Nursery University

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04/19/2011 Never a more faithful picture of what is like to be a New Yorker. Sadly, Juliana as talented as she is has a great chance to end up working for Goldman Sachs. See more 04/08/2011 As interesting as the movie is, the subject of this film is really, really disturbing. Numerous times throughout I had to say to myself "wow, this really exists, this is real. People are really dropping $10-20,000 for freaking pre-school. Everything they do just to get an application ... the stress, the anxiety... and for what? To get into these elite schools where allegedly you are on a path to a high-end college. Whatever. If anything the movie might help the chances of people getting into these schools because I can't imagine anyone with a child (or planning to have a child) would want to go within 100 miles of that chaos. As much as I was disgusted with the process, and most of the people in it, I still found it to be really interesting See more 04/02/2011 interesting documentary about the craziness of Manhattan's private preschools See more 02/06/2011 "Nursery University" reeks of inauthenticity and suffers from an obvious lack of participation from its intended well-connected blue-blood subjects. Instead, we get: Aleta St. James, a single mother with twins whose son has some learning issues that will preclude her from applying to any competitive programs for either of her children. A chill downtown couple who, if not directly coaxed into entering the admissions fray for the sake of the movie, were certainly not the type of rabid parents the film purported to be about. The resolution to their story only reinforced my belief that they weren't serious "game players." A wealthy but unconnected (and not unlikeable) Upper East Side couple whose voracious research was mildly interesting. A lower-income woman whose best friend, an admissions consultant, had what seemed to be a strong working relationship with the head of the only school the woman's child applied to. Heidi Moon, whose story is the only one that comes close to reflecting the admissions hysteria the directors hoped to convey. A rich NYC-outsider with no alumni connections to top nursery schools, it is both uncomfortable and grossly satisfying to watch a woman used to getting her way squirm and sweat her way through a relentless quest to secure what she believes she is entitled to. Most irritating (and also, as is the case throughout the film, most entertaining), was Gabriella Rowe of the Mandel School, the only admissions head with the chutzpah to speak openly about the process. You may be shocked by what she is willing to say, behind closed doors but in front of a camera, about each family as she passes judgment on their applications , but perhaps she knows that enough people want to go to her school that she can say whatever she wants and people will still grovel at her feet for the chance to pay 5 figures for a pre-school education. It makes sense that in the delicate dance of nursery school admissions, neither side would want to rock the boat by appearing in a documentary about the subject. But without that level of participation, Nursery University falls flat. See more 01/02/2011 Unbelievable. It's ridiculous that so much energy and money has to be wasted on something as silly as preschool. See more 09/28/2010 more evidence that all parents travel on the train known as "crazy." See more Read all reviews

Nursery University

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