<p>Feeling like the only one who didn’t have to walk to school in the snow…</p>
<p>^^ Haha… without boots!</p>
<p>I didn’t have a typewriter…used the ones in the library. Didn’t have a TV either. Luckily, the girls next door did. </p>
<p>Mom did go with me on move in day. Helped me carry stuff in and then headed home.
She never came back to my school again that I recall. I was on my own for future move-ins/outs.</p>
<p>My college didn’t have a real cafeteria…just snack bar type place. So my mom put $25/week in my bank account for me to buy all food and any other necessities. I ate so much Kraft macaroni and cheese (cooked on a hotplate in my room) that I never wanted to see it again. A nearby restaurant had “all you could eat” salad bar (a novelty to us then) every Thurs. for something like $2.50. We lived for Thursdays.</p>
<p>My parents took me to see the schools and that was about it. I did all the rest on my little typewriter! </p>
<p>My S applied this year, and I practically did everything for him except write his essays. What is up with teens these days?! Not my job, son!!!</p>
<p>Here’s the college story of an acquaintance. He was going to go to the “perfect” school on a track scholarship. It was all set until he tore his knee up spring of senior year. He spent the rest of senior year and most of the summer moping about what could have been. </p>
<p>One day his parents sat him down, showed him some college brochures. He didn’t even look. Mom and Dad discussed the various colleges. Mom pulled one from the stack and said, “This is where he’s going to college.” Parents arranged it and a few weeks later, off he went.</p>
<p>He swears his parents saved his life by making him go to that college.</p>
<p>Zip. I researched and did everything including filling out the application, FAFSA, and paying for the tuition.</p>
<p>I did everything, friend or older sister took me to look at colleges. But I knew my mom’s heart was there.</p>
<p>My parents took me to see several schools. Then I was on my own for the application process. As I remember it, my parents would have been available for further advice if I had asked but they trusted me to figure it out. They never read my essays, although I’m sure they would have been happy to do so if I had asked. I do remember asking my mom to write the check for the $10 (maybe it was $15) application fee for Williams.</p>
<p>My mom and dad took me to visit schools if I asked, and paid for almost (prob 2/3) all of it. I would worry about costs and they kept saying it was their job to pay, it was my job to do well. No advice about what to study (oh, I changed majors 4-5 times) apart from dad’s “What would you do even if no one paid you? What do you like that much?” I was very much a “pleaser” and I think they worried I would be too easily influenced by any input. I did all the applications, etc. myself and went to a small LAC. Paid for grad school myself. </p>
<p>We didn’t do a FAFSA bc my parents believed they had enough money to send us all to school, and it was wrong to take scholarship/loan money away from people who needed it to go at all. (Also did not take a national merit scholarship for the same reason) Both of them were private prep school scholarship students so I get their perspective. They also helped pay for both my cousins to go to college, and each of their 6 grandchildren have a matching fund (summer money they earn for school is doubled). They are fond of saying that they have saved carefully so they can invest in people, not in things.</p>
<p>With 2 kids in college and my father’s salary, my dad looked for every possible scholarship source. We qualified for Pell and SEOG grants. He found a scholarship for grandchildren of WWI vets that some schools offered and some other small ones. He took me on a trip to my 2 top choices both within an 8 hour drive from home. I know that it was a financial pain for the family but I can’t thank him enough for helping me out. </p>
<p>He came from a depression era itinerant farm family. His brother vouched for him and talked the admissions people at his college to accept my father despite mediocre grades. My dad’s brother previously was able to attend the same college on the GI Bill. He then paid for most of dad’s college costs.</p>
<p>I owe both of them the world.</p>
<p>My parents did not go to college. My mother’s father did not believe in college for women. My father was an orphan. They left the college thing pretty much up to me. I chose four schools. My hs adviser spent 10 minutes with me and told me that my choices were appropriate. My dad drove me to see two schools in Pennsylvania, we lived in New Jersey. I do have a recollection that my father some how knew the director of admissions at the school I wanted to go to and made a call. I was told that I was going to be accepted, but don’t know if my dad’s call had anything to do with it. </p>
<p>When it came to my son, I pretty much told him which schools to apply to given his interests. I also had him apply to two in-state schools (CWM and UVA) as well where I had pre-paid tuition. He was not an especially compliant child, but he left this pretty much up to me and followed my recommendations. I think he felt it was easier for him since he respected by research abilities. Of course he wound up going out of state to the most expensive school on the list, but it was the right school for him.</p>
<p>My parents had no input on what colleges I applied to or my applications. My mother did drop me off the first day. I had not visited before that. I knew nothing about FAFSAs or financial aid. My parents paid for it all even though they had four kids very close together. All spending money was on us. I do remember being hungry some Sundays when the cafeteria only served two meals. I did receive a small scholarship after my freshman year based on my grades. My dad let me keep the money.</p>
<p>Wow, so my parents were on the opposite end of the spectrum from most of the families reported here. At the time, however, I thought they were using a light touch.</p>
<p>First, there was never any question that I was going to college. I grew up knowing where each of my relatives had gone to college, and hearing lots of college stories, etc.</p>
<p>Second, my parents definitely had an idea which college I should go to. One way or another, I knew to tunes and lyrics to “Fair Harvard” and “With Crimson In Triumph Flashing” by the time I was ten. We visited there when I was 11 or 12, and took all four of my cousins currently in college there out to lunch. That was pretty memorable! I more or less worshiped all of them, although they could barely stand one another.</p>
<p>Sometime in the middle of 11th grade, I decided on my own to start researching colleges. I borrowed a big guide like Barrons from someone, spent various hours studying it and reading it, and came to a firm conclusion. I marched downstairs and informed my parents that I was going to go to the University of California - Santa Cruz. We discussed it a little, and they told me maybe I had better talk to my cousin Harry (the one I looked up to most, by then a third-year English Lit PhD student at Princeton). They set up a phone call for me with Harry. Harry told me that to be a serious academic institution you had to have a library that could support serious scholarship, and that in his opinion there were only seven or eight universities that had good enough libraries. Sadly, UCSC wasn’t one. (Harry’s list was Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, and maybe Penn. It certainly simplified my research.)</p>
<p>So I went back to the drawing board, and announced a few weeks later that I wanted to go to Stanford. My father said, “That’s nice,” and left the room. My mother said, “Your father thinks there is nothing you can get at Stanford that you can’t get at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, that we are willing to pay for.” (This was especially ironic because my mother had turned down Radcliffe to go to Mills College in Oakland. But she had paid for that herself, with a substantial scholarship. Her mother, president of the local Radcliffe Club, and grandfather would have paid for Radcliffe. Also, two years later they let my sister go to Stanford.)</p>
<p>My father took me on a trip that summer to see the three acceptable colleges, plus his own alma mater (Wesleyan), which I was happy to see but wasn’t on Harry’s list.</p>
<p>Having effectively limited me to three choices, they didn’t intervene further when I chose one of the wrong ones. Four years later, I made a similar “mistake” in choosing a law school, and they DID try to intervene, but it was too late. It hadn’t crossed their minds I could possibly make such a bad choice, so they had never bothered to let me know what a bad choice they thought it was.</p>
<p>They handled all of the financial stuff. After my freshman year I was expected to pay for everything other than the university’s tuition, room & board charges with money I earned myself.</p>
<p>'Having effectively limited me to three choices, they didn’t intervene further when I chose one of the wrong ones. Four years later, I made a similar “mistake” in choosing a law school, and they DID try to intervene, but it was too late."</p>
<p>-As I have mentioned before, D. has chosen UG from my list (after she announced in HS, that I have pushed her - gently, to the correct HS and she would be very unhappy at the one that she wanted originally for herself). After both experiences with HS and UG, and looking back at both as being perfect places for her, D. has asked me to compile her list of Med. School. That one was easiest of them all as she gave me her criteria in priority preferences. Well, she ended up at Med. School from my list that was her dream school during HS years. What could be more perfect than that. It is very early to evaluate this decision, but the first year is going well and D. is happy with her choice and never looked back.
Again, financial was very easy. She choose UG that gave her full tuition Merit awards and because of that we told her not to consider price tag of Med. School, but instead, choose the one that fits her the best.
Looking back, choosing HS was the hardest decision for my D. (and for me). It lasted many many months and I prevailed to the acknowledged benefits of my D. And again, price of HS at the end was equalized by Merit award at the one of my choice.<br>
Well, apparently, mom always knows the best. The earlier they learn this, the better for them.</p>
<p>Since the OP was asking about the experience of parents of current students, I’ll have to say that my parents did not encourage me to go to college at all (mid-'80s). I went to a college fair at my high school and filled out some request for information cards. I would get the catalogs in the mail and dream of some day going away to college. My mom would just hand me the mail and never discuss what was in it. </p>
<p>My course load in high school was more the “get out of high school to go to work” classes as opposed to the college prep classes, so I did not spend much time with the high school counselors, either.</p>
<p>When it came to the end of my senior year, I had a steady boyfriend and a brand new car with car payments - that I paid. That pretty much ended my “going away” to school dream. I went to the community college and paid my own way. It took me 7 years to get my associates degree while working full time - getting married in the middle of that. Once finished with that, I did decide to continue with my Bachelors degree in accounting at the University an hour away - commuted to school and worked part time. I paid the entire amount, except for one small scholarship awarded my senior year and came out debt free.</p>
<p>Now my S is in his sophomore year of high school. I’m having a blast looking through all his mail and offering suggestions! I can’t wait to take him on campus tours and to see what becomes of him. I plan to be involved every step of the way, but I also know the decision is his to make. Only he will know which college will be the best fit for him. A lot will depend on scholarships/financial aid.</p>
<p>My parents didn’t help at all. I’ve given my kids more help than I ever got!</p>
<p>My father was the first in his family to go to college while my mother came from a family of college bound woman. That I would not go to college was never even a consideration, My father told me up front that he would pay for private high school and private college but he would only act as the banker for grad school. It was expected that I would go to a liberal arts college as opposed to a state university. Other than that they provided whatever resources I needed without restrictions. Prior to senior year, we travelled the Mid-Atlantic and New England states on campus visits. After I received all of my acceptances and they consoled me on my rejections (I’m sorry, my SAT scores were better than Brooke Shields. What was Princeton thinking), they paid for a trip to see the acceptance schools before I made a decision. When I was working on my applications, they didn’t bug me, but kindly reminded me of deadlines. All in all, I could not have asked for more.</p>
<p>I think my mother really enjoyed looking at colleges with me - sort of vicariously since she hadn’t gotten to go to college - and while she was (appropriately) not involved in looking with / for my kids, she did very much enjoy hearing about all the places we visited, etc.</p>
<p>My grandparents wanted my mother to major in English and go into teaching but she majored in Art History and Studio Art. In those days, that was a pretty big protest.</p>
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<p>I’m trying to figure out whether JHS and I are related. My parents were still quite hands-off about college when I was 10, but by the time I was applying to colleges, I knew that my father and his roommate had translated some Harvard fight songs into French:</p>
<p>Dessus le stade en rouge flamboyant
Volent les drapeaux vieux.
Cris en cris comme tonnerre brilliant
Reverberent aux cieux…</p>
<p>Please forgive any errors. It’s been 25 years since I took foreign-language competency exams in graduate school, and longer than that since my last French class.</p>