This story has been huge in some circles in NYC but I thought the author might have missed the point. There is a perception here about feeder schools, you get into the "right" preschool, it gets you into the "right" private which then puts you on the path to the ivies - and even then they rank with harvard, Yale and Princeton being SOOOO much better than the others. And there are very strongly held beliefs about some excellent, expensive schools and some expensive mediocre ones! Bottom line, even with economic downturn the pool of applicants for these schools is still larger than the number of seats, so parents get desperate - not usually as desperate as this woman but it's possible she really did think she was screwed.
DeHe
