Nursery Admissions in Delhi NCR 2024-25

Some of these comparisons actually do not make sense. For example Scottish High is primarily IB & IGCSE (though they offer ICSE option after 5th) whereas Heritage/Shriram are CBSE & ICSE respectively. I also do not understand the hype around Shiv Nadar as their academic records are very average. 1st decision to take is do you want IB or CBSE/ICSE.

If it's IB you want, I only see Pathways and Scottish as top options. Pathways' locations are bad (near Sohna and Gurgaon-Faridabad road) and sending a 3 year old there is tough. So only option is Scottish High. I did look at Scottish's ICSE results for 10th and 12th and found them pretty average. Only 48% (31/65) > 90% in 12th and 61% in 10th. I also enquired with parents who's kids study there and found the extracurricular infra which is super hyped is not really used as well. Being a Day boarding though is good for busy parents as kid spends pretty much all day at the school. So we got admission offer within 2 days of applying to Scottish, but declined.

So we looked at ICSE, and there are only 2 other real good options - Shriram and Shikshantar.

Our Shikshantar experience was a disaster. Their 2 hour orientation session went on for 4 hours and the draw of lots meant to finish in 1.5 hrs was a mess with Parents shouting their kids names, software glitches eventually ending in the Principal literally scolding parents followed by a Yoga session to calm every one down. I am not joking, it was absolutely hilarious and showed the unpreparedness for use of technology. Speaking to parents we also found no swimming pool, no foreign language and poor infra overall. Great teachers, very committed and focused on helping the child be happy is what we heard. So to take a call we looked at their academic results. ICSE 10th and 12th was pretty ok, better than Scottish high, but nowhere close to Shriram.

Since Shriram announces results on 12 Sept, we moved on to look at CBSE schools (no preference for ICSE, just the way we thought about it).

CBSE choices are many. The top options we heard of everywhere were : Heritage, Shriram, Suncity. We also heard about Shiv Nadar, but on seeing their 10th and 12th results 44% students (>90%) in 10th and 46% students (>90%) in 12th, we dropped it right away.

The other set of options were DPS-45, Lotus Valley. We also added MRIS basis discussions here. And on looking at academic results we found Amity and DAV Sector 14 good too.

But Amity, DAV, Salwan are too traditional for our taste. DPS-45 results are in September so that decision has to be taken late. So we applied to all others (except the traditional schools).

We got admission offers from SunCity, Lotus Valley & Heritage already and expect to get it in DPS etc coz they are nearby.

One thing I can tell is distance is not that big a factor. SunCity is 14km from our home. They seem to look at Parent Profile and the answers you write in essays. We did a school visit to SunCity and found the campus good. Their academic results are not so great though 45% (>90%) in both 10th and 12th. And of course the distance was far too.

So Lotus Valley. Great Academic results : 71% students (>90%) in 12th and 62% (>90%) in 10th. Good campus, spoke to the principal, liked them. Everything looks good.

Heritage though appears in a different league. To understand why, read their book "Surival of the Humanest" and their vision of the skill kids need in 2035 when they graduate. Loved it and also their Project based Experiential learning theme. This seems a good crossover of IB kind of experiential learning (also advocated by the new Education policy) and the academic rigor of CBSE. But hold on, our only doubt was , does all this experiential stuff bring the same academic results as traditional schools. And this is what I found 12th results - 74% students (>90%) and 100% (>75%). These are the best results across all schools. So the choice was very clear.

We've gone ahead with Heritage and recommend anyone getting into Heritage or Shriram to just take it. Shriram results are best in ICSE 68% (>90%+) in 12th and 77% (>90%) in 10th.

This shows the quality of students who come to these schools and hence if your kid is in Top 5, he/she is in Top students nationally as well and not just a local champ.

For rest, I would recommend Lotus Valley for its good academic results and great infra.

SunCity is good too overall if you don't opt for traditional schools.

But if traditional schools are ok with you then DPS-45 and Amity look great and are much more affordable than Top 3 schools.

My own research shows Scottish, ShivNadar are great on infra but not on academic results, which is eventually important. They invest a lot in marketing so do your research before opting.

Permalink Reply by Sakshi (Moderator) on September 2, 2020 at 10:20am

Nitin Sharma

Heartiest Congratulations and Thanks for helping parents :)

Shiv Nadar main focus is on overall growth of child ( Class 12 batch first batch passed out only two years ago).

Permalink Reply by Nitin Sharma on September 2, 2020 at 11:02am

Sure Sakshi. This site and you have been of great help so we wanted to make sure we give back. On SNS, it may eventually become a great school with good academic results too. But as of today, it does not check a critical box we had which is good overall growth of child without missing out on academic rigor. The only foolproof way to check academic rigor is results of 10th and 12th which provide a common benchmark. Of course, in 14 years, some of these schools will get much better and some may worsen. But, the analysis I provided is my assessment as of today. Less on opinion, more on facts verifiable from their respective websites. :-) Again Thank you so much to you, this site and all parents here. One small suggestion for future would be to see if the search features can be improved as it throws up results without any sort option. Most of us are looking for last 2-3 years of inputs and not 10 year back data which would have changed drastically by now. Other than that you guys are solving a big problem for 1000s of parents. Congratulations to you on this awesome site and group.

Permalink Reply by Sakshi (Moderator) on September 2, 2020 at 11:13am

Thanks for your Gracious Remarks :)

The actual credit goes to our founder Mr Sumit Vohra and Head Core Team Lathaa Manavalan and parents.

Thanks again for your suggestion and inputs.

Permalink Reply by PS on September 2, 2020 at 12:50pm

This is like a fantastic analysis. Thanks for sharing it.

Permalink Reply by yogesh rawat on September 2, 2020 at 9:47am

Does anybody know what is the last date of admission application submission for DPS Sector-45? There is no information on the school website. I am also not able to find the link to download the application.

Permalink Reply by Sakshi (Moderator) on September 2, 2020 at 9:51am

yogesh rawat

See.

Already posted on link below.

DPS Sec 45~10th Aug

Permalink Reply by Payal on September 2, 2020 at 9:55am

The above ad clearly says that the forms should have been submitted latest by 24th August. Those who submitted even got their documents verified on a date given by the school. DOL on 12th Sept.

Permalink Reply by Kumar on September 2, 2020 at 10:06am

Hello Payal, What's your take on Lotus valley schools Principals attitude and many mixed reviews posted regarding high headedness of staff as posted by many parents this year and in previous year discussions.

Your overall reviews would be appreciated.