ISO Article for Grandparents

@pantha33m that’s a hilarious and very true blog post.

I will say that as a parent, it took me a year or so to come to terms with the fact that my kids almost certainly were not going to go to a top 10 school like my husband and I did. When you have been thinking all your life that any student who is academically high-achieving and intellectually curious is just naturally going to go to one of these schools, it’s hard to adjust that attitude.

On the assumption that your inlaws are not actually prestige hounds but are simply clueless about how much admissions have changed over the past 10-15 years, I’d suggest that you explain it to them. I don’t think you need to ignore them or write them off until they’ve shown that they are not going to let go of their preconceived notions. (For one thing, if they have other grandchildren who will soon be applying to colleges, they will have to figure it out sooner or later, so you’ll be doing everyone in your family a favor.)

We’ve had many opinions from both set of grandparents - from “don’t apply there - it’s a party school” to “don’t take a third year of Spanish because you’ll fail, and you really only need 2 years” (that was a nice one) to “you should go to community college for 2 years because you’ll just be taking basic courses anyway, and it will save you money” (except number 1, that’s not true, and number 2, we’re not concerned about cost).

We keep trying to explain the facts to them, but they don’t want to hear it because they’re convinced they know more than we do, even though we just went through this for our older S. After a while, you just have to ignore them. They have no idea what they’re talking about because the college world has changed so much since they were in it.

We’ve had some conversations since my original post and I do believe they are starting to get it. I’m afraid that what it took was complete honesty about how their perfect grandchild might not, in the eyes of college admissions officers, be so perfect. I hated rubbing their nose in it but it seemed to do the trick. It wasn’t fun, but I think they do now have a better understanding of the reality of the situation (which isn’t that bad, just not the perfection they assumed).

@HImom Thanks for asking this question! I was baffled too. Perfect example of the tyrrany of acronyms. In the military, ISO is In Support Of

@pantha33m Great! I know that was a difficult conversation but so much has changed since theirs kids went to college (us!) and especially when they did. And then there is the sticker shock conversation!