcome. And we’re going to be patient as we wait through the long slog that will almost certainly now extend far past May 1st for us. There’s a possibility we might not come off some of these waitlists until August or September! But luckily, we’ll be ready with all the tools in our toolbox to set ourselves up for success as best we can.
Ultimately, I know that’s likely an unsatisfying update for some of you all, since it still leaves us with a lot in the air, like…where she’ll ultimately be attending school! Hah. But maybe it’s appropriate for the many of you out there who are reading this in April and will still have questions lingering, with some extending past May 1st. I hope you enjoyed taking the journey with me, and found a bit of joy and humor and maybe even thoughtful reflection in some of the parallels. I know I sure did! And we’ll keep you posted as more information comes. For now, we’ll gladly take your good luck thoughts and prayers on our waitlists – and I send them right back to all of you with all of yours!
Charlie is a native Pittsburgher and a proud graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied Acting. As an actor, select stage credits include the NY Public Theatre’s “Shakespeare in the Park” (All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure), the Pearl Theatre Company (Richard II), the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (King Lear, The Three Musketeers, Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour’s Lost), The Shakespeare Theatre of DC (Richard II, Henry V, As You Like It, Mrs. Warren’s Profession), Middlebury Actor’s Workshop (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), The Arts Center of Coastal Carolina (The Unexpected Guest), and Chautauqua Theatre Company (Much Ado About Nothing, Vaidehi, Ah, Wilderness!).
In 2015, Charlie co-founded Esperance Theater Company — a company that produced classical-based work here in NYC. With Esperance, Charlie produced and performed in 12th Night, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Breitwisch Farm. As a teacher, Charlie has been working with MTCA for over 20 years, where he is now a Director of the company alongside Leo Ash Evens. Charlie has also taught for Texas State University, PACE University, The Performing Arts Project (TPAP), Broadway Dreams, the City University of New York, Carnegie Mellon’s Pre-College program, and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. As a Teacher and Director, he is able to do two of his favorite things in life: help students to find their authentic selves as artists, and help them find their best fit in their collegiate journey. Charlie also hosts the “Mapping The College Audition” podcast, where he continues that work, and helps demystify this daunting audition process for listeners around the world.
Charlie is also the proud father to a precocious toddler, partner to an amazing Tony-nominated + Grammy-winning Actress, and a humble Broadway Show League Softball MVP.
