How to deal with crazy parents

Parents Forum
21

<p>^^^^^Well, the majority answering here have said you need to go with what you wrote, the way you wrote it. How you accomplish that is up to you, I guess. </p>

<p>We had nothing to do with either D’s application process other than to pay the admission fees. Both girls are really self directed and had incredible GC’s and teachers with whom they could bounce around ideas. I only read the essays after the fact. I am very happy I didn’t feel the need to look over their shoulders at every step of the way because neither they nor I needed that kind of stress and it would not have been good for our relationship.</p>

<p>I sympathize with you.</p>

22

<p>“The problem is, my parents will be reading over everything before I submit.”</p>

<p>Go to the library, bring up your apps and submit from there. </p>

<p>I didn’t read my son’s essay or even look at any of his apps. It was much better that way. </p>

<p>Good thing too as he told me after he was accepted (at every school he applied to) that he wrote it in 15 minutes!</p>

23

<p>If you submit your mother’s essay as described you are sure to be attending Rutger’s next year. I vote for submission from the library - and as soon as possible so your mother doesn’t take matters into her own hands and submit for you.</p>

<p>Your parents mean well but there is no way that the essay of an over involved parent will sound like the inner thoughts of an intelligent 17 year old. Submit your apps ASAP and put the matter to rest.</p>

24

<p>I have helped lots and lots of kids with their essays. What you described sounds like how so many essays start. “I love to read and study…” blah, blah. After many drafts, the students “get it” and start writing an essay that is signifantly different from anything else they have written for school. They have to place themselves in a situation and “show, don’t tell” so that the reader can also understand what makes this student different and special, and someone they’d want at their college. </p>

<p>Of course you know that already, but your mom doesn’t. What you really need to do is educate her on what college applications sound like. What their purpose is. What you may need to do is grab a hold of some books like, “50 successful Harvard application essays” or “Best College Essays” or “How to write a college application”. It may seem like another stressful step in the process, but your mom means well.</p>

25

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<p>However, the helicopter tiger parents are likely paying for part of it, so it becomes a more complicated problem than just ignoring the possible consequences of going to “lowly” (to them) Rutgers.</p>

26

<p>I like limabeans idea of giving your mom a book like ‘50 successful harvard application essays’ so she can see what works. None of them include self-serving, laughably pretentious statements like ‘I love learning, reading and studying…’</p>

27

<p>…and i collect dolls :)</p>

28

<p>Submit it now!</p>

29

<p>Write one that will please your parents. Then submit an entirely different one. They wont be standing over your shoulder when you hit “send”, will they?</p>

30

<p>As others have suggested, submit it from a library computer. Or if you want to use your computer at home, get up in the middle of the night and submit it while your parents are fast asleep. </p>

<p>Both our kids submitted essays that were very far away from the “I love to read and study” tripe, and both got into colleges that they love (one a top 15). I think their essays were perhaps the strongest parts of their applications.</p>

<p>ETA: S2 went out on a limb with his essay by including a paragraph that even his guidance counselor (who was very good, I think) thought was too risky. I told S2 that it was his call, but that I loved that paragraph and hoped he would keep it in. He did, and got in to a wonderful college.</p>

31

<p>An essay has to be forceful (if it is the 'who are you and blah blah). It needs to be In-your-face. It needs to paint a picture about who you are, why you are doing this, etc. But not necessarily in a nice, mundane, Mary-Had-A-Little-Lamb way.</p>

<p>There needs to be a ‘shock’ factor…</p>

<p>DD1’s essay was about growing up multicultural. But not in a ‘We celebrate Christmas and such-and-such and serve Hot Dogs and fried animals I can’t pronounce on July 4th’. It was about growing up with a pair of first generation immigrant parents so culturally disjoint that it pretty much looked like a social studies experiment…</p>

<p>Admittedly, DD1 took a ‘risk’ by trying this approach; but it made for a very memorable essay, and at the end, it worked…</p>

32

<p>One approach is tell your parents that while their ideas are rational, adcoms are a bit cuckoo and respond better to the kind of essay you’ve written and negotiate to use it with the colleges you fancy and incorporate their ideas in some of the other essays. </p>

<p>I remember DD1’s essay that she submitted to Vassar that DW & I thought had an atrocious theme; neither of us liked that college either, and when DD got rejected, we shed no tears.</p>

33

<p>Update: I told my mom again that I’m not going to ruin my essay by following her advice, and she said “Fine. You can do whatever you want and end up at Rutgers if that’s what you want.” At least that’s settled. </p>

<p>But over the past few days, I’ve finally began to see the true dark side of my parents. They won’t let me do any part of the app without forcing me to let them “help” me. In other words, they’re babysitting me the entire time. The sad thing is, their “help” only hinders my progress and makes me far more stressful. For example, when I’m making my time useful by writing my essays, my dad forces me to make a whole chart with my colleges, transcripts sent, SAT scores sent, essays written, and a whole lot of BS information. I try to tell them that I can handle the process fine, but they yell at me and tell me that I NEED their help when I could be much more efficient without it. Now that I think of it, my parents are probably trying to act like they’re helping me so that if I get accepted to one of my top choices, it’ll seem like they contributed a lot to my acceptance when they really didn’t. On the other hand, if I end up going to Rutgers, they’ll probably roast me on how I would’ve gotten into better schools if I had followed their “advice” more. </p>

<p>Plus, at a Christmas party yesterday, my parents found out that one of my friends was accepted to a top 20 school EA. This morning, they started asking me why I couldn’t be as good as my friends who got accepted and why I didn’t apply anywhere early. They also brought up a few Asians who went to Ivies and they lamented about why I can’t be as smart and hardworking as them. </p>

<p>Overall, I’m really starting to be alienated from my parents and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get rid of these negative feelings both in the short and long run. I know that in the big picture they’re doing all this because they care about me, but I’m starting to get the feeling that there are some ulterior motives behind their actions, like to use me as a scapegoat for anger from their own lives and to punish me for not being the perfect little Asian Angel kid who gets accepted into every top 10 school. </p>

<p>/rant, just needed to release some emotions after having a particularly difficult episode with them.</p>

34

<p>Smugness, you are have the perfect storm of controlling parents who also are obsessed with prestige and rank. I feel for you. And for them too - they see their child on the cusp of adulthood, about to slip out of their control, and it’s driving them insane.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, when you are off at college, will it really matter if they are back home telling themselves and their friends it was all down to them? No it won’t, not that anyone would believe that anyway. </p>

<p>I’m a parent. My child has listened to my suggestions during this process then calmly but firmly said either good idea, or hell no Mom. Just stay as centered as you can, remind them that the application is supposed to be made by the student, and that is how it has to be. Don’t waste time making fake essays and all that. You are growing up and they know it.</p>

35

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<p>Not necessarily depending on the cultural context. </p>

<p>A lot of my high school classmates, especially those from Asian, Jewish, or Eastern European backgrounds are still feeling the effects of their parents’ taking credit for their undergrad successes or conversely, parents’ being shamed by extended family members/community for having their kids “only” going to a lower-tiered college because they didn’t make the grade academically and/or for financial reasons…even after a decade out from undergrad.* </p>

<p>What’s worse is that even going on to grad/professional schools at top 10 or better programs doesn’t ease that pain…especially since it has been impossible to conceal the fact their adult children and/or their employers were defraying those educational costs. In fact…it sometimes results in the worst form of “negative comparison to others” by extended family members when the parents are damned for “not providing crucial financial/academic support” in the formative years so that their kids ended up “succeeding despite them”.</p>

<ul>
<li>This is one reason why most of those classmates make it a point to limit contact with their parents…sometimes to the point of cutting off all contact with them.</li>
</ul>

36

<p>OP, I don’t think you’ll have a good day by overanalyzing their possible ulterior motives (post #33). Better to vent here than with them, however! </p>

<p>I liked your essay approach because you knew (instinctively?) what good writers are taught in courses: “Show, don’t tell.” There was no need for you to type out “I like to study and read” as your mother wished. For the same reason, comedians don’t introduce jokes by saying, “This next one is really funny…” </p>

<p>It bothers me when parents feel that Adcoms don’t know what they’re doing. Truth is, many have written about how a parent-meddled essay jumps right into their face because, as you said, the flow and main points get interrupted. Their eyes get blurry from reading so many essays, but it does create a recognition for the kinds of things an adolescent “would” say, as compared to an adult about the adolescent. </p>

<p>That aside, YOU have to feel that it is your essay being submitted! My guess is that your integrity and honesty, shown in this exchange, also permeates your life as a student. </p>

<p>So I hope you’ll remain confident about your essay and the rightness of not changing it as Mom suggested/insisted. If so, you can also afford today to be mature enough not to fight at home. That’s where the mature lines come in that others suggest, “I’m considering it” and the “smile and nod.” </p>

<p>I think sometimes it must be frustrating for parents who do not fully trust the college systems or their children to find each other. If only they could will the outcome to happen just as they deem it should! Instead, the system is looser and unpredictable enough for some parents to believe they should/must/can close that gap by imposing their experienced outlook on the student’s personal essay. </p>

<p>FInally, whenever there were power struggles in our home, we’d make a solid effort to put down the tug-of-war rope. It’s not you vs. parents. It’s you and parents vs. an uncertain outcome. You are both stressed about the same thing, although frankly you have a more solid handle than they do about how to address these uncertainties. </p>

<p>You know your parents. I wonder if you might be able to relax them a bit. “We know it’s a hard system, which is why I got so much advice and also considered yours. I opened myself up to all the professional advisors at school and listened well to all. Now the apps are turned in (from the library…) and the die is cast. So we just have to wait it out together until Spring. I believe I’ll have good choices then; can we all hope for that rather than fight over the methods?”</p>

<p>If Mom mutters or tantrums after that, well, maybe she just needs to say that stuff. Draw a big circle around that in your mind and think, “Oh there goes Mom again, being Mom.”</p>

37

<p>Actually, your father’s chart sounds like a good idea. Why don’t you get him involved by asking for his help in preparing it? If he would be willing to spend some time putting the data together, it might give him a sense of control (that he appears to need) over the process and could free you up to do those last minute edits on your essays.</p>

38

<p>Is there a group for parents from your ethnicity?</p>

<p>My offspring’s old high school has a Korean Parents Association. It does a lot of workshops for parents about college admission. It explains that in the US a lot of colleges care about ECs. It explains about college application essays, etc. It also explains that in the US, your life is not over if you end up at SUNY Bing or Geneseo. </p>

<p>The GC asked the association to intervene when Korean parents were beating their daughter after she got rejected from Princeton. (They were convinced she must have done something “bad” they didn’t know about. They didn’t think there was any other explanation why Princeton would reject someone with her grades, scores, and ECs. The association also convinced them that it made sense to accept the offer from Amherst, even though it would cost more than the local CC. They’d never heard of Amherst. Therefore, it must be a horrible college.)</p>

<p>As an alum interviewer, I interviewed a Korean American kid whose immigrant parents had hired a Korean-speaking college adviser. She had suggested a number of colleges that his parents had never heard of—to the CC community, they’d be well known. He told me that it had been helpful because she had told his parents that many of the things they wanted him to do would be counter-productive.</p>

<p>My D had a friend who was Chinese-American. Her dad was a famous dissident in China. He got his Ph.D. in the US. He’d get called in to deal with some of the Chinese parents. When he told them the same things their kids were telling them, they listened. </p>

<p>It’s late in the game, but see if you can find someone of your parents ethnicity who understands admissions. I googled Korean Parents Association + New Jersey and got some hints, one was a KPA at a magnet school. It might be worth it to send an email explaining what your mom wants in the essay and other issues. Ask if someone would be willing to talk to your mom and explain that what you are saying about essays is true. </p>

<p>Don’t criticize your parents in the email. Just explain that you’d like some help getting them to understand how the system works in the US.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

39

<p>OP: the most practical ? now is do you have your parents’ credit card info. You will need that to submit your apps within the next few days. If they are withholding paying app fees if you will not listen to their essay suggestions, then you can try asking other adult relatives if they will cover your app fees.</p>

40

<p>The advice from limabeans and MMom’s is spot-on! Find a book like “100 Essays that Worked,” and have your mother read it, along with the commentary on the essays. You are right. The college application essay in the US is just culturally different from your mother’s expectations. Adding the statements about how you love to learn and study would almost certainly reduce the effectiveness of your essay, and not enhance it. jonri also made an excellent suggestion.</p>