A Change Factor

The mother of the great student who is procrastinating on his college applications, says with disdain in her voice that he’ll just have to go to state college if he doesn’t get a move on.

Oh, and that’s what, punishment?

Maybe, just maybe, a state school is just what that boy needs. Maybe he can relax a little, have a little more fun, because that’s really what he wants. He’s only 17. But his mother is creating undue family stress and warning the kid of the dire consequences that are state schools.

Pu-lease!

Poor woman, she’s stuck in that awful abyss, the whole reason for this blog. Oh yes, state schools just don’t have the glitz of the selective private schools, I know that. Of course, I was all over those private, mostly selective, and expensive colleges last year at this time. But, the culture has got to change.

Here’s the newest change factor, possibly the best that’s come along in say, oh, 22 years.

It’s the economy.

This near economic depression we are experiencing might be the final blow to this need for the middle class to send their children to the “right schools.”

Maybe more families who are watching their retirements disappear with the stock market decline, will opt out of this crazy making college acceptance culture and see their children, who will be no less brilliant than they were before, head off to their state universities and colleges.

And perhaps those colleges that continue to be out of reach unless they can provide grants and scholarships from large endowments will be held more accountable for their horrendous tuitions.
A candidate for public office was asked what he will do to help middle class families with the cost of colleges. He said, the government can only do so much, but it’s about time for colleges to do their part to stop the tuition increases. He suggested we ask more accountability of colleges, as in “just why is the cost so high?”

I liked that response. It seemed honest to me, even if it isn’t going to help me, yet.
Meanwhile, unless a school is willing to provide substantial merit scholarships, (no I’m not talking those measly little $5,000 gifts) families should opt out.

State schools are not a consequence, and they just might be the perfect fit for your kid.

Chatter

In the parking lot the other day I overheard two serious women discussing where their children were considering going to college. With great intensity, they discussed a daughter’s desire to go to Northwestern University and a son’s desire to go to Stanford. They talked SAT scores and merit scholarships. They talked A.P. courses and sports and extracurriculars.

I had stopped momentarily to speak with them, but when it was clear their conversation was stalled on their brilliant children, and truly, it was, I bid them good-bye and left. I couldn’t even begin to offer up any points of view.

As I got into the car I recognized in my reaction a renewed disdain for that college chatter, and felt more than happy to have this year off.

But while I don’t have to engage in any of the college search stress this year, I see it all around me.

One mother is so concerned about her 3.9 G.P.A. football playing son not getting into the college of his choice that she is brought to near tears in describing her worry. Another mom cornered me one day to tell me that she’s worried her son doesn’t seem to be motivated to get started with the search process. “He’s a great student,” she tells me, “but if he doesn’t get going on his apps, he’s not going to get into a good college.”

I get it. But these hovering mamas need to get a life.

Meanwhile I hear from parents about how their children are faring, just two months into their new college experience. Some are having a wee-old time, experiencing not only stimulating classes, but the fun that comes with being free of parental constraints. Who knows how their classes are going; they’re adjusting and trying it out.

Some however, are not having quite that amount of fun. They are up too late working on papers that don’t seem to be able to garner the A’s they were used to in high school. They study and then study some more and find the best grade on a Chem test is a B minus. They forgo the campus fun; the dorm parties, the trips into town, even the campus fall party. Calls home are worrisome; one father worries his daughter won’t be able to continue at that rather selective college he was so proud she got into.

Well, we hear about this stage at the parent orientation. It comes in mid October we’re told. It’s when the proverbial shit hits the fan.

How the student reacts to it, how she copes and gets through it will be telling.

We want so much for our smart kids: get into that hard to get into college, compete and learn with the brightest, show how smart you are, and by the way, make sure you have fun, because after all, college is a time to have fun.

Some of us are kind of crazy like that.

So we need to step back, back down, retreat, whatever, and let the kids figure it out. It’s our turn to be cool and pretend we’ve kept a safe distance. It’s our turn to look at those two chattering women in the parking lot, mothers of the brilliant high school kids, shake our heads, and walk away.

Hold That Call

This is the month when college bound freshmen load up their parent's cars with new extra long twin bedding, laundry baskets, computers, and a suitcase full of clothes, as they finally make the move into their dorms, ready to take on all the realities of college life.

And colleges, in their quest to help students find community in their new surroundings, welcome the students with move-in help, special orientation programs that include events like karaoke nights, to assemblies in which they are told the virtues of the college experience.

But with all the preparation and admissions chatter over the last year and a half, it is easy to be blindsided by a shocking and unfamiliar sense of loss, change, emerging adulthood, and nervousness that this is even the right college.

Neither student nor parent is immune.

And in this day of internet connectivity and cell phones, there is hardly an emotion that isn't shared, if that is the student's inclination. Or parents'.

At the portion of orientation that was for the parents, we heard from a parent's council on how to navigate the first year your child is living away from home. In one case, a mother described the daily, if not hourly phone calls she exchanged with her daughter during the first semester. In her friendly banter, she seemed to be outing the kids who look cool walking on campus with a phone on one ear. She claims most are probably talking to their moms and dads.

Really?

Do parents want their kids to be in such constant contact? Do we want to have to suffer with them if that is the case? Shouldn't they buck up a little, work it out, feel homesick, feel lost, but figure out how to cope? Isn't that why we didn't come racing to their cribs when they were infants, because we wanted them to learn to "self soothe?"

Self control is necessary at this point for parents and kids. I would love to call Hans and get every detail about his First Year Seminar group, his roommate, how he's configured the twin beds to maximize the tiny bit of space, and now that classes have begun, how are they?

But I don't. And he doesn't call us. God knows how much he's needed this separation from us, free to make uncensored decisions about how he keeps his room, when he studies, even when and what he eats.

When I looked at his dorm room I thought of a prison cell. As tiny as it is, (and I've heard through the blogosphere that he "sleeps in a coffin,") that dorm room is his release. He is as free as he's ever been.

As much as I yearn to hear all about his new life, I hope I don't, not for quite a while a least. Because I know that there will be days when he is overwhelmed, lonely, tired of the "coffin" and suddenly wistful for the easy days when he lived at home and was nagged to get out of bed. I know or at least hope, a day like that will be short-lived, he'll come around, and all will be exciting again.

A kid who isn't in the habit of sharing every emotion as it occurs will get to experience getting thru the moment, the day, or even the week. I have to believe he'll feel stronger for it, accomplished, and really, most importantly, independent and free.

For now, in these heady, early days following his departure from home, we are left with an empty bedroom, a messy, unorganized, disheveled room that has safely harbored our child from his very first days.

But we don't pick up the phone.

It Never Ends

Just because some of us are breathing a collective sigh of relief that senior year is over, graduation parties have all been had, and the source of the last year of angst is now heading out the door, doesn't mean it's all over.

Oh, no.

The competition just accelerates, affecting those who dream of professional careers requiring graduate school. A young woman I know, a bright college senior named Dawn, is facing reality as she prepares for the MCAT.

Pragmatic girl that she is, she's recognizing that her 3.75 GPA , summers doing research in the chemistry department, volunteer work at a local hospital, and years as a Personal Care Assistant may not mean much against the competition for the few spots available at the University's Medical School. Or any medical school.

She's wishing she'd never gotten that B in Chemistry, she's wishing she had known to go overseas summers to work in a hospital, she's wishing she was just plain smarter so that she could count on acing her MCAT.

As she spends countless hours between her research and PCA jobs, and prepping for the big test, she's also conjuring up Plan B.

Several of her pre-med classmates have already incorporated their own versions of Plan B, recognizing as college sophomores and juniors that they stood little chance of making it through the rigors of med school admissions. Dawn held tight and worked hard, convinced that she could beat the odds.

Maybe she will, maybe not. But it's good to have a Plan B.

A friend of mine wonder s why her daughter should bother with the honors program at the university she'll be starting this fall. I cluck, roll my eyes and tell her that if the kid wants to be a pediatrician then she damn well better take the honors route. The mother doesn't see the point. The daughter hasn't decided.

Maybe they should know that graduate school enrollment has gone up 67 percent since the mid seventies and that enrollment in first professional programs (like Law, and Medical schools,) has gone up 41 percent. Enrollments are expected to continue to rise.

And competition will continue to be fierce as grad school and professional programs become increasingly necessary to land that elusive first job.

It just never ends.

Wanna' Do Over ?
Or
How Luck Made a Do Over Unnecessary


If only we knew then what we know now. But who would guess that the high school junior would be so different as a high school senior?

College entrance exams and the search for the right college occur when kids are still juniors. And most applications are filled out in the fall, when the student is still just transitioning to senior year.

So what if your kid could do it all over, based on how the student has changed over the year, and what you have found out about the admissions process and potential for scholarship, would it be an entirely different search?

A year ago when Hans the high school junior was taking the SAT and the ACT, he lived for golf, considered Religious Studies or Philosophy his potential major, and was attracted to schools like Berkeley, Northwestern, and University of Chicago.

By summer, relatively strong scores in hand, and his love of golf even stronger, he decided he wanted to play college golf, but recognized his game was more in line with Division 3 schools. He also recognized, with our “help,” that he might be more comfortable closer to home than not.
His summer search for the right college involved checking golf scores on college web sites along with the academic profiles. In the end, he came up with three private colleges; two were just an afternoon drive away, the third several states away.

A college fair visit in mid-October introduced him to a golf playing state university, only two hours away, as well as a local non-golf playing private college, only 25 minutes away.
By the time he was filling out applications, we insisted he include the large, Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota, our alma mater, as a final safety net.

Meanwhile, Hans the senior was enjoying his participation in the school’s comedy club, his work as the editorial cartoonist for the school paper, as well as a couple of creative writing classes. He took a philosophy class that left him somewhat under-whelmed. And he visited the local indoor driving range less and less, replaced ultimately by time spent posting on a blog for a writing class.

One day when we were casually talking about what he really wanted to do in the future, he mentioned that maybe he’d like to be a writer. No discussion or anything, he just threw it out there, as if to figure out how it sounded if he said it out loud.

Then his first acceptance letter came, and with it a boost of confidence that finally allowed him to say, “I’m going to major in English, with an emphasis on creative writing.” That first letter included a note from the director of admissions, complimenting him on his essay. Not much later, he received a call from the school, urging him to apply for a writing scholarship on top of the four year academic scholarship already offered. Flattery can take a kid pretty far, and in this case, Hans was excited about what I imagine was a sense of the school’s appreciation for his quirky, edgy writing, maybe even as a reflection of his quirky self.

Out of six schools, he decided on that small private school that loved his writing, is only 25 minutes from home and doesn’t have a golf team. It is a school becoming known for its’ strong writing program. A school which since he began filling out the application has been in touch with him, either by phone, mail, or e-mail, encouraging him, creating a sense of a budding relationship even though he didn’t get the writing scholarship Who doesn’t respond favorably to being wanted?

So if we had known that he wanted to major in Creative Writing and didn’t need to play golf, and in fact was excited by an urban versus rural setting, would the search have been much different? I think so. I am sure that two of the colleges he applied to wouldn’t have made the list if we knew then what we know now.

All that advice about finding a match, not gunning for a prize, seems to have worked out here. I think it’s a match. And I think Hans got damn lucky.

The Launch to Outa’ Here

A friend of mine is stressing out over her daughter’s behavior this senior year. Mother and daughter have been at odds for years and the daughter’s demands and thankless demeanor have finally gotten to the mom. “I’m doing the count-down,” she says to me. “Only five more months, and she’s outa’ here!” Put her on the catapult. Launch her.

But here’s the thing. She won’t really be “outa’ here.” A kid going off to college has a cell phone, and a computer with Internet. That’s the good news and the bad news. For my friend, it’s bad news because that daughter will call her mother with all of her daily problems to which the mother can only listen, offer a few suggestions, and then hang up and be stressed out because she’s worried about her daughter, who is so “outa’ here.” She can only look at the palm sized cards colleges give parents which remind them to respond this way: “What do you want me to do about it?”

When I went off to college in 1973, I was just three hours away, but calling collect to tell my woes, and I was terribly homesick, didn’t even cross my consciousness. I didn’t adapt well and I struggled to live with a roommate who had arrived before me, therefore having first pick of the skinny so called twin beds, and first pick of the wall space on which she plastered giant “Fuck War” posters. I struggled with my Freshman English Class, which for some reason made it apparent my high school English coursework was lacking, and I struggled with the amount of Slo-Gin being drunk and subsequently vomited up by my fellow residents. I walked around in a near stupor of a very strange and frightening sensation called homesickness and didn’t get home until the Greyhound bus took me for Thanksgiving. Before Christmas, the financial aid office informed me that I didn’t have the means to continue at that campus, (that’s a whole ‘nother story) and I happily transferred to the main campus, allowing me to live at home. No shame in the return that I recall, and in fact I embraced the large, impersonal campus which required me to walk great distances between classes in the frigid winds of January.

As a high school senior applying to college, I was sure living away from home was the only thing to do in order to experience true “independence.” I’m guessing that most seniors would believe that, at least while they are still at home.

Living on campus does contribute greatly to the college experience; you are forced to engage in the community that as a commuter you likely wouldn’t have an opportunity to discover. And you are forced into a new kind of independence.

So, like his brother five years ago, Hans wants to live in a dorm as a freshman, even though he is most likely to attend a school that is just a half an hour drive from our home. I cringe for him, imagining his new home away from home, a room smaller than the bedroom he’s occupied for the last 18 years, shared with a stranger who may not appreciate his nocturnal habits, his slovenly and smelly ways, and his moods. But I agree with him that it will enhance his experience, and we’ll have a starter semblance of him being “outa’ here.”

Meanwhile, I roll my eyes behind the backs of my friends whose kids are “outa’ here,” but call daily with complaints that the college to which they worked so hard to gain admission, isn’t working out at all for them. It’s hard to make friends, it’s hard to get along with your room-mate, it’s hard to miss your friends from high school, it’s even hard to miss your sister. So for reasons not at all having to do with academics, one freshman I know wants to come home, another is starting the college search all over.

Launching? I know better. (See earlier posts!) I had my independent first born away for that freshman year with few complaints. But a month into summer break and in love, he couldn’t imagine himself back on that campus, a couple thousand miles away. It took him until what would have been his junior year to return to school as a sophomore, and is only now on track to graduate by the ripe old age of 24. He wasn’t close to “outa’ here.”

I have watched family members and sons and daughters of friends make the slow, erratic, transition to life after high school. Granted, some are successful from the get-go. But it ain’t high school, no matter how brilliant your days as a teenaged star. It’s the first real stab at independence, with academics that actually require hard work, and how well a kid does rests largely on his personality and maturity level.

Keep the bedroom a bedroom just in case.

Safety and Reach



A number of high school seniors I know have sent in their confirmations to the colleges and universities that have accepted them, and something funny has happened. The kids who were accepted at some pretty fancy selective schools are sending the yes postcards to the state universities.

The reason is money.

And we parents are feeling a little bit bitter that we bought off on the advice that told us, “ don't let the cost stop you because you’ll be amazed at the financial aid packages schools offer.”

So while we encouraged our kids to apply to some of these schools, and congratulated them on their acceptance, we are the ones who have to make the decision, to tell our kids, we aren't going to be robbing ourselves of retirement funds to send you to your first choice school.

Oh what a bitter taste to feel as if you've been courted, flirted with, even kissed, only to be dropped like a spurned lover.

Admittedly, there are some good scholarships and grants, and in our case, we are happy that Hans was offered a sizable scholarship to two of the schools to which he was accepted. But two of the private schools didn't offer him anything, but couldn't wait to meet him on acceptance day. Someone out there thinks we’re going to have our kid take out loans to finance a $44,000 a year school? Does anyone think borrowing 10, 20, even 30 thousand a year is responsible?

High school counselors suggest students apply to a reach college, as well as a safety college. I am pretty sure they’re talking academics and acceptance. It turns out that terminology is now being used for affordability, as news articles pick up on the precarious state of our national economy, and warn students that loan companies with which colleges contract are in trouble.

Apply to a reach college, and a safety college.

Harvard and Stanford University plan to reduce the cost of tuition in an attempt to make their schools more affordable to the middle class. In Harvard’s case, tuition for a middle class family would be limited to ten percent of the household’s income up to $180,000. What a commendable, honorable, and just plain democratic effort. If you fit the academic and leadership profiles of a strong candidate, you should be able to imagine an education from such a school without incurring extreme debt.

Colleges need to hear when students don’t choose a school because they can’t afford it; maybe then there will be a greater effort to make college affordable to the middle class.