p.s. 87?

My fiance and I have been living on the UWS for years and don't want to leave our neighborhood. We also want to start a family in the next couple years. Our zoned elementary school is PS 87, and I have heard great things about the actual quality of the school but horror stories about waitlists and the process of getting one's child in. Is it true that there is a waitlist of over 100 kids for PS... [more]

My fiance and I have been living on the UWS for years and don't want to leave our neighborhood. We also want to start a family in the next couple years. Our zoned elementary school is PS 87, and I have heard great things about the actual quality of the school but horror stories about waitlists and the process of getting one's child in. Is it true that there is a waitlist of over 100 kids for PS 87's kindergarten; what would happen if our kids did not get in off the waitlist by the start of the school year (would we have any say in which alternate school they get assigned to?); and how exactly does the waitlist work? I hear it's not first come first served (e.g., there is a sibling preference), and that a lot of people rent studios in our neighborhood just to get their kids into this school....isn't there a way to screen out people who do that? We want two kids and would rather move to the suburbs than pay $80k/year out of pocket for private school tuition, so not getting into a good PS would be a deal-breaker as far as our ability to continue living in the city. Forgive my total ignorance on the subject, we're not parents yet and we both grew up in areas where there was no drama surrounding getting into the local public schools - our parents just signed us up and we went. TIA! [less]