2. Preschool Applicants Must Submit DNA Profiles

So you want your child to attend the prestigious Porsafillo Preschool Academy on the Upper West Side? Get ready to submit their DNA profile! Although this honestly wouldn’t all too surprising if it were true, it was actually NPR’s 2012 April Fools Day prank. It should also be worth mentioning that this is a made-up school, plus the name of the school is an anagram for April Fools.

“Porsafillo Pre” required that DNA tests be performed on applicants in order to “weed out the kids who have no chance” at getting into the school that teach C++ and has a Mandarin Chinese Immersion program. The school even employed a child neurologist specifically to implement the policy.

The report went on to describe an expecting mother who was already doing a DNA test for the admissions process at a hospital that hasdstruck a deal with the school. NPR even refers to a phony New York Times article that called the process “ghoulish” and “unethical.” The piece ends with a statement from the school declaring that their process is anything but unethical, “it’s extremely ethical. This is now no longer a subjective decision.”

The New York Times responded with an article talking about NPR’s report but also seriously expanded on the issue of pre-school admissions and kindergarten redshirting. Even though NPR’s fake report was a complete hoax, it doesn’t seem entirely too ridiculous. The New York Times ended their piece, writing, “The only reason no elite preschool has adopted DNA tests is that no one has figured out how to use them to predict academic achievement. Yet.”