Choosing the right school/school admission has become one of the most mind boggling process for parents these days. This is because parents believe that getting admission in the right school would assure that their child will develop in the best possible way.
Owing to this pressure, parents experience all sorts of feelings during the process of School Admission – from anxiety to panic to ecstasy. To make this period & process more systematic & poised, we have jotted down a step by step approach, to what we think could be a good way to address the admission process.
- Applying for schools – Apply to as many schools as possible. Target around 30 to 40 Schools. Don’t select or reject the schools at this stage, as you might get a new data point for a School that was never in your target list. It will be an effort but at least you won’t regret later that you didn’t apply to a certain School.
- Remain updated on when the list of shortlisted/waitlisted students will be revealed, for all the schools you have applied for. At times once we get selected in one of the preferred schools we forget to keep a tab on other schools. You might want to evaluate all the options at hand before finally selecting the school for your child.
- Selecting/Choosing the right school – Once you have certain schools as your options (the ones that have selected your child), you can compare them on the following points
- Academic Performance
- Extra-Curricular Activities
- Quality of the Teachers
- Curriculum followed
- Credentials of Management & Key Decision Makers
- Peer Group – Both Parents & Students of the School
- Commuting time – It impacts your child’s involvement in post school activities
- Any other point
Assign your own unique weights to each parameter. Distribute 100% amongst these 8 points based on your priority.
- Assigning points to each school against each parameter – The best source for this information would be either parents of existing students in the respective school or teachers who are teaching in that specific school. Alumni of the school could also be a good source of information. Assigning points based on general/herd opinions can be risky. Assigning points based on brand or demand factor can again back fire.
- Another important factor while selecting a school would be understanding your child’s profile. Although it would be difficult to identify your child’s interests at such an early stage but still try to identify your child’s strengths and weaknesses. It might so happen that you are assigning higher weight to academic performance but your child is more inclined towards Extra-Curricular Activities or vice versa. So it’s important to map your child’s profile with the School’s strengths & weakness because at the end of the day it’s not about you, it’s about bringing out best in the child.
- Last but not the least, don’t get disheartened if you don’t get the school of your choice. Don’t panic if you don’t get through any school. There are a lot of new schools where you can get your child admitted for a short while and after a year or so you can change the school.Also today parents play much critical role in Child’s development than Schools. With moms being well educated and with so many alternate learning modes/academies available outside, parents are strongly equipped to bring up a complete child.