Admissions

by Nancy Lieberman

Genres: Family Life; Humor & Satire; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

This sharply observed and bitingly funny novel exposes the over-the-top absurdity of New York City`s elite private school admissions circus. For Manhattan's most affluent parents, the Tuesday after Labor Day marks the beginning of the city's most competitive and vicious blood sport: the start of the private school admissions process. But for Helen Drager, mother of Zoe, it shouldn't be such an ordeal. After all, Helen's best friend Sara is an admissions officer at Zoe's current K-8. But Sara's position becomes precarious, and Helen soon finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mounting lunacy generated by the fierce competition.

Release date: October 15, 2007

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 368

Sample

SEPTEMBER

The Tuesday after Labor Day marked the official start of admissions season, the Manhattan parents’ version of a blood sport. The ferocity with which Wall Street traders worked the floor, mergers-and- acquisitions lawyers closed their deals, magazine editors staked their claims on a hot new trend, and ladies who lunched jockeyed for position at the fall shows couldn’t hold a candle to the intense competition between families to secure that most coveted of accessories: a space for their child in the school of their choice.

Anticipating the onslaught, Sara Nash arrived at The School early and found her new assistant, Brandi, already at her desk, speaking rapidly into the receiver while casting a wary eye at her phone’s four other blinking red lights. Every blip signaled an incoming call from an anxious New York parent, each more desperate than the last to obtain an application for one of the few available spots in The School’s renowned Kindergarten.

“Your name and address, please. Yes, we do require The Kindergarten Admissions Test. How nice; I’m impressed, and I’m sure Ms. Nash will be, too. Yes, she is our director of admissions, and all correspondence should be addressed to her. No, there is no ‘G’ in ‘Nash’—just like it sounds. Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you. Goodbye.” Brandi hung up, gulped down a swig of her double skim latte, and resolutely moved on to the next call.

“Child’s last name, please, if different from yours. Hmmm, that is different. It’s spelled ‘X-I-E’?” She quickly scribbled the information before taking the next call.

As Sara plugged in the kettle to make a pot of chamomile tea, she nodded with approval at the tele-patter emanating from the outer office.

“Yes. Once we receive the application, we’ll call you to schedule the tour and interview. Yes. Both parents should try to come. There are four of you? Then, yes, by all means, all of you come.”

Sara exhaled a sigh of relief; Brandi’s tone conveyed just the right blend of solicitous and officious, helpful but hardly encouraging. She hoped she would turn out to be a good hire.

“Yes, we do require the child to be potty-trained. How old is your son?”

Just keeping the applicants’ names straight was a challenge, even for a well-seasoned professional like Sara. Last year’s applicants included five-year-old Thiruvikraman Hathiramani, the son of Chandrakanta Subramanian and Ramesh Hathiramani, the famous Bollywood filmmakers who had recently relocated from Bombay to Tribeca. Throughout the admissions process, Sara struggled to keep them straight, and just barely managed to address them properly at the interview—no small feat from a girl from Omaha. When she discovered that the boy not only could spell all these names but was trilingual, ambidextrous, and an accomplished T-ball player, she marked an emphatic “accept” on his application forms on the spot.

Then there was the family with the adopted child and same-sex parents—the Chuan Lee Tsao-Silverbergs. The daughter, Lili-Xin, was bright, talented, and well behaved, but Sara decided that the parents, Drs. Jaehoon Chuan Lee Tsao and Steven Silverberg, were just too high-maintenance. Not only was their interview one of the longest on record, she then spent hours on the phone with them discussing The School’s position on multiculturalism and alternative lifestyles.

“Miss Nash, I was curious about your use of the word ‘seminal’ when you were describing The School’s policies on tolerance to us last week,” Dr. Silverberg probed in the course of their fourth phone conversation.

“Yes,” Dr. Tsao chimed in. “It’s important to us that The School not just talk the talk—you must walk the walk, as I tell all my patients.”

Sara wondered how his patients kept their patience. Losing her own, she placed their application in the Life’s Too Short pile.

Philosophically she supported their family structure, just not when both parents were shrinks.

Perhaps the most difficult admissions call of the prior year had been the Bangston fiasco. While considering an application for the spoiled rotten, high-strung, and mean-spirited daughter of Stuart Bangston, a hostile, hostile takeover specialist, Sara inadvertently learned that the father’s firm had made an unprecedentedly grandiose contribution to The School. The one-million-dollar gift was the largest individual donation in the history of The School and, to Sara’s ethical nose, reeked of corrupt intent. After an in-school battle that pitted the office of admissions (or, when it came down to it, Sara) against the powers that be, the board of trustees stepped in and pronounced that the five-year-old tantrumer was “unquestionably a highly qualified applicant,” and instructed Sara, under no uncertain terms, to accept her forthwith.

Thus admissions decisions were made at The School.

Seven blocks north, on another tree-lined street in upper Manhattan, Helen Drager sat in her office / dining alcove, determinedly pushing the redial button on her phone. Helen had begun her morning under the cheerful misconception that phoning a few schools to request high school applications for her daughter, Zoe, would be a fairly straightforward project. She delighted in plunging into simple tasks that could be ticked off on her daily mental to-do list without much fuss and bother. This seemingly minor chore, however, was beginning to remind her of the time she had spent days calling all over town in search of the Tickle Me Elmo doll Zoe desperately wanted for her fifth birthday, only to be told there was a three-month wait. Unused to denying her daughter her heart’s desire, Helen had pulled every string she could think of to hasten the toy’s arrival and managed to cut the wait down to three weeks. Unfortunately, by the time it finally arrived, Zoe had lost interest in Elmo and was on to the next big thing: a repellent purple and green television dinosaur.

Dolls and dinosaurs were minor speed bumps—applications to high schools were another issue entirely. The day before the admissions process began, she and her husband, Michael, had vowed to keep their sense of humor intact. Well, it’s always good to set goals, Helen thought wryly while adjusting the hands-free-to-multitask headset, which allowed her to pay bills, send e-mail, and wipe the breakfast crumbs off the table while patiently standing by for her call to be answered by the first available admissions assistant.

Press “one” if you are requesting an application for a child who aspires to attend Harvard, Princeton, or Yale only, she joked to herself. See, the whole thing really could be funny. It would just take some extra effort on her part. Still waiting, Helen looked critically around to determine the next task to fill the on-hold-Muzak void.

The Dragers’ 1920 Deco-style apartment, although smaller than the “classic seven” Helen had ideally wished for, was elegant in its simplicity. A disciple of the modernist aesthetic, she appreciated good design at its cleanest and sparest; despite its rampant overuse by marketers and branding consultants, “keep it simple” was her mantra for both her home and her appearance. As a result, she had been able to spend money sparingly on good pieces, to pleasing overall effect. Most of the Dragers’ furniture bore the imprimatur of an important twentieth-century designer, and Zoe had learned at an early age to refer to “the Eames chairs” or the “Mackintosh table” when speaking of the things in their household. Even Michael, who was avowedly more interested in Le Cordon Bleu than Le Corbusier, appreciated her good taste. She, in turn, indulged his appetite by agreeing to splurge on a professional kitchen, albeit a small one, which, with its industrial appliances and stainless steel counters, conformed to her style as well.

Still in a tele-holding pattern, Helen glanced approvingly across their modestly proportioned living room, admiring the successful compromise between design and comfort she felt she had achieved. The two downy ecru sofas and a plush, geometrically patterned area rug provided a soft contrast to the austerity of the other furnishings. Disdainful of clutter, she remembered what a relief it had been to replace the Playskool kitchen with the Barcelona lounger and reinstate the Aalto vase in its rightful place on the Nakashima table when Zoe finally outgrew the baby-proofing stage.

A house full of toys was a small price to pay for the joy we got from Zoe when she was a toddler, she thought wistfully as her gaze rested on a small photograph, the only object atop the smooth sea-green credenza that separated the foyer from the living room. The frame held a picture of Zoe as a small child, chasing a balloon on a windy beach, the glee on her face unmistakably that of a carefree spirit.

Helen thought back to the time that photo had been taken: Zoe had been five, and the Dragers had just finished applying to Kindergarten. The only requirement was that her child look presentable, know her ABC’s, and not pick her nose during the interview, although even that would probably have been acceptable at some of the more progressive schools. It certainly had been a carefree time—although the private schools cultivated an air of selectivity, the population had been so different in New York back then that schools had to hide the fact that they accepted a large percentage of the applicants.

Damn. Why didn’t we apply to one of the K-12 schools back then? If we had chosen one of those instead of The School, we wouldn’t be going through this now, she chastised herself while sealing and stamping an envelope.

Nine years ago, both she and Michael had agreed that the intimate and nurturing ambiance of a K-8 school was appealing and that delaying interaction with high schoolers for as long as possible was a good idea.

“It isn’t a life-or-death decision; it’s just kindergarten,” they repeatedly told each other back then, never imagining they would ever have to worry about admissions again. The School staked its reputation on being a “feeder to the feeders,” meaning that its graduating eighth-grade students were assured entrance into New York’s top high schools, which ultimately fed into the Ivy League.

But in recent years the rules of the game had changed: the players had become increasingly more cutthroat, and the playing field had turned treacherous. With a slew of children born to ambitious baby-boomers with six-figure incomes, gaining entrée into one of the top private schools had become not only an enormous financial challenge but a torturously uncertain odds-against-you gamble as well.

To further complicate matters, Helen’s confidence in her advisor, Pamela Rothschild, the head of The School, had started to wane. Once the pinnacle of professionalism, over the past several months Pamela had often failed to return phone calls and e-mails and, in general, seemed peculiar and remote. Her personal counsel—and more important, her wide-ranging influence—were what Helen had counted on to make this process bearable. But recently, Pamela’s erratic behavior was troublesome. Confronting that problem could mean losing her as an ally, so Helen was reduced to feeling like the wallflower who needed to befriend the popular cheerleader in order to be invited to the fun parties. In this case, though, the outcome of not being invited to the right parties meant more than just staying home on a Saturday night; it could mean never getting into college, holding down a job . . . Before Zoe knew it, she’d be destitute, looking for a handout . . .

“May I help you?” the voice broke in, mercifully putting an end to Helen’s nightmarish vision. Helen quickly dropped her pen, straightened her spine, and cleared her throat.

“Oh, yes, hello. Yes, please. I would like to receive an application for my daughter, Zoe Drager, for grade nine. A wait list? Just for the application? Well, yes, I suppose I would like to be added to the list. Thank you. And a letter stating our interest? Hand-delivered? Okay. Right away. Sure, yes, thank you so much for your help. Goodbye.” Three down, three to go. Helen groaned.

Groveling with admissions people was especially difficult for Helen, who, as president of the Parents’ Association for the past three years, had earned VIP status and insider access at The School. Even The School’s receptionist, Miss Lulu, recognized her voice whenever she called, and always managed to come up with a timely comment like, “Zoe looks so adorable without her front teeth,” or “I bet you made Zoe’s scarecrow costume, didn’chya?”

She was glad Michael and Zoe were not home to witness her frustration, preferring her family not see her in the abject role of underdog. She had ceremoniously announced “Today’s the day!” as Michael was leaving for work this morning, and he’d responded casually with some remark like “I’d wish you luck but I can’t imagine you’ll need it.”

Ignorance is bliss, she thought, on hold for school number four.

Unlike Michael, Zoe was visibly nervous and had started biting her nails again, even though she had kicked the habit four years ago. The anxiety was contagious and had likely been caught from her classmates, many of whom had spent a good part of the summer talking about applying to high school and speculating on who would be accepted at which schools.

Two hours later Helen finished up the last of her calls, having made contact with all six schools, to varying degrees of success. Convinced that her morning’s work represented a victory of sorts, she filled in the scorecard she had created for herself during the course of the morning:

That done, she forced herself to dash off a lighthearted e-mail to the head of The School.

Pamela-

Got all my requests done this a.m. the first day after Labor Day! Isn’t that great! We’re getting applications from all the schools you suggested except for two. We’re wait listed at those. You didn’t warn me about wait lists, or were they invented just to torture poor parents like me? :) See you tonight.

Helen

 

She also sent an e-mail to her close friend Sara Nash.

Hey Sara,

Made my calls today. A few schools have wait-listed us already—for applications, not admissions! Can you believe it! I guess we’re awaiting security clearance, or more likely, Social Register clearance.

You must be having a crazy day. See you tonight at the Topplers’. Watcha wearing?

xoxo Helen

 

It was some hours later before Sara responded:

Helen

Congrats on the apps. Don’t worry, you WILL clear wait lists.

It IS nuts here today. Anxious to see if Brandi survives.

Looking forward to seeing you at the Over-the Topplers.

My usual bland ensemble.

Sara

 

Helen and Sara had met ten years ago on a 5K bike-athon that The School’s student council had organized to raise money to help retired New York City carriage horses find homes in greener pastures. As the children slowly looped around Central Park, the older ones on two-wheelers, the younger on three, Helen and Sara brought up the rear, making sure there were no pokey bikers left in the dust. Sara was a newcomer to the group, having just been hired as Pamela Rothschild’s assistant, and Helen, as the mother of a Kindergartner, was new to The School, too. Knowing none of the other chaperones, the two women were glad for each other’s company, and the bike-athon turned into a talk-athon as they spent the entire 5K in nonstop conversation.

The first two kilometers were spent exchanging general biographical details. Sara was the first person Helen had ever met who grew up in Nebraska, and she found the description of small-town life fascinating in contrast to her own Philadelphia childhood. While Sara attended a small, highly touted Midwestern college, Helen was studying in New York and Paris (junior year abroad), and when Sara moved to New York to get a degree in social work, Helen was in Berlin doing research for her dissertation. After completing social work school, Sara ran a city-financed early education program and, in order to make ends meet, taught a few after-school music classes at The School.

“Eventually I just burned out on working two jobs and took the easy way out. I couldn’t resist the higher salary and better benefits that The School offered,” Sara confessed.

“Don’t apologize. That’s a totally legitimate decision. I did the same thing when I decided to quit academia. I realized I could work less and spend more time with Zoe if I wrote and curated instead of taught. I’m really glad I made that choice.”

By the end of the third kilometer they had covered parents, siblings—Sara’s three, Helen’s zero—and significant others.

“I guess I’m what people call ‘very single,’” Sara confided with a sad smile.

“Then I guess I’m what people called ‘very married,’” Helen responded, going through her mental Rolodex to see who she knew that might be available.

“Michael sounds pretty great, and you’re so lucky to have Zoe. She is too cute. Just look at her,” Sara said, pointing to the pigtailed biker madly pedaling to keep up with a small blond child on a pink trike.

“Go, Zoe, you can do it!” Helen shouted ahead.

“She’s one determined little girl. Look at her trying to overtake Julia.”

“It’s Julian,” Helen corrected. “A boy.”

“Oops.”

“And now watch. If I know my daughter, she’ll pedal really fast to catch up to him and then slow down and follow behind. She’s always been reluctant to take the lead,” Helen laughed, both proud of and annoyed by her daughter’s noncompetitive nature.

“That could be developmental. She might surprise you one day with a killer instinct you never thought she had,” Sara volunteered.

“She’d better. Or she’ll never survive in this town!”

By the fifth kilometer they were giddy, laughing at the absurdity of the bike-athon itself (couldn’t The School have found a worthier cause than old horses?), at several of their fellow chaperones, who at this point were slavishly carrying both their children and their children’s bikes, and at the taunts of one jeering onlooker: “Hey, what about me? I don’t have a retirement fund!”

When the bike-athon was finally completed, Zoe was in need of a nap, and Helen, feeling buoyant at the prospect of cultivating a new friendship, invited Sara back to her apartment for lunch. They spent the better part of the afternoon delving deeper into their life stories, struck more by the differences than the similarities, and by the time Zoe woke up, they were on their way to becoming fast friends, entranced by what each perceived to be the other’s exotic background.

In the years Sara had lived in New York, she had acquired a mo-dicum of sophistication while somehow managing to retain her deeply ingrained Midwestern sensibility. Her outward persona was straight-shooting American Gothic, but those who knew her well were privy to her sharp wit and droll style. These traits would serve her well in admissions, where a poker face was mandatory but a funny bone was the key to survival. Helen, on the other hand, was urbane to the core, with a cynicism that allowed her to see the humor in most of life’s travails—that is, most of those she had encountered so far.

Over the years, their friendship blossomed. They saw each other regularly in The School’s admissions office, where, after five years as Rothschild’s assistant, Sara became the director of admissions, and Helen volunteered as a tour guide for prospective Kindergarten applicants. And they both participated in the many activities that were scattered throughout the school calendar, particularly once Helen was elected president of the Parents’ Association and her presence at these events was required. Beyond that, they made an effort to see each other socially, as frequently as their divergent and demanding New York schedules permitted, which admittedly was not as much as either would have liked.

In addition to all her other responsibilities, Sara was the director of The School’s extracurricular choral group, of which Zoe was an enthusiastic and talented participant. After years of in-school interaction, Sara had come to know Zoe not only as Helen’s daughter but as a highly valued member of the School community, a gifted musician, and a solid though not stellar student. In turn, Zoe looked up to Sara and, unbeknownst to Helen, had also recently sought her advice on the subject of high school admissions. Sara recognized the risk involved in separately counseling two members of the same family but told herself that as long as she exercised the utmost discretion, her objectivity might be helpful. And since the Dragers were the closest thing she had to family in New York, she was willing to run the risk of ruffling a few feathers to make sure Zoe ended up in the school that was right for her.

Pamela Rothschild did not arrive at The School until noon. It was unusual, on the first day of school, for the head not to be poised at the front gate, a smile ready for the shy first-time students, a compliment on a new haircut for a returning fifth-grader. In past years, Pamela could always be counted on to be there, the figurehead at the bow of the ship. But this year she was feeling complacent. The School was running well, enrollment was robust, and money was pouring in from several recently enrolled families who viewed their hefty contributions as the least they could do to express their relief at having been granted admission into her exclusive enclave. But even more to the point, proffering enormous donations helped these new parents sleep at night, assuming that their little ones would receive preferential treatment the minute they were enrolled in their new school.

Pamela unlocked her office, admiring the shiny brass plaque she had had engraved over the summer and affixed to her door.

 

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which prime ministers have never yet been invested.

 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” she crowed to her assistant, Margaret, who still wasn’t sure what message the new plaque was intended to convey: “Keep out”? “The doctor is in”? Or simply “Beware”?

As Pamela stood in front of her office mirror rearranging her hair, she remembered the one thing she had to do before the evening party: check to see if Julian Toppler was appropriately dressed for the first day of school.

During the course of the past summer, Pamela had spent many hours counseling John and Lauren Toppler about their eighth-grade son, who seemed to be in the midst of a rather disturbing adolescent identity crisis.

“I strongly suggest that when Julian is away at camp, you purge his room of all cosmetics and feminine accessories. And when he returns, you must forbid him to enter his mother’s dressing room or touch her jewelry,” she declared with utmost authority. A believer in tough love, Pamela told the Topplers that they could only hope to set Julian straight on his gender confusion by setting limits and enforcing them through strict disciplinary measures.

“That means no more eyeliner—even if he tells you all the kids are using it,” she commanded sternly.

Mr. Toppler agreed with Pamela, but his wife did not.

“I’m more inclined to explore a kinder, gentler, therapeutic approach. Maybe we need to consult a professional,” Lauren ventured tentatively.

“Are you suggesting that I’m not a professional?” Pamela replied haughtily, and looked to John for support. He nodded in agreement. “In my years of experience I can’t tell you how many parents think their children need touchy-feely intervention when, in fact, their children are crying out for discipline! They’re looking for limits! And it’s up to you to set them!” she addressed her speech to Lauren, whom she had pegged as the pushover. It was two against one, and for the time being, John Toppler and Pamela prevailed.

Stepping back from the mirror, she experimented with a side part and a new rhinestone-studded barrette, her beloved charm bracelet jangling each time she flipped her wrist.

An innocent bystander’s glance in the general direction of her hand was Pamela’s cue to recite the unabridged story behind each of the fifteen charms. The first year she was the head of The School, the graduating class presented her with the bracelet, simply adorned with a single gold apple in celebration of her recent relocation to the Big Apple. The annual gift of a charm became a tradition at The School, and each eighth-grade class presented her with one on the day of their graduation. The class representatives spent weeks trying to find the perfect charm, wanting theirs to be more precious and personally significant than the last. Over the years she had been given a lucky horseshoe, a ruler, a little teapot, a riding crop, and her favorite of all, a perfect little replica of The School, complete with a tiny red door and a minuscule schoolmistress standing in front. While fondling the most recent addition, a tiny gold ladle commemorating the days she spent with last year’s graduating class at the local soup kitchen, she remembered her offer, made in an uncharacteristically magnanimous moment, to bring an appetizer to the Topplers’ party. But over the weekend she had been too busy to shop for the ingredients and, quite frankly, regretted ever having made the offer.

“Margaret!” she shouted. “Where can I procure decent pissaladiere? I need enough for a crowd. For tonight,” she barked.

“I’ll get right back to you on that,” Margaret replied, pretending to know what Pamela wanted. It sounded like some sort of French undergarment for accident-prone children, but why would such a thing be needed for a cocktail party? She scrambled to her desk and grabbed the dictionary.

“Jeez, was I off base—a Provençal finger food! I’d better phone Bruce. If anyone can help me, he can,” she thought, quickly dialing an old college friend who, she had read on Page Six, was now an up-and-coming caterer.

Margaret had been working for Pamela for five years. The pace of the school day appealed to her, the kids were endlessly amusing, and she enjoyed her colleagues immensely. But it was the opportunity to work directly with the legendary Pamela Rothschild that had initially sold Margaret on the job. She was respected for overseeing what was considered to be one of the most rigorous, traditional elementary schools in the city.

In addition, Margaret equated “British” with “learned” and had convinced herself that there were many things she could learn from Pamela. And it was true, there were. But recently some of Pamela’s requests had been falling into the not-in-my-job-description category—like today’s, for example. Or into the I’m-not-so-sure-this-is-ethical category, like the time last year when Pamela asked her to wrap a Murano glass vase that had been donated for The School auction and re-gift it to Pamela’s recently married cousin. The most annoying aspect of her job, however, was the frequency with which she was required to invent excuses to conceal her boss’s habitual absenteeism. But at least she could always rely on the stimulation of new challenges.

So here she was, hustling a caterer while Pamela was sequestered in her office, “catching up on some pressing correspondence,” as she regularly announced with an air of self-importance. After hearing the same phrase for months, Margaret had figured out that it meant a few minutes of legitimate e-mail followed by hours on the Internet, which, as far as she could tell, involved nothing remotely school-related. Once she caught her searching eBay for bargains on Staffordshire porcelains. Other times she nabbed her yacking up a storm in a chat room with fellow Windsor watchers. And then there were the frequent games of solitaire, which, if Margaret happened to walk in on, would magically vanish from the screen in a nanosecond.

Meanwhile, ensconced in her graciously appointed office, Pamela cast a wary eye at her computer. As it was day one of the admissions season, it was not surprising that her in-box contained over a dozen messages from eighth-grade parents, all reporting on their application progress. “What a bloody bore,” she murmured to herself as she reluctantly clicked on the first message in her box.

Pamela-

Should I inform the schools that Nathan is on Ritalin when I request the applications, in the applications, or wait until the interviews?

J. MacGuire

 

What sheer stupidity! Have you been sampling the meds yourself? Pamela wondered, and responded:

Jean-

I won’t tell if you don’t tell. Ever. End of story.

Pamela

 

Next was an e-mail from Neal Moore, the most nebbishy parent in The School and the bane of her existence.

Pamela,

Marianne has suddenly done an about face and doesn’t want to apply to any of the schools you suggested. When we met with you in June, you strongly recommended a single-sex school for Nicholas and we both agreed with you. At least I thought we did. Now she suddenly thinks a boys’ school is the wrong way to go. What should I do?

Neal Moore

 

What a weenie! This is exactly why poor Nicholas needs a boys’ school—he has no masculine role model, Pamela sneered, and wrote:

Neal,

Who wears the pants in your family? If Marianne is unwilling to call for the applications, then you do it! But deal with this right away! The schools must not sense her ambivalence! You both must appear single-minded and confident in your choice. If she is not, then she should no