<p>^^^^^</p>
<p>Sounds like a hella a young woman on a mission curm! Take notes, I’ll be asking you questions soon enough! Good luck, sounds like a determined young lady!</p>
<p>DD also has all coursework entered, ordered past school transcripts a while ago and got confirmation for the first one from AMCAS today.</p>
<p>DD is in finals this week, so come the weekend, the editing machine will go into overdrive, alternating between the PS, the ECs descriptions, and prodding the LOR people whho have not yet submitted to her school’s letter service.</p>
<p>There is a great deal of work involved in these apps.</p>
<p>GO GIRL!!! The other applicants will be eating her dust. Did she or is she using a professional application advice service? Any thoughts on their efficacy?</p>
<p>She has a PS she can (almost) send without causing me to faint. Of course it IS 400 characters too long but…still…it’s progress!! </p>
<p>She will shift gears Monday to the Texas apps (opening day I think) and let the AMCAS “season” a little. She might actually get through this. </p>
<p>How about everybody else?</p>
<p>Everybody remember that if you use Word or WP convert to Notepad before you paste it in to AMCAS. </p>
<p>Has anybody figured out how you can print a complete hard copy of the app to review while you are going along? D can’t seem to do it or else, and this is NOT unlikely, she SAYS she can’t do it. ;)</p>
<p>^ I don’t think you can do that, curm. Once its been submitted and verified, they e-mail you a PDF version of the entire app, and you can also print one out from the website, but I don’t remember being able to do that while I was working on it. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i dont remember being able to do that either</p>
<p>side note: reading these posts makes me SO glad my parents were not involved in this process at all. the last thing i needed was someone hovering over me adding to my neuroticism and “reminding” me of what i should be doing.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As a parent, I sometimes feel that only the Parents Forum at CC truly welcomes us ;-(
But, after my child was graduated from high school, I still find that CC provides us parents a lot of useful information (e.g., air travel, clothing, living off-campus, etc.)</p>
<p>I do understand that most college students prefer the parents to be not so involved - I have been reminded by my own child about this (i.e., “letting go”) many times in the past year or so. But it takes time for us parents to be fully ready to “cut the cord” so please be patient with us who are still hanging around during the transition period. Thanks!</p>
<p>At one time, I “heard” a conversation at CC as follows, which I find it funny ;-)</p>
<p>18 yo: Honestly I find parents on this site a little creepy.</p>
<p>Parent: Bite your tongue, wee laddy! We’re not creepy; we’re parents.</p>
<p>^ understandable, but hopefully the cord has long since been cut at the ‘applying to med schools’ stage :)</p>
<p>Well, my parents were a valuable part of my support staff during the medical school process. My mom is a five-star writer (stars awarded by me) and my dad is a physician, so they were invaluable at reading things and helping me make sure I was on time with everything. My mom, in particular, helped me pick schools as well, doing a lot of research and helping me put together spreadsheets while my dad often knew a little bit about the grads from various places.</p>
<p>The key, though, was that they understood that they were part of my support staff – not my coaches, not my managers. I wasn’t their applicant; this was my process and they were assisting me.</p>
<p>My premed advisor always warned us to keep our parents at arms’ length during the process. If a parent ever calls an admissions office, that’s an automatic rejection. Asian-American candidates, in particular, need to be extremely reluctant to even mention parents during essays and interviews.</p>
<p>But they can serve as very valuable support staff, when the time comes.</p>
<p>My parents footed the bill for me to attend 13 interviews. They didn’t meddle in the application process (since they didn’t know jack) but I think they were owed at least a weekly update.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In recent years, for whatever the reason it may be, it is rumored that “Asian Mom” sort of becomes a dirty word. – It does not help that in the year when my child was graduated from his public high school, maybe 7 out of the top 10 students (in terms of rank) happened to be Asian Americans. I truly believe that the top 20 students from his high schools are equivalent in their academic strength; the differences among their college applications are in their ECs only.</p>
<p>For the college admission at least, the parents in our family were heavily involved.</p>
<p>It may be a blessing that I as a parent does not know anything about the field my child chose to be in. (Mine in engineering and his in biology.) Otherwise, I could imagine that I may have an even more difficult time to let it go. I hope I can follow your parent’s role model: just foot the bill.</p>
<p>Families have many dynamics. What works for one won’t work for another. I couldn’t care less what my kid decides to do, but once she decides I’ll do what she wants me to do to help her get there. Much like what bdm points out about his application season , she owns this process as much as any kid can. And as I’ve said 'bout a hunnert times, she points at data…I fetch it. I’m good at it …and I’m a little OCD-ish. 
</p>
<p>Some people have paid counselors…for high school, college , and med school …and she’s got me- a data hound. So be it. </p>
<p>Our system works just fine for us. So far. </p>
<p>Funny thing is, I’ve already been enlisted by 3 other kids at her school to help them, too. </p>
<p>OTOH, my niece wouldn’t let me see her essays and she did just fine, too. But she did let me help her with FA and she hit a home-run. ;)</p>
<p>I will also say that many parents use these boards not to watch their children, but to relieve stress. And I think that’s a very valuable function of the board – specifically, if my talking things over with a parent is a good way to help alleviate the parent’s concern without bothering the child, then it’s a win-win. =)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So true. The more I know about how his life is, the less likely I will bother him. We tend to be “panic” and start to bother him when we do not know what is going on.</p>
<p>Actually, a rule that we set for ourselves is that we shall not “bother” our child more than once a week, each time should not exceed 15-20 minutes, at the time chosen by him, usually very late in the evening during the weekend when he is often too exhaustive to talk. </p>
<p>I think college students tend to be busy during weekdays so the “interference” during weekend, right before bedtime, may be least intrusive. I wonder if this is true. (Sorry, I have side-tracked. This should be a topic on the Parent Cafe forum.)</p>
<p>curmudgen, I envy your close relationship with your child. Apparently, you have excellent parenting skills. I suspect that when the application time comes for my child and I try to be involved, my child will likely ask me not to (hopefully politely ;-)).</p>
<p>My parents have found that e-mail is an excellent way to contact me, since it allows me to talk as long or short as I want at a time of my convenience.</p>
<p>Well, thanks but I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Still make them, but she’ll have plenty to tell the shrink. ;)</p>
<p>We have a track record of success doing it our way. </p>
<p>Let’s go to that arena where parental over-involvement is at its peak : youth sports.</p>
<p>My D decided at an early age that she and her friends would win a Texas state championship in basketball. They even chose to have “Future State Champs” printed on their summer league jerseys in the 6th grade. That got a few laughs and jeers.</p>
<p>With a couple of other "too-involved " parents we gave them the opportunities to play almost year-round , against the best talent we could find (on the cheap). Lots of clinics, too many practices to count. Lots of individual instruction. Incredible conditioning. Not a one of her closest pals had any shot at a college scholarship for bball, bad genes but …genetics be damned, they did it. And this was at a school where the girls had won 2 games the year before our kids got to varsity as freshmen. </p>
<p>Did any of the parents take a shot? Block a shot? Grab a board? Block anybody out? Set a pick? Call a play? Nope. The kids made the decision. We just gave them an opportunity to hone their skills and shine.</p>
<p>After all that… when my kid got to college , she made the bball team …but SHE chose to play Ultimate instead. Did it please me? Heck, no! But she did it anyway. That’s the way it works at my house and that’s the way this will work, too.</p>
<p>I think a parent can be a valuable asset in the application process. My Dd is doing all the thinking work, and I can do scut work.</p>
<p>I have spent many hours over the years at basketball games, swim meets, soccer, hockey, rugby , volleyball, track, etc. With my kids all in college, I can certainly use that time to do research for them.</p>
<p>My DD attends a top public with a less than ideal advising situation, I have learned all she needed to know about Med School apps & PhD apps for another DD between CC & SDN. Why not? And why not share that with others?</p>
<p>I have read so many stories of re-applicants who did not apply early the first year; I am not sure DD would have know to apply early without CC.</p>
<p>My DDs will send me NAG emails, a list of things to do and deadlines and they ask me to nag them, which usually consists of a text message reminding them to do whatever it is.</p>
<p>I figure my kids are busy doing things like writing theses and personal stmts and taking tough classes in which they need to earn As. I can function as an administrative assistant without being a helicopter parents.</p>
<p>Along that vein, DD received email confirmations thattwo transcripts have already arrived at AMCAS!
TX info has been added, but their transcript forms page seems to have a glitch, so DD will check back tomorrow
LORs are going in, she forwarded my an email from the dept dean who was also her science teacher for two classes- he reports it is “extremely strong” so, we will see if great LORs and all As in senior year make up for an average MCAT ;)</p>
<p>It is also a nice way to stay in touch.</p>
<p>Curm, my DD did not play her sport this year as a senior, she needed to focus on heavy classes and lots of shadowing, etc. so she took this year off after three years of play. I was a bit sad not to be able to go and watch, but it was sensible and she will join a community team this summer</p>
<p>Thought I’d update here on D’s progress. Transcripts are finally in at AMCAS and one of two at TMDSAS. Two LOR’s have shown up (1 bio prof, 1 doctor with whom she spent a great deal of time) . Everything is done on both apps except some minor fine tuning on the PS which may be complete today for TMDSAS. Almost time to click “submit” on it. Once she does that she has some fairly short Texas secondaries that won’t take long if they are the same as last year. She’s dropped a couple more schools and she’s comfortable with her list. </p>
<p>From my seat it seems that it’s going pretty smoothly so far. From her seat, maybe not so much.;)</p>
<p>Curm and somemom - are your students going with the idea of not “clicking the send button” to AMCAS until a few days after the first date that can apply? A couple of people have recommended doing that as I guess the AMCAS system can get overwhelmed those first few days. Just wondered.</p>
<p>I strongly recommend this strategy. AMCAS has twice in the past few years crashed in the first few days and caused significant headaches.</p>