News and Reviews

Former Denverite Karen Quinn again looks at NYC life

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

Karen Quinn is back in the fast lane.

She’s the Denver alum who wrote the hit chick-lit book “The Ivy Chronicles.” Now she’s out with “Wife in the Fast Lane.”

Quinn’s the daughter of the late Sonny Nedler, owner of Sonny’s on Fillmore jewelry in Cherry Creek North. “Ivy” was a hit in 2005, the story of NYC kids getting into exclusive kindergartens. Catherine Zeta-Jones bought it to star in it, bringing her “Ocean’s Twelve” producer, Jerry Weintraub, on board along with Warner Bros. It’s due out in 2008.

“Wife in the Fast Lane” already has been published in England, where “Ivy” was a huge hit. It comes to the USA next month, and Quinn hits the Tattered Cover Colfax with the tome March 15. Quinn explains that the book’s about “a woman in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, very accomplished, married to this very successful man - when all of a sudden she inherits the granddaughter of the housekeeper she’s had for many years. That kind of puts her over the edge.”

Quinn and her husband and kids live in NYC, way downtown. So she knows the territory. Still, she likes to get back to Denver to see her family - and a lot of friends she left behind before she began her life in the fast lane.

Denver Post, 02/20/2007

Idle Time For Drivers of Rich Toddlers

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

We thought of one thing after reading the NY Times article about 92nd Street Y nursery school students’ drivers clogging up the streets outside the school: Home schooling. Actually, we also thought “congestion tax,” but reading about chauffeured SUVs for tiny children would drive most anyone crazy.

The competitive (which also means prestigious) 92nd Street Y Nursery School sent out a letter to parents warning them that if their cars still caused gridlock, then their kids’ chances of getting into the 92nd Street Y’s other private school programs might be compromised. Now, that is what we call a threat! The NY Times observed this much:

Over the course of four mornings this winter, at least 22 chauffeured S.U.V.’s were seen, most of them repeatedly, waiting in front of the school while parents brought in their children. Most of the cars belonged to families who live between Lexington and Fifth Avenues and 70th to 86th Streets. Subsequent research found that an overwhelming majority of the fathers in these families earn a living in the field of capital management � running money for hedge funds or private equity funds � though there was one television executive and one professional athlete.

Many of the mothers say that the chauffeured SUVs are necessary for errands and because they live far away - like on the Upper West Side (god forbid the child go to a school on the Upper West Side!). There’s some suggestion that there are security concerns, but most suspect there’s a competition over kids getting dropped off in style. We don’t know what to say, except that the Armageddon will come when these kids have to dropped off in those horrible stretch Humvee limos.

And on the topic of nursery school insanity, we interviewed author and former nursery school admissions consultant Karen Quinn two years ago; she said, “I once heard about a father who put on a twenty-slide PowerPoint presentation pitching the advantages of his family and child over other applicants during a parent interview.”

The Gothamist,
January 24, 2007

Mommy Lit

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

December 23, 2006

I normally read non-fiction books, but I made a decision to read more fiction “brain candy” for 2007. Soon after making that decision, Touchstone-Fireside sent me a few chick lit books (featuring moms) to preview. In the last week, I have read two of the three books.

I loved the first book, Wife in the Fast Lane by Karen Quinn, the author of the previous bestselling book, The Ivy Chronicles. This book was so great that I stayed up until 3 in the morning one night finishing it. The book is a about a woman named Christy Hayes, a former two-time Olympic gold medalist who over the course of the book runs a multi-billion dollar athletic shoe business, marries a rich, handsome husband and becomes the guardian of her housekeeper’s granddaughter. That’s the nice part. On the dark side, she faces a corporate takeover (by her best friend!); endures Manhattan private school craziness and catches her husband in a compromising position with another woman. Of course, since this is a novel, everything ties up nicely at the end. The good thing about this book (that makes it more than brain candy to me) is that it really made me think about the various choices that women make in our quest to “have it all”�the husband, the kids and the career. It also made me think how important it is for me to keep the “spice” in my relationship with my husband. (You’ll understand after you read the book.) I highly recommend this book which should be out in stores in March of 2007.

http://www.mominthecity.com/blog/

Mom gets schooled in college panic

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

By Catherine Mallette
McClatchy Newspapers

Sometimes, as a parent, I find myself doing things that I know are absolutely crazy, and yet I still do them.

I can tell you right now that in the next year and a half, I am going to go down all kinds of nonsensical paths because my son Jack is a high-school junior, and I am already sucking myself into College Admissions Insanity, as “Time” magazine reporters so aptly described the process in last week’s cover story, “Who Needs Harvard?”

I know better than to panic. I know because I’ve panicked twice before about school choices for this same kid, and the panicking was a total waste of time.

First there was The Preschool Panic. All my mom-friends were in the same mode of not-so-quiet desperation, worrying about how the heck to get our 3- and 4-year-olds into the right preschools - the ones that were considered feeder schools to the best private elementary schools. I know I am not the only idiot who wasted his or her time on this because I’ve read “The Ivy Chronicles,” a hilarious novel about a Manhattan mom who starts a consulting business, helping (for enormous sums of money) high-strung parents get their tots into the city’s top preschools. Sure, it was a novel, but it rang true. It wasn’t quite that bad in Dallas, where I lived, but the panic was there, and I succumbed to it.

I did it because I wanted the very best for my child. I worried that if Jack didn’t have this opportunity, I’d be slamming closed doors of further opportunity for him for the rest of his life.

So Jack went to one of those top-rated schools, and it turned out to be a bit of disaster. After three years of nothing but “He’s doing fine!” reports, my then-husband and I were told one spring that Jack would not be promoted to first grade, that he was way behind on his reading skills and that he really didn’t have any friends because no one could understand his speech. The school’s solution? Put him back in another year of kindergarten.

What we did instead was to sign Jack up for speech therapy. We learned that some early ear infections had caused him to miss developing crucial building blocks of speech. The phonics-only approach to reading that his preschool had taken was completely ineffective for Jack because he couldn’t “hear” the sounds of some letters, even though his hearing was perfectly fine.

Within a month, he was reading. And within a month, we’d decided to enroll him in our local public school for kindergarten, where reading was taught both phonetically and in a whole-word approach, so Jack would do just fine. And he did. And I grew to love that public school.

My passion for the private school had been totally misplaced. It just wasn’t right for my child at that particular time.

Which leads me to the End of Elementary Panic, another difficult era. Again, my mom-friends (all of us on the PTA board at the public school) were in the same boat. We all loved our school - but would we love the local junior high school? Families began peeling away from our elementary school, choosing private schools and causing all kinds of bitter feelings for those of us “left behind.” Again, I thought I knew what I wanted. I loved public school.

And then, in the spring of Jack’s sixth-grade year, we toured some private schools and the local junior high, and I realized that I was wrong again. In the classes I attended at the public school, very little learning was going on. In one class, child after child gave an oral book report on the same novel while no one listened. In another, the kids did absolutely nothing while the teacher went around the room to talk with them individually about their grades on some project.

It just wasn’t right for my child at that particular time. My “I forgot about my semester-long science project until the last day of school” child needed more teacher attention, more prodding.

What I should have learned from all this is that finding the right school is a process. As the article in “Time” said, “College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.” And yet. And yet.

I bought a copy of the voluminous “Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges” and went through it this summer, sticking Post-It notes on colleges I thought might be good for my son. Jack thought I was nuts.

“Mom, I haven’t even taken the PSAT yet,” he pointed out.

He was right, of course. I was jumping the gun. Finding the right school for a kid isn’t like buying a new vacuum cleaner, where you look at “Consumer Reports” and then pick the one that’s ranked the highest.

What matters right now is the now - the things Jack has control over. Studying for the PSAT. Making good grades in school. Using his free time in constructive ways. Attending cross-country practice. And as the year goes on, we’ll start gathering college information and continue the process of self-appraisal and finding a good match.

And yet, and yet.

My own high-strung tendencies run deep, and every time I see a story like the one in “Time”, I fret that I am not doing enough “right now” to move this process forward.

For example, do you know what I did as soon as I finished reading that “Time” story, even though the whole point of the article was to show that parental College Admissions Insanity may be misplaced?

I popped the CD that came with the “Barron’s” book into my computer and started a search of potential colleges for Jack. Hmmm, what about Emory?

Let the Insanity begin.

Nursery Nightmares

Saturday, September 2nd, 2006

Congratulations, you survived the harrowing process of getting your child into a top NYC nursery school. And, may we say, that spiffy new straightjacket looks absolutely fetching on you!

THE GUN GOES OFF AT 7:30 A.M. THE DAY AFTER LABOR DAY.

Frenzied parents jam phone lines to request nursery school applications�some manning four lines at one time�and there are schools that run out of applications by noon.

Winning your prodigy a spot in a top Manhattan nursery school is blood sport, as billionaires, millionaires, and the city’s biggest celebs�along with the rest of us�go for spots like sharks after chum. The process was never easy in the past, but it’s become even harder since the baby boom that came in the wake of 9/11. The only way to earn a place at a prized preschool�and the privilege of paying about $12,000 to $25,000 for a two-day-per-week program for your pre-K tot�is to tackle the admissions process wholeheartedly.

Some start the race before unsuspecting offspring can swallow whole food, sending their babies and toddlers to parenting programs and play groups that are deemed �feeders to the feeders,� many of which have up to one-year waiting lists. These pre-preschool programs, like Madison Playgroup, Free to Be Under Three at All Souls, Barnard Toddler Program, and the Parenting Center at Central Synagogue, help one- and two-year-olds learn to socialize, share, and play nicely so they can ace their nursery school interviews.

But, is it worth all the Sturm und Drang?

Do you have a phd in the abcs?
The qualitative differences between nurseries citywide lie not so much in their varying philosophies, but in what the top-tier schools have that all the others don’t.

All the �baby ivies� have the following things in common: directors with 20-plus years in early childhood education, fabulous facilities, students with famous parents, teachers with masters’ degrees, expertly thought-out programs, strong track records for sending their graduates to all the best public and private schools in town�and, of course, impossible admissions.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER APPLICATION PROCESS
The key to getting into a tippy-top-tier nursery is having a balanced, well-thought-out list of schools to apply to (typically, no less than six and no more than 12 is a good number). The best lists include a few baby ivies, a few schools that are reasonable reaches, and a few more that are pretty much pay and go, known as �safeties.�

One ultrasuccessful, �berzealous Upper East Side couple�attractive, articulate, creative people with a delicious two-year-old daughter�scored big this year, claiming two baby-ivy acceptances. The mother admits that even though the horrific ordeal took over her life�by December, she’d become completely unglued�she’d do it all over again. �It plays with your mind,� she says of the process. �It takes the most confident person and brings you to your knees; it’s so humbling. But you’ll do anything for your child.�

This competitive, competent mother, who has climbed up the corporate ladder, was completely blindsided. �You don’t think that a little nursery school admissions process could cause even a hiccup in your life,� she says. Yet she got so wrapped up in it that she wasn’t able to concentrate on big business deals at work. �It was an emotional roller coaster that was completely draining. My mind became consumed with writing letters, preparing for all kinds of interviews, and writing essays, all to get my daughter into the best possible school.�

The baby-ivy alumni network in New York City is as storied as its schools. Although no one actually lists their nursery school on their resume, the one you or your child attended comes up commonly over cocktails. Attendance at a hot nursery connotes social status and academic prowess�conveniently cloaked in the interest of doing what’s best for junior, of course.

HOW WAS I TO KNOW ASTROPHYSICS WOULDN’T BE YOUR FORTE? NOW FINISH YOUR HOMEWORK!
In addition to schools that offer only nursery programs, there are also those that start with nursery programs and go up to grades eight, nine, or 12. These �ongoing� schools�such as Horace Mann, Town School, and Trevor Day�maintain nursery divisions primarily as a service to their community, so most spots are taken by the children or siblings of students and alumni, further enhancing the feeling of family within the school and bolstering the bottom line in the Headmaster’s Circle.

The caveat in choosing a nursery program that’s part of an ongoing school is that one may prove too rigorous for your child down the road, while another may not be challenging enough. It’s hard to determine whether the school that’s right for your two-year-old will be the best fit for her all the way through middle and high school. Also, many early-childhood education experts agree that ongoing schools with nursery programs aren’t as strong as their nursery-only counterparts, as their focus can be diluted due to greater programming or capital agendas. Hence, roughly a dozen years ago, Dalton lopped off its nursery program and hasn’t looked back.

Today, private nurseries are sending their �graduates� on to a wider variety of ongoing schools, both public and private. You can check my book, The Manhattan Directory of Private Nursery Schools (Soho Press; $29), to get a good idea of where a particular nursery is sending its students for kindergarten (never ask while touring or interviewing). The more ongoing schools listed under the �graduates� category, the better; it means the nursery school director has forged relationships with admissions directors at more ongoing schools, thus increasing your odds at the next level, kindergarten.

“DO-IT-YOURSELF ROOT CANAL” AND OTHER REALLY BAD IDEAS
If you haven’t the foggiest idea how to compose a solid list of schools, then it’s time to hire an advisor. Amanda Uhry, of Manhattan Private School Advisors, is convinced that clueless parents should get help�or the results could be disastrous.

�They’ll soon see it’s like trying to do their own root canal,� Uhry says. �It’s painful, and they won’t realize they did it wrong until it’s too late in the process to fix the mess.� For $8,000 to $10,000, her company offers unlimited meetings, phone calls, e-mails, and help writing application essays and �first choice letters.� All aspects of both parent and child interview-preparation are covered, and clients are provided with an analysis of each nursery school they’re interested in, including demographics, which schools its grads have moved on to for the past five years, a view of the school from every angle, and an opportunity to speak with parents of current students.

In an arena where there are typically no guarantees, Uhry makes a promise to panic-stricken parents: �If your child isn’t accepted the year we’re working with you, the next year is free. But,� she adds proudly, �it hasn’t happened once. Our record is 100 percent acceptance to all parents’ top three preschools since 2002.� (Other advisors tend to offer more flexible rates, roughly $400 to $4,000, depending on what’s needed.)

BITE ME AGAIN, SALLY, AND I’LL KEEP YOUR KEISTER OUT OF KINDERGARTEN, TOO
Is all this extra help overpriced? No way, say the advisors, who have to deal with so many type-A parents that they end up having a higher burnout rate than the nursery school directors and teachers themselves.

Karen Quinn, a former advisor, quit the business when one child she was coaching declared, �Stop! Can’t you see I’m only four?� Quinn then wrote the charming, satirical novel The Ivy Chronicles (Viking Adult; $23.95) based on her myriad over-the-top experiences.

Quinn always gave her clients 200 percent, she says, and while many met with resounding success, there were always some who just didn’t make the cut�and then, watch out. For example, occasionally a client’s child blew an interview. �This could be caused by anything from biting another child, to stealing a toy, to pooping in their Pampers, to entirely melting down in the presence of an admissions director,� Quinn says. And afterwards? �The result was usually multiple strategy sessions with parents that were insane. I mean, what do you do? If it was a bite, do you pretend it never happened? Explain that this was an errant bite? Try to justify the bite in some way by maligning the bitee?� Quinn and the parents would consider their options; and though Quinn knew the biter would never get into that school, she also knew it was best never to mention the fateful incident again.

One crazy client, sitting nearby while Quinn conducted a weekly prep session on colors, was informed that her son had passed out. �He had put his head down on my dining room table and fallen asleep,� says Quinn. �I told his mother, �You’d better take him home,’ but she just said, �Oh, no, keep talking, he’ll get it subliminally!’�

Other advisors find the grind of listening to stressed-out parents entirely too taxing and time-consuming. Nina Bauer, of top advisory firm Ivy Wise, announced her �retirement� this year after giving birth to her second child, and it’s up in the air whether she’ll return to the scene. Other advisors confess to �losing� cell phones, or traveling to places where there’s �no cell service� to get breaks from all the bitching and bellyaching.

BUT THEY’RE THE RICHEST KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL, THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR THAT
Then there’s the worst nursery nightmare of all.

“L’Affaire Grubman-Weill,” as it’s known, occurred in 2002. Sandy Weill, a Citigroup kingpin, was also a board member of the 92nd Street Y (where he’d recently donated $1 million). One day he asked top stock analyst Jack Grubman to �take another look� at ATT, a stock that Citigroup was offering, but which had received a low rating that displeased Weill. The rating was changed, Citigroup sold tons of ATT, and�lo and behold�Grubman’s twins landed a pair of nursery school spots.

Then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer took a closer look�and didn’t like what he saw. Grubman got a permanent time-out (he was barred from the industry), fines flew, and the twins didn’t fare so well, either. In the next round of admissions, kindergarten, they ended up in public school, reportedly not the Grubmans’ first choice at the time.

DEAR MS. STERNBUTT, I SO ENJOYED THE GRAHAM CRACKERS AND FRUIT PUNCH YOU SERVED AT OUR LAST MEETING
Bottom line: You must be prepared not only to have a well-behaved, healthy, smart, good-looking child (no, sadly, that’s not enough), but also to ace application essays, tour endless schools, attend scores of open houses, endure interviews, write well-written, thoughtful thank-you notes, use connections (if you have them), and, after reviewing all the options (usually sometime in mid-February), write an outstanding �first choice letter� indicating your desire to enroll if accepted.

Then all you’ll need is a smile from the gods and the assets of the Rockefellers, and nursery school fortune will be yours.

Victoria Goldman, Gotham Magazine
September 2006