Q. 1) We scored ‘55’ points in a school and the cut off points are ‘45’ (i.e. last kid on the list has 45 points), then why is my kid not on the list?
Possible reasons: 1) Your kid is 4+ years old and school has not considered your kid eligible for Nursery. (i.e. Pre-School) or given preference to 3+ yrs olds and vice versa, if your kid is 3+ yrs old and you have applied for Pri-Primary, the school will reject that, because as per DOE rules, the min. age for Pri-Primary is 4+ yrs as on 31st March.
Q. 2) What options we have if my kid can’t make it to any list ?
Suggestion: Tough question of the recent times let me go back to the poll results that we conducted recently (thanks to all who participated!), the numbers suggest that we all have applied at multiple schools but this doesn’t mean that anyone with just neighborhood points at hand can hope to get a seat as every seat has at least 30-40 applications and even 10th revised list wont bring the cutoff to that 20 points.
See sample maths here that would give you some idea on how it might work or not work.
Kids with at least 40-50 points still have ‘some’ hope and can expect miracle in 1/10 applications.
Another agony that is being observed for kids that are 4+ yrs old (as on 31st Mar), and have applied for Nursery seat, have further less chances as schools don’t want to put 3 yrs with 4 yrs due to number of reasons.
Q. 3) Can I buy a seat (under management quota etc)?
There are schools and people who are ready to give you a seat for ‘money’, but they are not many. Some school has accepted (as reported by one of the parents) approx. Rs. 8-10 lakhs from few parents and given admissions last year. There are few other schools that are also ‘asking’ for donations (or at least talk about it) during interaction meetings.
I have come across people who claim that they can get you a seat in one of the highly ‘sought after’ south Delhi school for Rs. 2-3 lakhs under management quota.
If we talk about options after 1st Feb (the problem statement), probably there is some ray of hope from some private schools that are little better than ‘govt’ schools, but I don’t think many parents would even opt for that forget about sending kid to a govt. school.
For working parents who have offices in Gurgaon, Noida or surrounding areas, may plan to move out of Delhi and get their kids admitted there. Not an easy one, but little better than earlier one.
Then there are crazy suggestion floating around like (for 4+ yrs) – get your kid admitted to some good school in other state, pay one year fee there and put your kid in some average school here and next year when he/she will be 5+ yrs old, try for a better school here in 1st grade showing that you have got transferred to Delhi or something. Crazy isn’t it? But let me tell you – parents are serious on any and all options.
Can’t think of more as of now…this really needs a good brainstorming. If you come across any idea, please do share it. I am clearly not an expert in this area (admissions), but these views are coming from my recent good (and bad) experience, and thanks to all who keep sending their ideas, suggestions to me.
