What's a parent to do?

A recent New York Times article, Tips for the Admission Test...to Kindergarten, is thought provoking, if a little disturbing. The article details a new phenomenon in the ever more competitive world of independent and public test school admissions. It seems that it is now possible to pay to have your three or four-year-old child tutored in preparation for the aptitude tests schools use to help evaluate student readiness for school. Is this going too far? One independent school admission director calls it "unethical". Really? Don't we all try to give our children a leg-up in various ways? Isn't that precisely why we choose to invest in an independent school education in the first place? So why is this so wrong? As the article points out, how is this different from SAT prep classes? Schools in New York and a few other big cities have the "luxury" of many times more applicants than spaces available, so who can blame parents from trying to help their child put her or his best foot forward? On the other hand, does it negate the validity of the test as a part of the admission process? Thankfully, independent schools don't use testing as the only criteria for admission, but without a somewhat objective criteria as a part of the process, schools are left with purely subjective measures by which to make admission decisions. What will this mean for the make-up of a school's student body? No doubt, independent schools in New York and other cities where this test-prep phenomenon has taken hold will find new ways to get accurate information on their applicants. Otherwise, my guess is that the only people who will be concerned about this trend is those whose children are not accepted. And then they'll have the choice to complain or join the crowd.