<p>Teege Mettille, assistant direct of admission at Lawrence University, gave me permission to share his post, below, from the National Association for College Admission listserve. I found it both amusing and scary. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The whir of helicopter blades seems to be getting louder and louder </p>
<p>I just finished scheduling an interview with a student. The mother was the one that called, which Ive gotten used to. It sounded to me like she was forcing her son to have this interview despite his interest in doing a million other things. However, something strange happened at the end of the call. After I mentioned how excited I was to meet her student, she said </p>
<p>Wait he doesnt need to be here for this, does he?</p>
<p>Wow, I sorta am laughing but it is also kinda unbelievable! </p>
<p>I am an alum interviewer. I do call the homes to line up the interviews (which are not on the phone). Of course, a parent often answers (no problem). This year, a couple parents who answered went on and on about their kids on the initial call (almost an interview in itself). I had assumed the kids were not home and was just trying to leave in a message. In one case, toward the end of the call, when I asked to leave a message for the student to get back to me, the parent said, “oh, she’s right here.” I had assumed the parents was chatting away due to the kid not being home (despite my asking to talk to the kid as the first line out of my mouth). In another case (not the same issue though), I left a voice mail for a kid twice and emailed the kid once as well to offer the interview and received NO reply. </p>
<p>Anyway, can’t beat the story you quoted, Sally!</p>
<p>Soozievt–I suspected that your punch line was going to be that the kid was at home all along. LOL!! </p>
<p>And you and I have shared stories in the past about the parents of counseling advisees who are the only ones who respond to the mail sent to their kids. I actually worked with a family a couple years ago who gave me one email address for the mother and one for the son, which, of course, is the norm. But most of the mail that came back to me from the “son’s” address was clearly written by the mother. Their writing styles were so extremely different that it was easy to tell. Finally, by the end of our months together, I could see that Mom was getting tired of the college process because she would forget to use the “right” pronouns in the messages from the son’s account, often saying “he” when she should have changed it to “I” to stay in the child’s voice or “his” when she should have been saying “my.” </p>
<p>Whoa, I haven’t had a parent actually fake being the kid (yet). However, as you know, when I write a student advisee, I copy to the parents and in SOME (thankfully not all) cases, the parent replies only. I understand the temptation as they parent truly received an email, but the email is directed at their kid and they are copied to be aware of it and read along. I am not into a parent replying INSTEAD of the kid, even though of course I welcome all parents to communicate with me in ADDITION to the student. I have had a couple of cases where the student barely ever communicates and the parents discuss and update everything. I wonder what their kids are gonna do when they get to college? </p>
<p>And then there was the parent who when I sent feedback on the kid’s essay, would send the revision back to me during the school day when obviously the kid had not even seen it or certainly did not do it himself! :rolleyes: I felt like I was editing another adult’s work. It was so obvious the kid wasn’t even involved in the work, not just the communication.</p>
<p>I have to say, I hope in all those cases the student was denied. That would be unfortunate in the event the student really wanted to attend college X but it’s very similar to cheating.</p>
<p>Look at today’s paper and you will find that a parent forged her son’s signature (he’s a top national recruit) and faxed a Letter of Intent to play college football at Ole Miss. Turns out the kid sent one to Texas A&M. </p>
<p>Classic. My alumni interviewing group instructs us that we can do the interviews almost anywhere except the student’s home…because in their home, it’s impossible to get rid of the parents.</p>
<p>My D has applied to Brown. She received an email about an interview saying that: " We will be conducting interviews on this day, it is a first come first serve via email response." The email came out about 7 days in advance, D responded in a timely manner, but did not get an interview. There is a “possibility” of another interview with someone else after February 23rd. Seems kind of a late and rather iffy about it happening. She has sent an email to that person but has not heard back.</p>
<p>Do you have any suggestions? I was thinking that a letter to the admissions office might help… Let me know!</p>
<p>ronmolly: I do alumni interviews for Brown (and I respond to a lot of questions about interviews on the Brown forum). Your daughter should call the admissions office. We’re definitely swamped this year, and may not be able to arrange a face-to-face interview, but might be able to arrange a phone interview. Call soon – deadline for submitting write-ups is Feb. 15.</p>
<p>I don’t understand this “first come first serve” thing – this is a new one for me. And I also don’t understand the Feb 23 date, since that’s past deadline.</p>
<p>Although I think these are all over the line. We have run into the problem when D needs to contact a school but she leaves the house at 7am and is often not home until 7pm so…whats a kid to do?</p>
<p>The couple times she was against a deadline, she asked me to call or email for her and I spent a lot of effort making sure everyone I spoke with knew my D had asked me to call. I don’t know if it was that I wanted to make her look better, or that I didn’t want them to think that I was one of <em>those</em> parents!</p>
<p>I’m sure you’ve got some annoying parents with your clients, Hanna :-).</p>
<p>I don’t know what these people are thinking! When my kids did interviews, if I were needed for logistics (driving them, etc.), my goal was to be invisible. That meant hide out at a nearby coffee shop and they approached the location as if they were alone, and left it as if they were alone (and then rendezvous-ed with me elsewhere). I think it’s part of the growth process for them to talk with adults without mom in the middle.</p>
<p>My kids (who don’t drive) are often flummoxed when they are expected to schedule something (an interview, an audition) themselves. They really have to have a parent standing right next to them to verify that transportation will be available at the proposed date/time. I don’t know how else a kid who relies on parents for transportation can do this type of thing. (We do not have public transportation in my community.)</p>
<p>^^This is why HS students should learn to drive. They learn to develop a realistic schedule for travel, navigating, and traffic conditions. They learn to read a map (or a GPS system), prepare the car with enough gas, and focus on the task of driving. </p>
<p>When a town does not have public transportation it seems all the more reason to give the student this life skill. Once in college, it is harder to take the time for driving lessons, and knowing how to drive and when to take the wheel, could be life-saving on a student road trip with drinking drivers.</p>
<p>Well, in order to be able to schedule their own interviews they need not only to be able to drive but to have their own car. Otherwise they need to know when a Parent’s car is available, just as desk potato says. My son does drive and has his own car so can schedule independently but it does not seem a fair expectation.</p>
</p>
:rolleyes:</p>
</p>