For those of you who have sent your kids to private school or have experience with the process, can you give me any words of encouragement or advice? We live in a good-sized city and there are three top private schools in the area, but they are all very competitive to get in. They won't say what their admissions rate is, but I've seen numbers that say anything from 50% to only 30% acceptance rate. The acceptance is based on a cognitive assessment, classroom observation, letter of recommendation and talking to the parents, so there are a lot of steps involved. I'm so nervous about my son getting in, and it's stressing me out!

I was talking to a mom at my son's preschool, and the subject of schools came up. I told the mom where we are applying, and she told me a story about a family she knew who had three kids. The oldest kid is already at the school in 3rd grade, and the youngest two are twins and they applied for kindergarten at the same school. They each had to go through the admissions process, and the school ended up only accepting one of the twins!! So one twin got to go to the school with her sibling and the other one had to go to a different school, and the parents are going to keep applying every year hoping the other twin will eventually get in. Hearing that made me more nervous than I already am!