School Admission: Interesting: Nothing to do with CM

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 18 Mar 2009, 19:18

After shifting to Chennai we (me & my wife) have been trying seek admission for my son (3 STD to 4 STD). it is for central board (CBSE). We are bouncing at all schools in & around Mandaveli (where I have taken a house for Rent). We keep hearing that it is only recommendation & nothing else. Is that true?

Abhimanam · Post by **Abhimanam** » 18 Mar 2009, 23:47

Dear Member vganesh,

There are quite a few CBSE schools in and around Mandaveli. Sometimes recommendations do matters, but in majority instances there are tests conducted to assess the student and admission is given. Some might ask for nominal building fund. You may try these schools: P S Sr Secondary School in Mylapore, Vidya Mandir, Sivaswamy Kalalaya.. All these schools are very good

Welcome to Chennai, Good luck and have a great carnatic music days to come by..

tribute · Post by **tribute** » 19 Mar 2009, 08:19

vganesh,
There is a certain level of recommendation going on but if your child has the potential, it will definitely be recognized in Chennai. I can assure you that.

rajumds · Post by **rajumds** » 19 Mar 2009, 09:27

You may be a bit late. Normally admission process is during Jan/Feb.

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 20 Mar 2009, 08:37

Thanks a lot sirs. We have been trying hard since Janurary. They said it would be in march. Anyway I found there is an issue of transparency in giving out a clear date for appraoching the schools. (ofcourse there are exceptions like vidya Mandir).

This forum may not be right place. Thanks a lot.

karthikbala · Post by **karthikbala** » 24 Mar 2009, 14:15

Why not try ICSE schools as well? Not only is the standard far better than CBSE (less said about state board the better), there are some new ICSE schools that might accomodate (Primrose, Vael's Billabong, Headstart etc.). "The School", KFI, is a good choice (atleast a few popular Carnatic singers have offspring enrolled).
I only did my plus-two in CBSE to take advantage of the easy exams and found the syllabus watered-down. That was a while ago, but it is unlikely there is any sea change.

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 24 Mar 2009, 21:16

There is a school called Calibre started by YG Mahendran's daughter. Might be worth a try.

Sathej · Post by **Sathej** » 24 Mar 2009, 21:26

Been quite a while, Sriram

PS: To mods and others at the thread - Sorry for an off topic remark..

Sathej

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 24 Mar 2009, 23:19

Marriage takes its toll I suppose!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 25 Mar 2009, 02:33

On the other hand, Sriram and his sweet wife may be planning a family and from what I hear, it is never too early to start a school search in India! Good to hear from you, Bala!

chalanata · Post by **chalanata** » 25 Mar 2009, 05:49

let me tell a school which has some thing to do with cm too. please try kalakshetra school. they have the CBSE and do not have too many demands. in addition they would be teaching cm too. the distance may be the worrying factor. but you can think in terms of shifting that side...

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 25 Mar 2009, 15:10

arasi wrote:On the other hand, Sriram and his sweet wife may be planning a family and from what I hear, it is never too early to start a school search in India! Good to hear from you, Bala!

Nice thought Arasi. Wish I could do such long term planning.

rajumds · Post by **rajumds** » 25 Mar 2009, 16:32

You can try The Ashram _ ICSE school. It is located in Srinagar Colony (near Rajbhavan) , but they have van facilities to Mandaveli

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 25 Mar 2009, 17:54

ignoramus · Post by **ignoramus** » 25 Mar 2009, 18:10

Cool !!, great one.

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 26 Mar 2009, 17:52

Finally I did admit my son at The Grove School, C.P.Ramaswamy Aiyer Foundation. Though It is ICSE syllabus. Thanks a lot for one and all.

But there is more fun. It is seems at Vidyamandir, the couple need to inform as soon as they get married for LKG admission

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 26 Mar 2009, 22:51

How come no one has mentioned Padma Seshadri, supposedly a safe harbour for many an IIT-ian dream and a solid musical pedigree as well

ganesh_mourthy · Post by **ganesh_mourthy** » 27 Mar 2009, 07:45

I have heard many gaga about Chetinad Vidhyashram. Is it good in terms of great outputs????

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 27 Mar 2009, 08:20

Vijay - Proximity to Mandaveli rules out PSBB. In any case, I don't think these top schools are worth it upto 5th std.

I believe kids should study in atleast 2 schools so that they go through the experience of adapting to a new environment and building new friendships. The ideal time to move to schools like PSBB or VM is around 6th standard. I studied in Ramakrishna Mission till 5th and then went to Vidya Mandir. It took nearly an year for me to adjust to kids coming in cars and bringing fancy bags and wearing high end shoes and getting over all the self-doubts. I value that experience more than the science and history that was taught by VM teachers.

I hope such options aren't ruled out for kids with all this advanced booking drama.

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 27 Mar 2009, 09:42

I fully agree with Sbala.

Till 5th children should not be pushed. The home work actually kills them. It also kills there creativit. I did not prefer ICSE because the syllabus is tougher then CBSE. I can not move to state board because of the lanuguage issue (The child does not know Tamil to read and write).

The anxiety again is about the transparency in all places. Chettinad, ofcourse seems to be having a right environ but I do not know. DAV Gopalapuram seems to be topmost in terms of IIT/BITS, pilani. I have stuff to write a story on my experience and the information I have collated in last 3 months

ganesh_mourthy · Post by **ganesh_mourthy** » 27 Mar 2009, 10:28

Sbala wrote:

It took nearly an year for me to adjust to kids coming in cars and bringing fancy bags and wearing high end shoes and getting over all the self-doubts. I value that experience more than the science and history that was taught by VM teachers.

------------------

I think it is the same with chetinad vidyashram. but what in terms of quality of students. anything to be praised about ?

there seems to some carnatic SHOWS too once in a while!

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 27 Mar 2009, 10:46

vganesh: Good luck to your child for a great education at the Chettinad school.

Regarding IIT/BITS etc., I sincerely hope that in 8-9 years when your child graduates and is ready to go to college, the educational tracks that are considered great for job opportunities expand beyond engineering, medical and management. That may be bit of a dream since 8 years is not much and it will fly by very quickly but we can hope for the best. During my time, there was this pattern, I am sure to some extent this is still true. Students who are good at math/physics/chemistry tried to get into engineering, those good at physics/chemistry/biological sciences tired to get to medical, the next tier was relegated to economics/commerce and those whose academic scores are not good enough got into someting like History and the bottom of the pile is relegated to subjects like Logic/Philosophy/Linguistics. Some parents of students in the last category would not even openly admit that their kids are in those disciplines since there is a strong automaticaly held strerotypical implication that their kids are not smart.

The unfortunate thing is, this is all done with out much consideration for the student's inherent interest. I was caught up in that melee, not knowing any better about the world out there or about myself. After getting the hard to get in terms of academic admission, I found myself like a fish out of water in a few years. With just sheer drudge work pouring through books, I could get great grades but I knew something was wrong. What saved me tremendously was the college offered a softer engineering discipline which was more to my liking where I took asylum. That led me eventually to higher studies of my liking in computer science. And guess what, those three bottom-of-the-pile fields reserved for the so called 'rejects of society', Logic/Philosophy/Linguistics, all of a sudden became my main stream interest since they are all part of computer science in some capacity or the other and in addition, they all came together in my chosen field of interest, namely, Epistemology, a sub-field of computer science that fascinated me. What a circuitous route it was to get to my 'Home', the 'Home' where I spent countless hours and then looked forward eagerly to spend further countless hours since it gave me such inherent personal joy without consideration to whether it led me to any great job or admiration/accolades from others.

I hope/wish some of the students who went to study Logic/Linguistics etc. in their undergrad somehow found their way to having great high-paying careers in computer science. One of the ice-breaking interview questions I sometimes ask programmers is, 'Look there is a bird out there, what is the difference between that and a Bird'. Many people who have just learnt computer programming because it is a hot field do not usually relate to the question, whereas those with strong background in deeper aspects of the field rooted in Lingustics/Philosophy/Logic, their face usually lights up and go on to give me a two minute answer. Not that there is one correct answer for this weird and vague question but the fact they can relate to the question is essential for many day to day work projects in comptuer science.

I do not write the above with any regret because a lot of what happened to me were directly due to places and people who helped me find my bearings. That rat race and melee enabled me to find those people and places, so all the effort forced on me by the environment/socieity/peers/myself yielded great results. For that I am eternally greatful. So this is not about dumbing down the kids or scattering their focus too widely. My wish for the future generations, like your child, is that there is more room and freedom for them to attempt to find their real interests among a wide vareity of subject areas that have good job and career opportunities.

Economics is one of the most fascinating and unconquered fields out there and so is Logic, Mathematical Philosophy, etc. Hope these and other fieds gain the mind-share of students, teachers and parents and the industry at large, so students from every tranche of school grades feel free to consider them as possible fields of study.

Best wishes again to your child and to you the parents!

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 27 Mar 2009, 11:23

Sriram, then we share more than 1 alma mater - I too was in a Ramakrishna Mission school until the 5th - a curious mix of middle-class economic migrants to the capital (mostly bong and south Indian) and kids from a nearby urban village (of which Delhi still has plenty)...and while Vidya Mandir no doubt has its share of snobs, it is distinctly middle class compared to the school I graduated to...yeah, those were difficult years but a useful learning experience nevertheless...

VK I think your prayers are being gradually answered - the whole emphasis on academic excellence typically associated with the community seems to have gone down - while parents remain as pushy as ever, their efforts are increasingly directed towards extra-curricular achievements - perhaps this is because of greater economic means/security compared to earlier generations - which means that IIT/BITS etc. are no longer the only avenues for economic advancement. My cousin's twins made it to both IIT and BITS this year and he decided to pack them instead off for a more rounded education in Singapore - unthinkable a couple of decades back! The South Indian middle class has already dumped the IAS - IITs may not be too far behind...

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 27 Mar 2009, 12:40

GM - I don't know what you mean by quality of students. It's the quality of teachers and parents that is more critical as they have to shape the students the right way. All problems are eventually due to parents or teachers.

bilahari · Post by **bilahari** » 27 Mar 2009, 13:13

I don't know if the American NRI rasikas remember a "60 Minutes" episode a few years back (around 2002?) which revolved around the world's most competitive university system, IIT, with delightfully nonchalant candidates remarking that their safety backups for IIT would be Harvard or Brown! Interesting that people might choose NUS/NTU (Singapore's university system) over IIT! Vijay, do your cousins find the education there better rounded after all (I know what the consensus is amongst my own friends back home, but I was wondering if anyone, especially from another country, has a different opinion)?

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 27 Mar 2009, 13:36

Bilahari, the idea behind the decision was to give greater exposure/roundedness and I am sure that must have been based on feedback but since they have just started on the course, I can't really vouch for it...Harvard as a backup for IIT - wow, that's saying something...

sbala · Post by **sbala** » 27 Mar 2009, 13:46

I strongly believe IIT experience is well rounded especially if you stayed in the hostel

I have known a few cases of people giving up their IIT admissions and doing something else. In all those cases, it was a matter of their desire to graduate in a particular branch or field. More power to them! I'd be surprised if Singapore offers a more well rounded experience over IIT. The only plus is possibly a more diverse student community. The MIT alliance could be another factor in favour of Singapore.

Sathej · Post by **Sathej** » 27 Mar 2009, 14:04

I agree with sbala - a more well rounded experience in Singapore than at IITs - that surprises me! Harvard as a back up for IIT - well that is a fine hyperbole

Just one of those things that a TV producer would like - sensationalism! As for students choosing other institutes over IITs, well, I have known several people doing that, primarily because their interest was not in Engineering. I don't think we'll see a drastic change in the scenario. People would continue aspiring to get to the IITs and at the same time, there will continue to be those who join elsewhere becasue their interest takes them there.

Sathej

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 27 Mar 2009, 15:55

Thank you very very much VK. I hope after few years I come, create another thread to say thanks a lot and specifically to you.

The unfortunate thing is, this is all done with out much consideration for the student's inherent interest.

I am okay with my children do what they really like, excepting that they have to be good citizens. but how do I understand what is there inheritant capability/interest, if I have groom them ? At what age this can be found out? How much parents are responsible for this? Is it environment? Good friends? mixture... Gods grace?? very intruguing...

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 27 Mar 2009, 18:32

I am one of those "scholars" who had no interest in engineering nor medicine. I loved English literature. I was from an ICSE school in Mumbai and I received 95% marks in English in my X Std. I loved the language...

...But my parents expected me to study a science subject so I joined SIES college in Mumbai, in the science faculty. I hated it from day one. I was expelled from the school for gross misconduct, and thankfully my dad was working in Singapore so I asked if there was anything for me here. He said I could try and I joined the science stream in a Singapore junior college and did not look back since. I did my junior college in Singapore, received a much more well-rounded education than I could have ever achieved in Mumbai, and got a teaching scholarship to study biology in NUS. I still had a far greater aptitude for humanities, and did my masters in Education and currently am pursuing a doctorate in education from Durham University. I barely passed my science exams but got my masters with high distinction.

I still love English literature, and given a chance would gladly do another degree in it.

Take home message, parents, please, please, please do not force your failed dreams or hopes on your children. Let them develop according to their tastes. If your son/daughter wants to study say, history, please don't say "no that has no scope in it". Encourage him/her to study the rich history of India and the world. Let him/her study what he/Scope is always present for those who are passionate. Scope is what one makes of his/her Do not think you always know better because there are times when you don't.

There is much more to life than computer studies, engineering and medicine.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 27 Mar 2009, 19:44

Great posts, VK, Vijay, sbala and bala747!
These personal scholastic histories add to the value of the contents of our forum. Hope many parents get to read these. They can then 'ease up' somewhat on deciding about their children's scholastic life instead of ignoring the interests of their children...

VK RAMAN · Post by **VK RAMAN** » 27 Mar 2009, 20:20

Those of us who still believe that our parents pushed us into what we are today or what we could not be today; we still have our opportunity to make changes to ourselves and our children

ragam-talam · Post by **ragam-talam** » 27 Mar 2009, 21:47

Opportunities, choice of career, etc are a function of the society one lives in, and one's status in that society. In the prosperous West, you could find young people taking a year off ('gap year'), try their hand at acting, painting, picking berries, etc. and still end up with a comfortable life and lifestyle. Even in these societies, the children of working class parents (miners, factory workers) could not take up such liberties with their life choices. Having said that, as a result of the changes effected by globalization, this situation is fast changing in the West, where young people are increasingly finding they need to get themselves trained well in order to compete in a global marketplace, hence are taking up higher studies in 'regular' areas such as engineering.

In our own Indian context, professions such as law and administration were the ones of choice during the decades following independence. This reflected the need of the times for good administrators and barristers. By the sixties/seventies, the focus changed to the hard sciences and engineering/medicine, as industrial activity created a corresponding demand - thus elevating the AIIMSes and IITs to prominence.

As we move into the knowledge economy of present day, the focus has been shifting to a combination of soft and hard skills. Also, entrepreneurship and management skills are in demand, thus providing opportunities for the likes of IIM graduates. With the prosperous few, their children can even think of dabbling in the arts and other non-standard areas. However, this luxury does not exist for the vast majority of young people, who need to get a job just to survive.

In summary, it's not a single, homogenous picture that exists out there. School choices and edcuation styles have to be made based on a variety of factors that may be specific to the individual and their families.

PS: Talking about IIT and Harvard, one of my seniors at IIT went to MIT (the one at Massachusetts) for grad study, and after the first term wrote back to us saying it used to be much harder to be topper at IIT than at MIT - where it was comparatively a breeze! True story.

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 27 Mar 2009, 23:56

Sriram/Sathej - I do agree that IIT is very conducive to the development of a rounded personality, although I did not study at one - you do meet an extraordarily smart bunch of people many of whom are good at several things besides academics. I hardly need mention the numerous luminaries in various non-academic/non-engineering fields, including music, who are IIT-ians...

However the perception still is that an international university gives greater exposure. My point was only that parents' emphasis on pure academics has diminished somewhat - perhaps because of the relatively higher levels of economic security ragam-talam mentions...

While I do agree with ragam talam about choices being forced by the struggle for survival, it is also true that parents - and, for that matter, students - fail to look beyond the obvious when it comes to career choices. One of my friends was very clear that he wanted a life in tennis. He could not make it as a pro and wasn't too bright academically but learnt how to lay synthetic courts and is minting money today...

arunk · Post by **arunk** » 27 Mar 2009, 23:59

forget IIT. RECs are way more fun

Arun

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 28 Mar 2009, 16:17

vijay wrote:He could not make it as a pro and wasn't too bright academically but learnt how to lay synthetic courts and is minting money today

The point again is struggle vijay's friend would have undergone to as what he is today. Had he been from IIM and also exponent in CM/Hindustanti then I feel the struggle is less. Bala747 may be an exception. My question still remains... What is the role of parents in pushing/not pushing....As a parent I feel the child will not be in a position to identify him/her with something when he/she is 16 years.

sampoorna · Post by **sampoorna** » 28 Mar 2009, 17:24

My thoughts ....

The role of parents, in my opinion, is to provide the best environment for the children. This involves a good balance
of positive-pushing as well as observing and letting the children develop some of their own interests. The positive-pushing part, I think is
needed more when the children are very young, i.e., between 5 to 12. Positive-pushing involves:

(1) recognizing the parents' true strengths and interests
(2) understanding that children usually have a strong affinity towards what parents are attracted to
(3) providing an environment drenched in the area of interest for a sustained period of time
(4) re-evaluating your position if the child is not completely on board with the parents' interests

I will write something about each of the points that I think are important to keep in mind.

(1) The parents' true strengths and interests should be something that the parents are not making a
very big extra effort to do. They are doing it as a matter of their own interest. Their life probably
revolves around it already. However, with little children in their environment has to be sharpened
and fine tuned more. For example, if music is something parents are truly interested in, they were
probably pursuing music along with their careers by going to concerts, listening to recorded music, and
perhaps learning a little. With little children in tow, this could be taken to the next level by
getting involved with a music community and interacting with people of like minded interests to
provide good role models. Also enrolling them with a good guru (the child should love this person)
will help. The children and parents should have fun doing this. If the parents do not have the time to
pursue such a course, then the child will just go along with the flow, which is fine too. That's what the parents
are also doing (leading a busy life with careers, meeting people of different backgrounds, mixing and matching
things that they learn - a little of this and that).

(2) If two or three paths of learning (e.g., music, math, science) are taken up seriously at a young age, the children
will naturally develop an affinity towards them, provided the parents are truly devoted. The child can be exposed to
other paths (e.g., painting, dancing, history, literature) with the intension of broad exposure and keeping point (4)
in mind. Children love to do what their parents are doing especially when they see their parents enjoying it.
They need not be mindlessly pushed in the negative sense.

(3) The environment provided should be for a sustained period of time, i.e., for a period of 5-7 years when
the children are very young. Those memories will become comforting for them and then they will never leave
the comfort of such an environment. If the pushing starts once the children pass a particular age, then the
dynamics changes. The pushing should be more driven from inside the child. If not it will become frustrating
for both the parent and child.

(4) Even when the child is very young, sometimes we get the feeling that they may be better off doing
something else than what we may be interested in. Then we do have to re-evaluate our position and
try something different. In this case the parents may not be completely equipped to provide the
environment. However, the child will be more internally motivated and it should work out well.

Overall, most children will be interested in whatever the parents are truly interested in. There will be
exceptions. For the most part the children who are interested in things that their parents are
interested in will have a great spring board to jumpstart their learning as compared to other children
who are pursuing interests on their own. This applies to most average children with average parents.
There will, of course, be exceptionally talented parents and exceptionally talented children for
whom no effort seems necessary. There will also be exceptionally normal parents and exceptionally
normal children and all other combinations. What a lovely chance we parents have to develop along with
our children! There are all kinds of wrenches thrown into the machine, e.g., financial difficulties,
ego clashes, interfering relatives, self doubts, etc, but parents have to strive to overcome these.

To end, I heard this interesting story. Bheema from the Mahabharata was born with inbuilt strength. No one
had to train him to be strong. He did not bother to put in much effort to do what he did. Duryodhana, on the
other hand, was not inherently strong. However, he used to practice so very sincerely out of hatred for
the Pandavas. In the end ShriKrishna had to help push Bheema to win because both were equally strong.

Narayana,

Sampoorna.

vijay · Post by **vijay** » 28 Mar 2009, 19:26

Ganesh - it was not much of a struggle actually - there was a huge demand supply mismatch for tennis courts and the increase in disposable incomes in the late 90s onwards meant that tennis courts were springing up in every backyard...I do believe there are plenty of such opportunities if you only open your eyes and plan your career smartly - there are sooo many niches that are unexplored - the only catch is you should be good at it and intersted in it...I can cite many other less dramatic examples - the Law School is Bangalore was a decidednly risky choice when I was in school but its graduates are now even more in demand than MBAs

Yeah life is relatively easy after the IIT/IIMs (although that's no longer true!) - the struggle really is to get there - and many students eventually discover find their careers in IT/Finance/Marketing utterly boring. Unfortunately many students get brainwashed into such rat-races by their parents and don't spend enough time applying their mind to figure out what they really like doing.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 28 Mar 2009, 22:15

Sampoorna: That is a very good set of principles to keep in mind. Especially the one "The parents' true strengths and interests should be something that the parents are not making a
very big extra effort to do". Children are quite intuitive and they can see right through any 'putting up appearances'. Even in day to day turf-level matters, if parents have petty fights with other family members and pretend everything is OK in front of kids... ha..ha.. who are we kidding, the kids know

>and many students eventually discover find their careers in IT/Finance/Marketing utterly boring. Unfortunately many students get brainwashed into such rat-races by their parents and don't spend >enough time applying their mind to figure out what they really like doing.

I agree. This is part A of what I had in mind as well. But as ragam-thalam wrote, kids in India are not in a position to have all kinds of flexibility. (the western situation is not good, there is too much flexibility.) To a large extent, kids will be 'pushed' towards the so called 'hot' fields collectively by the peers/culture/society/parents. Part B of what I have in mind is, I wish, over time, the job opportunities in India will diversify quite a bit so the 'hot' fields are quite diverse.

I understand Vijay's point that it is already taking hold, it is much better than a decade back, and it will be even better in the coming decade. Let us all hope for that.
If we see a loosening of the race where 'winners'( high grades ) by default attempting for IIT/BITS/REC/MEDICAL/IIM/MBA and rest relegated to other fieds, that is one indication.
There will still be huge competition for IIT/BITS/REC/IIM/MBA, no doubt, but let that be among those who really want to go there and not just because they have great grades.
As an example of that societal expectation is, a few years back, one of my nieces applied for a major in Biology and the admissions people at the college were saying, with all good intentions, 'Why are you applying here, with such grades you should be in engineering or medical'.

vganesh, I think the reality of the situation will relax you. You can not and do not bear the full responsibility on these career-choice matters. Sampoorna has outlined a good recipe for parents. Beyond that, the reality is that the kids have access to much more information through peer-level networking. Information travels fast as to who went to which college and what kind of jobs one got etc. You can feed information into that network through your child and also once in a while correct some misconceptions the kid may have gathered from the network. But the overall network is much more powerful than any single input. You will have to accept that. One thing we can do is to monitor that the child is part of a 'good' network of friends and they hang out and have fun and goad each other to do better. Such pressures and competition are quite healthy in that it helps the kids find out what they are good at. It is a long, slow and complex process that we all went through ourselves and it is ever changing.

vganesh · Post by **vganesh** » 30 Mar 2009, 09:51

I must say that this forum is helping me to enlight myself rather than being just a blog. I am really happy that so many well wishers and I take your advise seriously. My pranams to all of you. Thank you once again.