Did anyone else struggle getting their LO into their top choice daycare/montessori/etc? I can't believe how competitive the montessori schools are in my area. One had a wait list of 18 and the other there is no openings. And these schools are not cheap... gah, how frustrating.
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I am anticipating a similar experience when we apply to preschool this fall. It's very competitive in my area for a handful of schools...I don't know that I care THAT much where LO goes, since he will likely be going to public school after that. So I plan on applying to a wide range of places.
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Oh man, do I feel you!
I'm due in October, and have already had one school tell us that with 50 infants on the wait list, they're positive that there won't be a spot by January 2015, when I come back from mat leave.
One center we liked had "only" 25 on the wait list, but the center director told us to not get discouraged, as the list can often move quickly.
I feel like I should be looking early enough, we started looking at 13 weeks, for Pete's sake! But I'm still worried that we won't find anything I'm time. Just gotta keep getting on wait lists, and hope it happens!
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Kind of, the place we ended up selecting was full for morning slots, but had openings for the afternoon, so we didn't get our first choice, but are still in the program we wanted.
I was surprised how quickly I got caught up in the whole thing, I really didn't think I would care as much as I did.
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Sort of. Some of the daycares that I had heard really good things about either had really long waiting lists, didn't have openings when we needed, or wouldn't even take our names. So we didn't end up touring at any of those.
Of the ones we toured, it was easy to get into the one we really liked.
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I was on a waiting list for daycare for 20 months. Got the call that we got a spot a day before I went back to work. Insane.
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Yes in that there are very very few spots in my neighborhood! But I don't think the selection criteria was competitive, since lo wasn't born when we started looking so it's not like based on an assessment of her, it was mostly luck
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It was like that just for daycare centers. I don't know where we will be living when she starts preschool (we are waiting until she is 3) but as soon as we know, I will have her on wait lists.
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Not so far. We signed her up in January for June spot (infant). Luckily the school we are moving her too had an opening. They have a set amount of kids for each room 2:8 ratio, no more.
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Yeah, for the most part the "special" schools have wait lists and are expensive. They are also only school year daycares so they don't cover your summer daycare needs.
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Yep all of the montessori/private/etc schools around here are competitive and have wait lists and also cost more. I think it's pretty much the standard in most areas, no?
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Yup. There's not enough daycares in the city. I put LO on waitlists 8 months before she was born and she's got a place for when she's 13 months old. And we're lucky!
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We struck gold because we only wanted two days per week and our daycare of choice (Ofstead rating: outstanding) had a part time vacancy for Thursday/Friday (but no full time and no first half of the week!). They don't even have a waiting list any more, they just turn you down if they don't have a vacancy!
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Thankfully, no. They held our infant slot for us because of the personal relationship we have with them, but we were willing to pay the monthly fee even if LO was not attending just to secure it.
Preschool might prove to be a little trickier. I have my eye on a dual immersion academy with waitlists and a lottery system, but I'm hoping a good friend {who is friends with the director} can help with that.
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There was a waiting list for LO to get into daycare, but I wouldn’t really say it was a “competitive” process; it was just the outcome of not enough great daycares/schools + plenty of need. Every higher end center I called had lengthy waiting lists.
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It wasn't "competitive" in the sense that we needed to be a better applicant than others, but there are definitely long waitlists at all the daycares in our area, especially for full time infants. We put in applications right after we announced our pregnancy and ended up getting into all our daycares so we had a choice. I heard from other people who waited until their baby was born that they had trouble securing a spot anywere.
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@shinymama: the dreaded lottery! I have my eye on a program for kindergarten and I am kind of dreading that process. I will apply and we'll see what happens.
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We put LO's name on the list in March. Expected date is for September 2015 and we're not even sure if she'll get in. Most Montessori/Learning Centres worth getting into have 1.5-2 year wait lists.
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Fortunately, no. I heard about these wait lists on HB and started my search half way through my pregnancy. When I told the director's when we thought about enrolling DS, they were all like whoa! y'all started early!!
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It wasn't competitive, but there were waitlists. I put myself on a few waitlists when I was 4 months pregnant, and needed childcare of LO when she was 6 months.
I *barely* got a space in the daycare close to my house, and I think probably only because I kept calling and practically begging--first they told me there was no space--then she said she would "see", then I got a space.
Very mysterious, but I didn't want to question it.
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You already know my sob story, but I'll share again anyway.
Daycare #1: Signed up as soon as the second line showed up, we got #161 on the waitlist. Moved up slowly and when DD was 13 months we were really close to the top... until they moved us to the toddler room wait list. We are #56. DD is 16 mo.
Daycare #2: Signed up when DD was about 8 mo, were told it would be 18 months before we could get a spot. A few months ago, we were #1 on the waitlist and we *may* get a spot in September... when DD is 20 mo.
We have a nanny.
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nope...we have a ton of daycares in the area to choose from, and when we wanted to put LO in daycare around 11 months I called around to a bunch of places and they all had openings- even the more montessori/school type settings. we ended up going with a small in-home though.
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I haven't had to do the daycare thing, and preschool was a "fastest fingers" type thing to get one of 8 spots. However, elementary school will be a beast. I've never talked to anyone in our neighborhood that's been above #100 for the lottery. We'll probably enter, but actually plan on either going to the neighborhood elementary school or homeschooling. I'm kind of crossing my fingers that we'll be in a different area (state?) before middle school.
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Not competitive in the sense that he has to test in, but they have very few spots and do first come first serve every year. I waited in a line one Monday morning from 2:30am until 9 when the sign ups were and got the 2nd out of 3 spots. He starts in September, and this was back in January.
But the elementary I want to get him into is very competitive because it is a magnet public school. The preschool he'll be at has almost 100% acceptance rate to this elementary, so I'm hoping he'll thrive there.
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With our neighborhood school (private), it was pretty easy. With the school our son will start at for next year, it was more complicated and involved a fairly extensive application, interview, evaluation, etc. I work there so I knew our chances were good, but I still sweated it out a little bit! It's a prek-12 so he may well spend the next 15 years there!!
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No..... but my mil used to be a preschool director and knows the right people
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Sort of.. I knew from HB that preschools were competitive, so we started looking in February for a fall start. We fell in love & paid for her spot in May.
This winter, open-enrollment started in January. Existing students got to enrol a day early, and the 3yo class filled in two days. There are no more openings!
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Yes, some problems here, we have been on the waiting list going on +2 years. I got on the waiting list when I found out I was pregnant because it's really competitive in our area. Lo is almost 2 and we have yet to be call from the waiting list.
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We are planning to do a nanny share because there were so few daycare options I felt good about for infants - they had long waiting lists too.
I'm sure this will sound insane, but I put down a deposit for a spot in a full day preschool program that begins at 2 years old because it was so highly recommended and we loved our visit so much. LO will be born in June... crazy I know.
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We got on a waitlist when I was 4 months pregnant and didn't get a call about an open spot until LO was 8 months. I ended up being a SAHM so it was irrelevant.
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@CakeLady: I may have thought you were crazy before I had a kid in a city, but now I think you sound really SMART.
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Maybe it's because we started looking 6 months before enrolling, but we didn't have a problem.
However, our choice kindergarten operates on a lottery system. Not sure what we'll do if he doesn't get in.
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@septca: I certainly felt crazy, but I figured in the long run it would be one less thing to worry about. Now I just need to find a nanny for the end of August.
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For the preschools we liked, it was difficult (though I wouldn't say competitive). We thought we lucked out with our first choice when DS was 18 months old, but a year later, we were looking for a new program, since the preschool wasn't meeting DS's needs. We wanted to use a Montessori program in our area - the issue was not space (they had several slots) or testing - it was financial. A lot of great programs in my area have extremely high fees - even with a scholarship, it turned out that Montessori school would have a monthly cost equal to my car payment and mortgage put together!! We finally found a great little preschool not far from home that had just opened. The slots there filled quickly, though, and there is now a waiting list.
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Daycare in my area is absurd. 1 year waiting list for most places for infant spot, but easier as kids get older. Preschool apps are due in November for the following year.
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Ugh. I have a walk through with a daycare on Wednesday, they had told me there was room for L in July and when I called to schedule the walk through the director kinda stumbled around and said she wasn't sure there would be room any more because of a bunch of people leaving and they had to fill spots...
Not even sure what the point of the walk through is if there's no room for me. There aren't any other affordable day cares around (just Montessori style ones). I'm panicking a little.
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