Porsafillo Pre, a preschool housed in an IM Pei building on a “leafy corner of the Upper West Side,” has so many applicants — 12,000 for 32 spots — that it has resorted to extreme measures to weed through them. DNA tests! Or so reported NPR this weekend.
The school teaches the tiny children Mandarin, as well as the computer code language C++. They are all virtually guaranteed admission to the Ivy League university of their choice.
The high-stakes testing is (predictably) driving Upper West Side parents batty, NPR reported.
“At the New Amsterdam Memorial Hospital, Richard Tromper and Elizabeth Tauschen are ready for their test. Elizabeth is 24 weeks pregnant, and the couple is applying for admission to Porsafillo for the fall of 2015.
‘I went to Princeton,’ Tromper says. ‘I was lucky, I mean, I got into Princeton, I worked hard. But if our child gets into this preschool, he or she IS going.'”
Ridiculous, right? But, sadly…believable.
As commenters pointed out, if you unscramble Porsafillo it spells “April Fools”. And yes, after reading that I felt like a fool.
Et tu, NPR?
Image via iStockphoto.
Just reading ‘leafy corner of the Upper West Side’ raised a yellow flag that this might be a joke.
Aren’t all UWS corners now concrete and glass Duane Reades or Chase Bank branches? 😉
The comedy gets deeper…
Tromper – to cheat.
Unsinn – Nonsense