Now my 4 year-old Jenny can't get into Harvard!! - Mom sues her child's preschool

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TODAYMoms - Mom sues preschool for not prepping 4-year-old for Ivy League

Mom sues preschool for not prepping 4-year-old for Ivy League
By Kavita Varma-White

Did you hear the one about the New York mom who sued the preschool for not preparing her kid for the Ivy League?
Sadly, folks, this isn't a joke.

Cute, but will it impress the Harvard admissions committee?
There is, for reals, a mom (the plaintiff, Nicole Imprescia of Manhattan) and a school (the defendant, York Avenue Preschool) and a lawsuit (plaintiff suing defendant for a refund of the $19,000/year tuition she paid).
The New York Daily News first reported about Imprescia's beef. She claims the school jeopardized her 4-year-old daughter Lucia's chances of getting into an elite private school (by not preparing her for the admissions exam you have to take to get into top notch/top dollar elementary schools in the city) and, therefore – wait for it, wait for it – ruined her chances of being a future Ivy Leaguer.

The lawsuit claims that the school put Imprescia's "very smart" 4-year-old in a class with kids half her age – a class where the focus was on shapes and colors. (The York School's website says 4-year-olds work "with one alphabet letter each week creating connections between the letter, the sound and the children's lives." Students are also "introduced to the works of artists represented in the many museums found within New York City.")
"The school proved not to be a school at all, but just one big playroom," the lawsuit says.

Again, this isn't a joke, but if it were, maybe this would be the punch line: Imprescia pulled her daughter out of the school after just three weeks – which means the child maybe got to the letter "C." But the school, which has a firm no-refund policy, wouldn't give her money back. (Nanny, nanny boo-boo.)

Where to start with this story: Paying $19,000 for a preschool? Saying the school sucks after just three weeks? Filing a lawsuit because you think your 4-year-old won't get into Harvard? We took to the blogosphere to find out what bothers people the most.

In the Jewish parenting blog Kveller.com, Jordana Horn writes about what the $19K preschool price tag is really about:
It’s more about the connections – you’re buying into the system early with the idea, as this woman has somewhat indelicately put it, of buying a ticket for the wild ride of Manhattan competitive education. You fight to get into a preschool, then an elementary school, then high school, and then the golden ticket of the decal for the back of the car that costs $19K to put in the garage all year. Fun!

Jen Doll, in the Village Voice's Pity the Parent blog, says:
But this kind of thing has been going on forever, as long as pushy parents and pageant moms have existed, which is to say, always. Imprescia is only of interest, really, due to her gall in announcing to the world her high-minded expectations for her child, and then actually suing for her money back based on the premise that those expectations could have been destroyed in a mere three week's time.

And we love how Babble's Strollerderby blog tucks the story into bed. Writes Meredith Carroll:
Here’s hoping mademoiselle Lucia (and her mom) recovers from the trauma of preschool and goes on to bigger and better schools. Or at least marries well.

What do you think is the most bizarre part of this story? Is little Lucia's mom justified in bringing the lawsuit?


I liked what Babble's Strollerderby's blog had to say. But, yeah this is crazy!
 
This really says a lot about competitive people are. I once took a writing class where the instructor, an established author, bragged about how she married her husband just for his money and because his mother was headmistress of a school she wanted her future kids to go to. It's all about keeping up with the Jones' and being the envy of everyone. I think for some people, particularly the upper class, will never realize there's more to life than being rich and having access to everything that is elite.
 
Did this woman ever read the poster? Everything I need to know I learned in KINDERGARTEN, not pre-school...

Sue next year :wink:

Seriously, this entitlement pseudo competitive mentality sickens me.
 
I feel bad for this girl because it's pretty obvious she's not going to have much of a fun childhood. You know the drill - French lessons at six, viola tutors at seven, elocution sessions at eight. And I'm just talking about one evening heh. She'll either grow up completely joyless and repressed or a teenage rebel.
 
awful!

feel sorry for the poor little kid growing up with that kind of pressure...
 
Huh... there's so many things wrong on both sides of this story.

And what's an Imprescia? Please tell me that's at least her last name.
 
This seems to be basically a truth-in-advertising lawsuit--they promised particular curricula based on age and (allegedly) didn't deliver on that, therefore she's demanding a refund. This was the third week of her daughter's second year there, not the third week overall. While I find the idea of grooming a 4-year-old for Harvard absurd, I can understand that if you're paying $19,000 for preschool you expect the curriculum to be what was promised.
 
I won't speak for Canadiens, but I would like you to expound on it.
You have a better chance of succeeding in your life when you develop a talent, or when you do things that make you happy and that are fun to do. Just take a look at athletes, singers, musicians, painters, actors, and entrepreneurs; most people love them because of personal and material qualities, but very few people admire the fact that they followed their dreams and did the opposite of what society does.

The trick into succeeding in the world does not lie entirely on education, knowledge, experience, nor graduating from any elite college. Obviously each individual has different goals and dreams but it is helpful in the long run to try different paths to your own success. This same scenario happens in this story where this woman is pretty much forcing her daughter to undergo the stress and competition to get into eliteness, failing to realize that her daughter could invest that valuable time into many other different areas that could potentially pay better in the long run than a BA from Harvard along with a $50K annual salary.
 
I'm sorry for bumping this thread but I have searched for it specifically because there is something that I wanted to say.

When I was at school I hated it. The only thing I enjoyed were hanging out and having a laugh with my friends. I hated most of the subjects and mostly I didn't see the point of it within the real friend. I think most of the problem was that I didn't know what I wanted to do career wise, I lived mostly in the here-and-now and the odd subject that I thought I would enjoy (ie: music) I was no good at. I had such a complete lack of interest in it that I never even put any revision before my final exams. Consequently I failed and had to spend the next 4 years in college trying to make up for it by gaining diploma's in a secretarial and leisure & tourism qualification.

After a year of searching for admin jobs in my home town I gave up and enrolled on a Marketing & Psychology degree only to discover that marketing is actually quite boring and that I would never make it in the real world of business.

Nowadays I am writing a film script but I am under pressure from my shrink to search for what is known as a "real job", and recently I am thinking that perhaps I should embark on a career that would be more useful to society than films.

If only I knew back then what I wanted to do and were pushed into undergoing French lessons and the like from an early age. I'd be in a much better place then I would be now.
 
I think there are plenty of people entering university not knowing what they want to do, and then graduating with a better direction or a job.

I wish someone had told me, before college, just get a f-ing degree and make sure to meet tons of people and network as much as possible. I have friends who got BAs in Biochem and are now successful salesmen, friends who got an Econ degree and do very non-economics things with non-profits...etc. A BA is like putting on a different set of tinted glasses to see the world from that perspective.

I think the big mistake people make is going into a ton of debt just to get a good school's seal on their diploma, without being extremely driven to be in a field with large enough income potential to get rid of that debt.
 
I think the biggest mistake is succumbing to the entitlement complex, that we should be able to get the exact jobs we want and make a ton of money without having to jump through all the hoops or ever take responsibility for ourselves.

For most people, student debt is just a fact of life. The amount of debt does not correlate to farting around during college, it correlates to how competitive scholarships and grants have become and how much or how little someone else is footing your bills. I guess I could never spend years studying, interning, and working in a field I was only in to pay off student debt, I'd hate to be a slave to money.

You don't have to take French lessons at 4 years old to succeed. It's not always about being pushed into things early on. Most people just can't afford those things like doing piano and gymnastics and singing lessons and being on a travel soccer team and yet have no problems getting through school, getting a decent career and doing whatever the heck they want to do within reason. At some point you grow up and even if you don't know *exactly* what you want to do, you start being accountable for yourself and pushing yourself in whatever direction you feel is appropriate.
 
I hate kissing ass and cold calling people, which is perfect because I'm studying a field where that's the only way to succeed.
 
I hate kissing ass and cold calling people, which is perfect because I'm studying a field where that's the only way to succeed.

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That's not what I was referring to. I'm in journalism, so I wouldn't be calling about something like that. I meant more like cold calling people in my industry who I have not met before.
 
I think a lot of industries are like that. How well you can do the job is one thing but networking is what is really important if you want to succeed. That is where I see people struggle the most. It's not enough to have the degree, the drive, and some experience, sometimes you have to really get in peoples' faces in order to sell yourself.
 
Yeah, that's what I mean. Despite being a very outgoing person, I'm uncomfortable with putting people on the spot. I like my interactions to occur organically. I understand it's part of the game, but it'll take me a while.
 
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