Entrance exam success etiquette

[tōkai devotee]

This question may seem a little strange but here goes. I'm going to ask it anyway.

If a friend's child passes an entrance exam to a really high class school, is there a correct response? Like, should I say congratulations to the parents? And how would you say this? Is simply 'omedetou gozaimasu' enough? I understand it's a big deal to get in to a good school and this kid studied so hard for the past couple of months that 'omedetou' sounds kind of a weak response!

Can anyone help?!

(Sorry, but my IME isn't behaving today.)

[tōkai devotee]

Ok, so no-one can help me Nevermind. That's ok.

But I have another question related to this.
I've been looking up "good news" and I come up with so many entries and don't know which to use. I want to say to the parents of the kid who passed the entrance exam, "That's good news"
So these are some the options..

吉報　（きっぽう）
朗報　（ろうほう）
耳寄り　（みみより）
快報　　（かいほう）

I also came up with ビッグニュース . Is this really used often? What about グッドニュース？？

Or should I just write something like this: それはいい知らせですね。

Thanks in advance!

[becki_kanou]

『おめでとう』 is just fine. You could also say 「良かったね！」 for "That's good news".

[tōkai devotee]

Hmmmm... keep it simple. Yeah, I should've thought of that
I just got confused when I saw so many different words for good news.

Thanks Becki