Schooling in Bangalore-Part I

I do not think I fully qualify to write about schooling in Bangalore yet but I really wanted to share the experiences that I have gained so far. As I said earlier, I wanted to cool down before writing about this so that I do not make a biased opinion .
Finally, we decided to try next year for A's Big school so that we get more time to know about schools in Bangalore and might also buy a property by that time to know our final location.

Except for NPS and a handful of few other schools, there are mixed reviews about all schools. So much so, that making a choice gets extremely difficult.

Experience #1: NPS Indiranagar: Last Year A was underage for Montessori. After standing in a long queue of aspirant NPS-ite parents, I discovered that she is over age for Montessori and under age for LKG. So, the receptionist offered that I must buy form for the 2011 session. I was surprised and asked her what if they decide to change the form format or even change policies, etc. She said vaguely, "Oh no no, you can buy it now and I do not think they will change the format. If they do you can take another one........". I knew this was just a technique to get Rs. 250 out of my purse. I thanked and started to leave. Frustrated and disappointed as I was, I started to walk towards the gate when a man came to me and asked me if I got the form. I saw him standing about 8 people ahead of me in the queue and thought why was he waiting for me here and why he was asking me this. I told him that my daughter is underage and moved on. He started walking with me and told me how he can help me. He asked me to bring the original birth certificate the next day and that he will take me to Raghu, the politician who lives in Thippasandra and another politician with the birth cert. And tried to assure me that A can get admission there.
First, I will never go to a politician for admission that too in a new city. Second, I will never show an American Birth cert. to a politician or anyone else.
I knew where he was getting to. So thanked him and asked if he knew me. He told me that his child is in A's class at the play school and he has seen me a lot of times. I was wondering why I had never seen him. But I was really scared as to what if he meets me again and asks me to come to the 2 politicians, etc. But Thankfully, that did not happen.

Exp. #2: NPS Koramangala: The lesser told the better.
They Ran out of forms on day 2 of form distribution at 10 AM!!
After spending 1.5 hrs in traffic we were standing outside NPS Kormangala to find this out. No one was there to provide info or help. No Notice. I had never felt more aimless and clueless in life ever before. We, along with about 70 other parents were standing outside the school gate waiting for someone to come out to tell us something. All other parents were shooting in the dark.
So that one was also ruled out because of the madness, shortage of forms, etc. etc.

Exp. #3: Presidency School East: When I got the form of this school after my 2 experiences at NPSs, I felt I if I had won an award. I kept staring and smiling at the form for a few seconds. Well, all was well and we submitted the form. This time they were short of brochures. We got a call for interview and a follow-up SMS also.
On the day of interview, we got the brochure and were asked to update the new application form. That means, the form they distributed about 5 days back was an old format and this was the new one!!! I felt like screaming but it was for A's future so I kept my cool. After filling up the tedious form again, we sat in the lobby waiting for our turn and I observed other kids and parents.
Call me snob or whatever, I did not find more then 2 parents who looked 'like us' types. It was not very encouraging. It felt as if anyone and everyone can come to this school. Children were dressed in funny dresses, as if they have come to a fancy dress party or a park. Don't even talk about some mothers. Atrociously dressed! Heavily embroidered jeans, jazzy magents/ parrot green/ flurocent tops!!
Many kids wore a lot of jewellery, bangles and anklets making noise, ash or sticker bindis/ bindas.
I was busy observing when we got a call for "observation". To my surprise, A performed and behaved excellently. They took copies of our documents and original birth certificate for verification and asked us to move to another lobby.
We waited there for about 1.5 hrs again observing colorfully dressed people and kids. A's name was called out and H came back running to declare that they have lost our original birth certificate!! Actually the place was nothing more then chaos!It was completely badly organized mayhem. Nobody had any procedure or protocol. H ran around like crazy to find the documents. Just then a senior teacher came to announce, " Please do not give us your originals. We are NOT asking for originals. Copies is what we need." This was testing our patience and limit of endurance now.
After about 15-20 mnts, H came with the BC. The teacher who took it had kept it in one of the document baskets with her "just like that".
After more then 2 hours, we were finally called in the principal's room where the only question was how A will commute and the only info was the fees and that we have to deposit Rs. 43K to comfirm our admission. We were confused. So I said, " We are not carrying our checkbook right now." The answer was- "we do not take DD or checks, only cash." Oh so this is your black money pool or something???-we thought. We told them that we will think and come back.
Also, the school fees was about 70K p.a. plus bus, books, uniform, etc. It seemed like ANYONE in bangalore can afford that kind of expenses.

We left and came home with A having 103 degrees fever.

We have given up on admissions for this year now and will try next year. Till then, good luck if you are in Bangalore and trying for admissions!
I will write soon about the variety of schools in bangalore.