Well, well. So long since I addressed this issue.
Long story short (?):
We turned down both private schools, as noted. Kid ended up getting into a gifted public school after all, in the second rnd of acceptances.
Place was 40min commute one-way. The kid has swim class, piano class, dance class in the afternoons–enjoys that stuff immensely. Having to ditch any of it would have been suboptimal. Plus V was not overly impressed with the school as a place.
Given that we’d been waiting on pins and needles for such an acceptance, we…rejected it. We could triangulate things well enough (based on reports from crazed-parents-message-boards and so on) to know that the kid was within one or two points of getting into one of our top couple choices, which would mean 9yrs of free, top quality education not too far from our house. Seemed worth the risk.
No word for two months. Getting used to the idea we would have to do the whole rigamarole again. Vague feelings of having let down our child.
Couple weeks before school starts, ring ring, she’s in at one of our top two places. We’re done.
Have tried to figure out precisely why taking one’s kid to her first day of kindergarten is such an emotional experience. I think it’s multi-layered.
1. In our case, we know, barring a move from the city or implosion of the public school system, she is going to be there for 9yrs. And she’s in the right school. Which is a huge relief.
2. Much of the groundwork for a person’s entire personality is set during that time.
3. School in general can be boring, terrifying, wonderful. Life at home or in preschool is pretty calm in comparison.
4. School is where you learn to be a person, for better or worse. Where you learn to accommodate fools and be foolish. Where you learn to rely on your friends and when you’ve relied on them too much. Where you learn to pick apart other people and exploit their weaknesses. It’s the final assurance, as a parent, that your little kid is not a baby any more, not a toddler any more, just barely a little kid, and that barring misfortune she will end up as 100% her own person someday, and that day will come sooner than you might like.
So there she is, being taught science and French and whatever they do now in gym, six hours a day five days a week. We will pay through the nose for every family vacation from now on, taking them at the same time as everyone else.