Friday Freakout: School Acceptance Letters

Next year Jett will start kindergarten and Kai will start preschool. Here in Illinois there is a preschool option called Preschool For All. It's free preschool, 5 days a week, 2.5 hours a day, in a public school. Jett is in the program now and we love it. As you can imagine, it's a very popular program and we were lucky to get Jett a spot through the lottery system. This past December I sent in applications for Kai for preschool for all and for Jett for kindergarten.

I applied to 18 preschools for Kai and 20 kindergartens for Jett, plus 6 applications for the gifted/classical schools in case he qualifies. These are all public schools and our only hope is to get in through a lottery system. If the boys don't get in to one of those 18 or 26 schools, they can go to our neighborhood school, which would be...............fine. I think.

Two years ago when I was applying to the free preschools for Jett, I applied to 18 schools and eventually (via waitlists) got accepted in to 4. This was astoundingly lucky. Most people I know got accepted to one. Many people didn't get accepted to any at all.

CPS Obsessed says the acceptance letters are in the mail, but we haven't gotten ours yet. Actually I know that no one has gotten theirs yet, because I've checked the discussion board on NPN. That thing is going to light up when the letters hit the mailboxes.

This letter is the key to our summer and beyond. It will determine how far I drive every day, how much time the boys spend in the car every day, how far apart the boys' schools are (which in Chicago can be quite far, even when they are close) or - fingers crossed - if the boys will get in to the same school. It will determine whether or not we start to think about renting out our condo so we can rent a condo in a neighborhood with a better school. (Since your neighborhood school has to take you, it's not uncommon for families to move to a neighborhood with a good school if their kid doesn't get in to it through the lottery). Or maybe we'd rent an apartment in a 'burb and leave this craziness all together.

This is a really important letter, and if you think I'm anxious about it now, just wait until we actually get the letter and have to start making decisions. i'll keep you posted.