at our ps we came up with a list of k schools in the summer, reviewed it with psd, then applied. In Dec. after all the interviews and playgroups we gave psd our preferences, fc, top 3, etc. In Jan. she started to get feedback from k's and also advocated for us. As it got down to the wire she got more concrete feedback and we had a pretty good idea of where we stood before letters came out, though there are some k's who will not give any feedback to anyone. If you don't have this help you can still get in but obviously you're flying a little more blind. Also some psd will be more aggressive in brokering and directing dc's toward certain k's but ours was not like that and we're glad