In England, there are moves for councils to ensure that children can be admitted to reception at five if this is what their parents want.
A Citibank sales report told how Chaminade University in Hawaii had asked the bank to hold receptions for admitted students in exchange for business.
In addition, Columbia alumni are hosting admitted student receptions this month in cities across the United States and around the world.
HAAV members support the admissions process in three main ways: conducting interviews with prospective students, participating in recruiting events and attending admitted student receptions.
But Levie admits that its reception has been less than overwhelming.
Just after being contacted by the Guardian about the case, Southwark told the family it would allow Cian to be admitted to a reception class – but it could only offer a place at a school his parents felt was too far from home.
"I don't want to get in rows or interfere," Riley says, admitting that an artist can't control the reception of her work.
At a recent reception for admitted students at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street, current students wooed newly admitted students with accounts of their experiences.
Field has contacted the DfE to complain that Lambeth has not fulfilled its obligation to give reasons for its decision not to admit Cian to a reception class, but she has been told to pursue the issue locally.
Representatives of the cellular phone companies are loath to admit that they have reception problems, despite their competitors' aggressive marketing campaigns, dominated by phrases like "Can you hear me now?" and "How many bars do you have?" If pressed, however, they admit to having some problems with reception, though these issues vary a great deal depending on the provider.
Rudy Torres, a Brown junior from East Los Angeles, told of arriving at a welcome reception for admitted students at a Beverly Hills mansion only to have the host greet his father, a high school dropout, with a question: "Where did you go to undergrad?" The guests were white and the waiters, like his family, Mexican.
