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You do it like this quote= @ TimeFlies2 [ / quote]. Just take out the spaces
Again, if we are giving her agency with respect to the decision about where to attend college, to DH and I this means giving her agency over all of the decisions, not just the ones we want to or the ones where we think she’s making the ‘right’ decision. I believe that it’s wise to withdraw from other wait lists, but it would be inconsistent and hypocritical to say ‘you can decide where to go to school, but we’re going to force you to withdraw from other lists’. If staying on the lists causes problems for her we can ‘force’ the issue, but unless and until it does, we’re not going to. I realize there is a counter-argument that staying on other wait lists poses a risk to her mental/physical health if she ends up going through a decision like this again, but if that happens we will take control at that time. We will discuss the issue next week and may change our minds at that time, but for the moment we are not going to revoke her agency to make decisions of ANY sort. (As said, that may change). But there is no rush to do it “NOW” - nothing is going to happen re the lists over the weekend, or realistically even next week, and we believe it would be more harmful than helpful to bring up the issue right now.
I realize that others may disagree, and we may change our minds in the future about it, but that’s our decision right now. And I don’t believe there’s anything selfish about not withdrawing from the wait lists. Our responsibility is to our child, not to some other student we don’t know. We’ll do what’s best for our child. Not withdrawing right now is not akin to putting down two deposits, which is explicitly disallowed. I completely disagree that there is any reason we HAVE to do something RIGHT NOW.
Whatever UR does or doesn’t do is out of our hands. There’s no point in us, or anyone else, ‘hoping’ they’re going to take a particular action because the school neither knows nor cares what you or I think. I don’t understand why others feel so invested in what the school does or the effect (if any) it has on us. I understand better than anyone on this board how my child thinks and feels and what, in general, is best for her. I also completely agree that the past few weeks have been a cluster**** in terms of decisionmaking. This has partly been due to DD’s personality and partly the way things played out chronologically. I don’t agree that this means she will have trouble making up her mind about internships or similar opportunities - it hasn’t been in the past and I don’t see the past few weeks as necessarily being a precedent for the future. This is an extremely important decision which will effect the next four years of her life (and to a real extent, the rest of her life) as well as a decision involving tens of thousands of dollars. Between these factors and DD’s tendency to procrastinate the decision-making process has not gone as well as I would have liked it to have (that’s putting it mildly). But I think the long-term effect of this will mostly be not to procrastinate.
If in the future she continues to have great difficulty with decisions, we will deal with it then. But I think that opining that ‘this doesn’t bode well for the future’ is unnecessarily pejorative. What’s happened may indicate problems in the future or it may not. We don’t know. I prefer to look at the future optimistically and not anticipate problems that may or may not arise, while also having a plan (which we do) of what to do if problems do arise.
I also thought I had made it clear that we’re not forcing DD to graduate a semester early or are ‘changing the rules’ halfway through. The idea about graduating a semester early is something to talk about, not something we will force on her. DH and I talk things out with our children, who are (fortunately) usually sensible, hard-working, and realistic. We don’t impose unreasonable standards on them and there have been very few times where we forced them to do anything because they usually don’t need to be forced. We also let them make their own mistakes, including making decisions that we may not agree with, so long as doing so won’t injure them in any major or permanent way. So I don’t think that bringing up the idea is unfair or mean; if DD thinks it’s unreasonable she’ll tell us so. Actually, I think that letting her know it’s a possibility will be helpful, because she’ll know that there’s a way to reduce the price disparity between the two schools (even with the potential job/other funds, AU may still be considerably more expensive, and she’s aware of this). Plus, it’s some years in the future. It would be helpful if she could study for a CLEP exam over the summer - my understanding is that they’re a lot easier than AP courses and it would be in an ‘easy’ subject that AU doesn’t have for a major (i.e. Human Development). If it’s too hard to do then she can drop it and we’ll deal with that possibility in a couple of years.
She did call DH a couple of times on Friday evening/night saying she wasn’t sure if she made the right decision (he didn’t pick up). We didn’t bring up the issue yesterday as she was tired after being up almost all night with friends (there’s a post-prom party at the high school and then they watched the sun rise) and she was in a cranky mood. We’ll discuss things when she’s awake and this evening. There’s a good chance that Richmond has closed her account; if that’s the case it’s fine with me and DH and we can help DD deal with it if it upsets her. But I think that if we emphasize that both schools are a good fit for her and each has strengths and weaknesses, she’ll be fine.
@DragonBoatGirl I agree with everything you wrote except the part about not contacting Richmond to let them know your D won’t be accepting her offer off the WL. It is at a minimum common courtesy to give a reply to school by a deadline and to defend not doing so by stating that it would unnecessarily stress your D seems selfish and disingenuous.
The majority of criticism has been directed at her for not having the courtesy to inform Richmond of her decision, and the impact that inaction will inflict upon others. Based upon your response I assume UR has still not heard an answer?
“There’s a good chance that Richmond has closed her account; if that’s the case it’s fine with me and DH and we can help DD deal with it if it upsets her.”
Point being she should own her decisions and the consequences through action as opposed to knowingly harming others through indecisiveness and inaction, and that as parents you should have an expectation of her conducting herself appropriately. Instead you are enabling and justifying it
“I don’t believe there’s anything selfish about not withdrawing from the wait lists. Our responsibility is to our child, not to some other student we don’t know. We’ll do what’s best for our child. Not withdrawing right now is not akin to putting down two deposits, which is explicitly disallowed. I completely disagree that there is any reason we HAVE to do something RIGHT NOW.”
I would not suggest withdrawing from other waitlists (those have been earned) but you owe Richmond a response. Your responsibility is in fact as you declare, towards your child and that includes instilling accountability, responsibility, the ability to stick to a deadline, courtesy and empathy. A firm yes or no is required to fulfill this standard.
I think it’s totally fine to stay on wait lists if it is actually for schools that your daughter would prefer over American. It’s not OK, if she knows for sure that she would never go them as that just delays the decisions for other students who would love those schools (and yes, I think we should think about others).
As far as Richmond, they gave you a deadline which you didn’t meet. Hopefully they’ve moved on. I agree with the others that it was irresponsible for your daughter to not respond by the deadline and enabling her by prioritizing her happiness seems selfish to me.
And maybe others on CC are so invested because their kids are on the Richmond waiting list and it’s their top choice. It’s also information for other families that may be reading to be more considerate if they are in the same situation down the road.
Not withdrawing from waitlists, not contacting the college after extension is given and not caring about others even if you don’t know them personally is the very definition of selfishness.
Many college admissions staff do work on the weekends during busy times of year like now, so I would not assume that it did not matter to UR when they were notified, or not, of your daughter’s decision. I can only remind OP that what goes around, often comes around and next time it may be your kid on the receiving end, at grad school or jobs or whatever, but as you so stated, none of us need to care about her. I hope you both improve your perspective and coping skills in the future, good luck. Your daughter clearly needs it.
I think it is fine to stay on the other waitlists if she wants to. I see nothing selfish about that. But don’t blow through the decision deadline with no communication to the school.
I also don’t think that responding to Richmond before 5:00 on Friday is such a gigantic thing either. Their offer was good until that time. As of 5:01, Richmond knows it can withdraw the offer and give it to someone else. Maybe they did that. Maybe they decided to leave it until Monday (I don’t think the staff works all weekend at this time of year). Maybe they have it set up to automatically withdraw the offer/close her account at 5:01. The point is that in terms of withdrawing the offer, the ball is in their court as of 5:01, and they know that. They’re not stupid people and I don’t believe that some staffer is waiting to receive an email from DD before s/he leaves.
I agree that we should get back to them asap. But assuming that there’s no one in the office because people have sensibly decided to go home instead of waiting anxiously to see if my daughter will enroll, I don’t see any difference in sending an email at 5:00, 5:01, or Monday morning. I also can’t imagine that Richmond is going to deny admission to a future applicant from MA because DD didn’t email until Monday - if we’re talking about anxiety, IMHO that’s the very definition of it! And no b.s. about waiting not being ‘professional’. I’m an attorney and had a high-level government job before having kids, and I can guarantee that both people and organizations responded to things (somewhat) late ALL THE TIME. If another attorney tells me s/he’ll get back to me by the end of the week, I don’t actually expect a response until the end of the next week because emergencies always come up. Even with deadlines, if something comes in a few hours late (accounting for evenings and weekends), in general the other party doesn’t have a conniption because it’s just not that big of a thing. If I’m expecting something by Friday 5:00, I don’t hang around anxiously if it doesn’t come in by them - no one does. And Richmond has the option to make another offer at 5:01. If they don’t do that and wait until Monday, that’s their prerogative. So in reality I’m not taking away anything from another candidate as Richmond CAN make a 5:01 offer. If they decide to wait two days to do it, it’s not my responsibility or my fault.
Again, my job as a parent is to advocate for my child. If I’m enabling, we’ll realize that soon enough and will take action on the issue. But she hasn’t had major problems making decisions re school courses, internships, etc. before and as said, this is a very very large decision for her. I’d have preferred her to reject Richmond from the beginning (my first thought, and observation, was ‘why bother?’), but she wanted to consider it, so it being her decision, that’s what we allowed. It hasn’t worked well but I believe if she had to do it again she would still want the option to consider the decision despite what she went through. Again, it’s hypocritical to say ‘give her responsibility and let her fly or fall’ and at the same time say ‘you should force her to forego considering Richmond/drop waiting lists/sit her down and FORCE her to write an email RIGHT NOW’. She either has autonomy or she doesn’t. Just as I’m not going to FORCE her to graduate a semester early, I’m not going to FORCE her to withdraw from waiting lists or write an email before Monday.
Sorry if some here don’t like it, but I don’t think I’m being selfish or doing anything wrong. And I hear just as much anxiety that not following the advice here will hurt the chances of the advisor’s child of getting into their preferred school as I see in my daughter’s behavior. I’m under no obligation to do something that’s against my child’s best interests because of the possibility that if Richmond acts a certain way, someone else will get two days less notice, or that someone will remember this particular incident in a year or two and impute it to another student just because they’re from the same state. Can’t you see how ridiculous that is? If things happen it’s Richmond’s doing, not mine because the ball is in THEIR court…
Do not attempt to normalize your daughter’s reaction, or your own response thereto. Both are not normal, or healthy. And dont try this deadlines be damned approach with court filings or other important proceedings-we both know that’s legal malpractice.
None of this has anything to do with your experience as a government attorney. It is common courtesy to send a quick one or two line email to an admissions rep when declining an offer of admission. Done and done.
The fact that there is almost complete consensus here that it was bad form to not respond to Richmond by 5pm on Friday says a whole lot. Universal agreement is rare here in CC.
Obviously, you know your daughter better than any of us. But just like the decision itself, I get the impression that (perhaps subconsciously) you are putting subtle/covert pressure on your daughter by showing her your preferences disguised as an “option”. You may not mean it this way but I think this is the outcome. I think this is part of the original indecision about UR when it became an option, and that you will again be adding to her angst by doing this. Just my opinion.
Your four paragraphs of defending the choices and actions/inactions of you and your D completely missed the point of most of the posts: replying isn’t necessarily mandatory it’s courteous, especially towards a school that extended you a courtesy by giving your D extra time to decide.
I have young people in their 20’s who work on my team and it absolutely mystifies me that when we have a 5 pm Friday deadline, they believe that means Monday at 10 am. When they hear “you need to get back to me to close the loop” they tell me that since they DIDN’T get back to me, I would assume A B or C.
I am no longer mystified. They have parents who also believe that a Friday deadline means Monday, or that someone is going to assume that the absence of communication somehow means something.
No, I don’t have a conniption. But it is really unprofessional in a workplace to show a disregard for deadlines and not be able to close off a discussion with a definitive “yes or no” and leave your teammates hanging.
We recently offered a promotion to a junior member of the team, gave him a deadline of when he needed to decide. It was a perfectly reasonable deadline under the circumstances- nobody was asking him to accept on the spot.
He never got back to me-- not even a “can we talk further” email , so I offered the position to the next person on the list who accepted within an hour. Three days after the deadline, the person who had been our top choice emailed me to say “I’m ready to say yes!” I had the unpleasant task of telling him that the ship had sailed but that he’d be at the top of the list for the next promotion he was eligible for.
You can only imagine the histrionics-- “but it was only a couple of days after the deadline, how could you possibly have found someone to take the job so quickly, I wasn’t ready to say yes but now I am”. I explained that if he’d asked for an extension I’d have given him one- but I never heard back from him and we needed someone in the role quickly (which I’d told him originally) which meant this was not a “let’s cogitate” situation.
I’ve since heard that he’s furious, livid, claiming that I should have help the job open for him “Until he was ready”.
Nope, that’s not how life works. if he wanted an extension he’d have gotten one. But the company doesn’t sit around waiting for professionals who earn a good living to decide if they can be bothered sending their bosses boss an email.
Good luck to the OP’s daughter- I’m sure she’ll love AU, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. And good luck to everyone here who is still waiting on their kids waiting lists.
Exactly. My daughter emailed Tulane to withdraw her application on a Saturday morning and got a response from an AO within 15 minutes.
Edit: I checked the email - it was actually a Sunday, not a Saturday! They do work hard.
My job as a parent is to raise a responsible, thoughtful, adult who can manage her own affairs effectively and live a healthy, productive and happy life.
I’m also an attorney and I can’t imagine what practice area you work in where missed deadlines don’t matter. Seriously, in what area do you practice? Do your clients care that you miss deadlines? What about your professional liability insurance carrier?
This thread and the sense of entitlement that the OP displays (and is teaching her child) is absolutely infuriating. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
“If I’m enabling, we’ll realize that soon enough and will take action on the issue.”
I think it’s pretty obvious to most posters here that you are definitely contributing to this situation and trying to rationalize everything. If I had a child that was physically ill and extremely stressed about this decision, I would take action (i.e. remove her from all of the waitlists) and explain to her that she is going to a great college,AU, and start her getting in to the mindset and prepare her for DC in the fall. Sometimes parents need to do what is in the best interest of their child and make a stand. I also wouldn’t put undo pressure on her graduate early, why put so much stress on her to graduate early. There really should be no rush to join the workforce so quickly if you can afford the additional semester COA.
I really hope it all works out for your family.
I think your daughter will find that most college professors expect assignments are completed and turned in prior to a deadline. I am even more confident that a professor who grants a request for an extension will expect a timely completion of the task. I am however positive that ignoring the extended deadline and assuming the teacher will know that you are taking the zero by omission will negatively impact the professors permanent perception of the student.
Your job is not just to advocate for your student but to direct them away from behaviors that will bite them in the arse in the near term. Freshman year is tough, freshman year with no sense of what is expected as a result of parents rationalizing poor habits is a disaster in the making. You have clearly indicated that this is all about your kid (selfish but I get it), but how do you not see that you are setting your kid up to fail?
You say nothing is going to happen with waitlists over the weekend, or “realistically even next week.” How could you possibly know that? One of my kids got off a waitlist on June 4th and that was not even the last wave of waitlist offers that year.
If your daughter does get off another waitlist, I hope the process does not become a repeat of the one with Richmond.