The following is a sample application for a fairly competitive private day care in Tokyo. It’s one page, and they don’t ask for any additional documentation. This is it! It’s an interesting comparison with the 10 plus pages of the application for public day care. Note that this day care facility makes their decision based solely on this single piece of paper–there is no interview.
As you can see below, all they ask for is: the names, address, and work details of each parent; the name and age of the child; your requested weekly schedule for childcare; and finally a brief explanation of your child-raising philosophy and your purpose for wanting entrance to that specific day care. It’s a pretty breezy application compared to the hefty public one. For some, the absence of red tape and headaches in the application process might be worth the extra monthly cost of going private! However, if public is your ultimate goal, it’s good to know that applying to a private as a back up will not be as tiresome a process as the public application. Again, this is just a sample of one private day care–each facility of course has their own application paperwork and procedure. Some day cares do require interviews, and others may have much more involved application forms than this one.
Day Care in Japan 