Apeeyjay is one of the highly reputed old schools in this small town and even though it lacks the glitter of some of the young schools like Lotus Valley, Greater Valley, Mayoor, Step By Step etc, its still one of the favorites among admission seekers.
My daughter has also applied here. Here are some details.
Location – Sec 16 A (very close to Delhi-Noida border, very well located for people residing in Mayoor Vihar, Eastend apartments, Vasundhara Enclave and some of the sectors of Noida)
Age – Between 3 and 4 on 31st March 2009. (This is for admission seekers in 2008)
Location – There is no location constraint but I would assume that they would give preference to kids who live close-by.
Dates – Forms were available from early september and last date of submission is Sep 16,2008
Process.
1. They meet every kid so unlike DPS and some of the other schools, you definitely get first chance. In my case the interaction date is 27th Sep. But I know someone who went through this.
It was a 4-5 minute interaction where they asked couple of questions to parents viz.
(i) Why Apeejay ?
(ii) How do you balance/manage your work and home. My friend is working and probably for a home-maker, there would be a different question.
Kid was also in the same room and she was asked to recite a poem first. After that she was asked to walk on a set of bricks/blocks which were lying a little apart. Kid actually got down, moved the bricks so that there is no gap and stood on that 🙂
They are awaiting results.
I have heard that Apeejay relies more on lottery and less on actual interaction.
Update on 27th Sep
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We had our first interaction today. It was pretty well organized from what we have seen so far. We were asked to wait in a room. Later we along with the kid were taken to a room where there was a lady who interacted with us. Kid was interacting with another teacher on the next table. I could not observe clearly but they had some sort of puzzle.
We were asked
– Why Apeejay
– My wife is working so how does she manage her time
– What do we expect from school
5 minutes odd. It seemed that we were meeting a junior teacher (and I sometime wonder that whether as part of their teacher-training, were they ever taught on this aspect but anyway). It was not evident whether she was impressed or not.
Results would be out on Oct 2nd.
Update on Oct 6th, 2008
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We made it in the first list. Today morning, we had our first interaction. It was a 2 minute interaction. Principal first confirmed our names , then our salaries from the form which we have filled (he confirmed that its indeed a monthly figure), asked for our schools and bade us bye. My daughter was invited to a table side by and was asked to recite a poem. I am not sure whether she was asked anything else later.
I noticed that Principal had this register on which he was writing marks against each name. I dont think that those 2 minutes are going to decide. Also our schools are not too great or flashy 🙂
Anyway, its over. The results would be out in a week.
Update on Oct 16th, 2008
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We called school on Oct 13th and were told that results were not yet out. On Oct 14th, they said that results are out but we didn’t make it. We found a contact and he told us that the list is not complete. We called again on Oct 15th and we were told that we made it. We were lucky to find a contact otherwise we had planned to take admission in Vishwa Bharti and that would have made us poorer by 16 K odd. So please ensure that you visit the school and probably do it few times. Their front-office system needs a lot of improvement. Unlike Amity, DPS and some of the other schools, they have no infrastructre to publish results on their website.
Today we took admission.
hi seeking admission for the seesion 2010-2011 in nursery for my daughter.
Your information was valuable but wanted to know how do u rate the school in one year.
Smita – Its been only few months so let me be less critical
1. In terms of infrastructure, process, systems they have a lot of ground to cover. By Infra, I do not necessarily mean money, mowing a lawn is not a matter of money or fixing a broken ride.
2. I do not have a good exposure on their teaching methods since we never get any notes in the diary. So far none in last 4 odd months. PTM has not been very productive for us so far since out of three times, once we had to travel out, once we reached in time but the teacher had some meeting with Principal and the only time we could actually interact was only for a couple of minutes.
Again its been very early. I would pass on the link for couple of my friends whose kids are studying there and we may get some more insights.
Hope this helps. All the best.
Can you please tell me how many seats are there in Apeejay for nursery class?
Vijay – There are about 60 students per section and in last year (my daughter's batch) there are at least 8 sections, from Nursery A to H (probably more).
So a total of about 460-500 seats.
I feel there is no quality anywhere and we just simply run around all the schools with a herd's mentality. When I look around, almost all the kids are placed in one of these so called good schools. May be there is no problem in getting admission, but they make us run so fast, that we don't have time to think of anything else except running. If they have 500 – 800(Amity) students in a class, its definitely quite tough for them to maintain quality.
I believe the number of applications are pretty high. Last time DPS gave some data and If I remember correctly, the odds were 1 out of 6.
I personally think that the process of admission is more complicated than what it desires. A simple draw-of-lottery is what I would recommend. Schools should pay a lot of attention to ensure that parents are rightly informed about
– culture
– transport availability
– teaching methods
– fees etc
before they choose to apply. Have a series of orientation programs. That would also ensure that you set the expectation right. For example, I do not remember any school prospectus or admission form talking about the number of students per class. Let these be knows and after that have a draw of lots.
You are cooking it too much than necessary. May be Kapil Sibal would put some process here.
Number of applications are high because everyone ends up applying in every school. Finally one kid can't go to more than one school. As you say the ratio for DPS was 1/6 and in my view thats not at all big. What do you say?
This problem can be solved by making all the schools take interviews in the same week/fortnight and then declaring results in the same week and giving enough time for parents to choose one school. This way people won't block seats and then later cancel.
I am a parent seeking admission for my son in the 2010-2011 batch.
BTW, Jha Ji, loved your blog and have moved to your non admission blogs too….
Vijay – You are right. 1/6 is because everyone applies at multiple schools, we end up in this situation.
Anurag – Thanks. You are right.
The bigger question is that as a trust running a school, how can you give in to the temptation of making money. I am sure DPS, Amity, APJ etc, all of them are aware about each other's schedules.
Just now, a colleague of mine has got admission for his ward in Sommerville while the process is still on in other school. Now he is a fix on whether he should get his son admitted to Somer or wait for results. And he has only two days. The worse is that you lose almost all the initial money which you deposited, how can a able truse let that practice go ?
All the best for your son.
Hi Nandan,
How sure are you of that number 60 in a section? I talked to Apeejay guys and they say its around 45 only.
Any idea if the student teacher ratio is better in Amity?
Vijay – I was there couple of weeks back for PTM (Parent Teacher Meeting) and with-in the class room, there was this notice period where all the names of the students were listed vis-a-vis the transport details. That roster would sort of help the teacher to make x queues , each queue for a different route.
I could easily count in excess of 55 and then I guess I missed some of them. I wont be surprised if its actually beyond 60.
Amity – I do not know but I heard that its fairly same but probably there are two Aayahs per section than APJ, which has none (at least none in terms of any consequence considering the numerous water bottles which get left every afternoon by kids, even if their is one, I doubt whether she is been instructed to help kids for day to day stuff)
I wrote a post on Amity, probably write a comment there and someone might help us here – http://jhaji.blogspot.com/2008/09/amity-noida-primer-on-nursery.html
Hello Nandan
This is Priya. My son (8 yrs old) got admission in APEEJAY. I read ur above post. Would like to know more abt that school. Hope ur daughter still reads there. Recently we shifted to Noida bcos of job transfer. How good the school is? How about their regular class sessions including breakfast and lunch timings?
It would be of great help if you provide some information. Thks
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