LittlePrinz:

Welcome all parents and P1 students to ALPS :rahrah: Kudos to the School's staff for making the effort to call all 150 parents to ease them from the stress of waiting.

:rahrah: :rahrah: :rahrah:

ChiefKiasu:

Yes, but in this case, I believe ALPS only went into <1km cut-off in the afternoon of the last day. No SOP will be fast enough to manage notifying and processing withdrawals as long as the whole process is manual.

:goodpost:

Double E:

I will not comment further on whether ALPS should call parents from 1-2km to withdraw. But just sharing my experience, even though I am from 1km, I know it is not safe and guaranteed. I studied the trend of last year and found out that there were 161 SC within 1km got into ALPS and left with only 26 vacancies for balloting. So given that there was only 151 vacancies this year, I had an inkling that ALPS would go into balloting for 1km if the number of SC within 1km is similar to that of last year. I also discussed with my husband if we want to go into balloting should it really happened or we just proceed to register in a safe school. We decided that we will try balloting if the excess is no more than 10. Hence, we registered at ALPS at 2.30pm on the last day knowing that there were 10 slots left and stayed on to monitor the stats personally.

True enough, SC within 1km had to enter balloting this year. But little did we know there were 3 pairs of twins among the SC within 1km that changed the fate for all of us.

For the 1-2km parents, it was very unfortunate that you had no time to withdraw or even get to ballot. However, even if you do get to ballot, it is like 50 applicants balloting for less than 10 vacancies. The risk is high and a high chance for you to have to register in phase 2CS anyway.

All the best and hope you get to register your child in another school in phase 2CS without balloting.

Thanks for explaining that.


Welcome to ALPS! :rahrah: :rahrah: :rahrah:

My queue number was 14+ when I registered at ALPS last year. It was nerve wrecking. I stationed in the room until the end to make sure everything went smoothly.

Year 2016 would be even tougher. Parents staying 1-2KM, it's wise to choose other schools. Balloting <1KM would be unavoidable.

During Primary one registration, schools have NO obligation to call up parents to tell them to withdraw.


It is the sole responsibility of the parents to monitor the situation closely and to act accordingly. When I did the registration for my child, I rang up every 15 mins to monitor the situation. The ALPS staff were very polite and patient despite my numerous calls.

For ALPS, base on previous years’ registrations, those who have done sufficient ‘homework’ should have anticipated that there’s a possibility of balloting for <1KM (which means zero chance for 1-2KM). Parents decided to take the risk of balloting should also be mentally prepared to go through P2CS.

The Principal of ALPS was really thoughtful to ring up the parents to explain and apologize for the unfortunate (unforeseen) event. I pity the P for going the extra mile, and yet have to listen to parents who vent their unreasonable angers at her. She has no obligation to make all these phone calls and could have used the time to attend to school matters at hand.