just getting started....

Parent Cafe
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<p>Hi All! This is my first post on CC though I’ve lurked for months. First of all, thank you for the great information, both objective and personal, that you all so share so generously. I have learned so much! I hope I’ll be able to contribute as our family embarks on this journey over the next couple of years. </p>

<p>DD is a sophomore, one of those BWRKs you all discuss around CC. She’s at a small, strong private school, with an A- average. Her academic interests lean to the humanities, especially English literature (loves Shakespeare) and French. Fabulous teachers in the last two years have turned her on to history as well. She’s also a very strong writer. She claims not to be interested in science or math; has to work harder at them but does just fine nonetheless. </p>

<p>Her big EC is music; she’s an accomplished classical violinist and plays in a competitive regional youth orchestra, but also has extremely diverse musical tastes. (Subscribes to Rolling Stone and Strings, attends rock concerts and grand opera, musical idols are Maxim Vengerov and Jimi Hendrix.) Go figure…. </p>

<p>She’s just beginning to receive the college mail avalanche after taking PSAT and ACT last fall. It’s fascinating for me (as a non-profit marketing/development type who’s written more direct mail and “pitch” letters than I can remember) to observe her responses to the mail: </p>

<p>“I like the color of this envelope (bright orange), let’s take a closer look.”</p>

<p>“Where’s XXX?” (I explain it’s a great LAC worth looking at) She opens the envelope and the letter emphasizes pre-law, business, pre-med. That one gets tossed. </p>

<p>“I like this. Gets to the point and isn’t boring.” (the letter begins by acknowledging how much mail student is probably receiving, explains in about 100 words, in bullet format, some highlights of the U. Lots of white space.) She wants to explore that one.</p>

<p>One letter that began by saying what a financial bargain the school was tossed instantly. “Shouldn’t they tell me first what the school has to offer before telling me it’s cheap?”</p>

<p>Another LAC that emphasized its proximity to skiing and other active sports prompted a wave of giggles (a jock she’s not).</p>

<p>I expect the next two years will be very interesting… She told me last night -- as she opened the mail over the kitchen wastebasket while I peeled potatoes -- that I have been appointed to be her college search “manager”. I THINK I’m supposed to feel pleased about that….</p>

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<p>Omom - building a picture of your daughter from that post makes me say you have some wild times coming! Welcome</p>

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<p>Welcome, my son is a sophomore gearing up for the hunt as well so we should get to know each other well over the next two years. He's also been deluged with mail, especially emails which he finds pretty annoying. By the way, I'm convinced that part of the reason my daughter decided on the college she'll be attending next year is because most of their mailings to her over the past year have included...Stickers! She has just loved that. :)</p>

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<p>Welcome aboard Omom. Next several years should be fun. Now, regarding "the One letter that began by saying what a financial bargain the school was tossed instantly" -- You're gonna want to start digging those out of the trash when she's not looking. Those letters may not "sing" to the student, but they're a full symphony to me by now. :)</p>

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<p>We've also been inundated with college mail in the last week. It was exciting for the first couple of days, but now it's almost too much.</p>

<p>Thank goodness my daughter was off by one digit when she wrote down my e-mail address. </p>

<p>Looking on the bright side, she did come up with one new, exciting possibility from the mailings...</p>

<p>Should we start a sophomore thread??</p>

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<p>Should we start a sophomore thread??>></p>

<p>Sure! I'll start one in a sec.</p>

<p>My son accidentally filled in the wrong bubble for the last letter of his first name. He tried to erase it but he said it looked like a mess by the time he was done, so his name is a very unusual spelling on all of the mail we're receiving from the PSAT database. It is interesting because some of the mail obviously is being generated from other sources as his name is correct on a few of the pieces he's getting. Kind of fun to try to figure things out...</p>

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<p>Thanks all for the warm welcome! Off to Carolyn's new thread to catch more of her words of wisdom.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
She told me last night -- as she opened the mail over the kitchen wastebasket while I peeled potatoes -- that I have been appointed to be her college search “manager”. I THINK I’m supposed to feel pleased about that….

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes. You should feel very pleased about that! Navigating the admissions waters can be quite enjoyable if parents and student make it a (somewhat) cooperative venture. The parents role, IMO, is to engineer exploration of broad categories -- large publics, mid-size universities, small liberal arts colleges or urban, suburban, rural -- playing devils advocate as necessary. Ideally, the student will start expressing enough preferences to begin whittling the vast field down, which it sounds like your daughter is already doing. That's a good thing.</p>

<p>I think it also useful to share the pluses and minuses of the parents college experiences. "College" is not real to high school students. It can't be. But, the more you can make it real, the better the decisions and the easier the transition. </p>

<p>Advance warning: there will come a point where college is frightening because it represents the coming end of the entire world as the student knows it. This will likely not be verbalized, but will probably show up as a period of digging in the heels on application process. Parents can help by being consistently positive about the impeding college experience and encouraging that the student is so ready for it.</p>

<p>And, finally, the parents have an obligation to steer the college search towards the attainable from an admissions standpoint (especially early in the process). Nothing is worse, IMO, than allowing (or encouraging) a student to fixate only on reach schools. I think it's really important to make sure the college application process has a "win-win" outcome and parents play a big role in that by being positive about a wide range of colleges. Nothing hurts me more here than seeing a kid get hammered by rejection after rejection -- a sure sign of flawed strategy. It doesn't have to be like that.</p>

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<p>Orchestramom - welcome to the wonderful world of being a parent research assistant! My daughter did a similar job of finding schools which interested her when she was a sophomore (heaven only knows what the criteria was). I took that list, researched it, mentioned other possibilities, but I never took off one of her original choices - that was left entirely to her, even though I knew some would not be a good match. Now that she has applied to 9 colleges, only one was on her original list!</p>

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<p>interested dad,
thanks for the reassurance. I have been incredibly lucky I think (knocks wood) that D and I have a close and easy relationship and have (so far) navigated boudaries pretty well (she's 16, it's a miracle!) Perhaps because I am a planner and organizer by nature and she, like my H, is creative and a little spacey, it's been easy for us to slip into roles that suit our natures and the need at hand. I absolutely agree with you about parental obligations; I'm also lucky to have a kid who seems to be totally unfazed by the "prestige" game. (and her older sister is currently doing a very specialized PhD at a top Ivy.)</p>

<p>fireflyscout,
thanks for the welcome. Maybe because in my role as music mom I understand the supporting nature of things like reminders, calendars, apps for auditions, etc, we've slipped pretty easily into using this model,which has worked for 10 years, for the college search process. fingers crossed! but she has always set her own agenda and made her own choices, just relied on me to help keep her on track, and (yes, interesteddad) -- act as devils advocate as needed.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Advance warning: there will come a point where college is frightening because it represents the coming end of the entire world as the student knows it. This will likely not be verbalized, but will probably show up as a period of digging in the heels on application process. Parents can help by being consistently positive about the impeding college experience and encouraging that the student is so ready for it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is so true. D is a junior, so please pardon me if I'm butting in here. But I sat down with D and explained that she has lots of options other than going away to college. She can attend a local university (even though I hope she doesn't choose to do that), she can take a gap year, etc. I think that just having those options articulated for her really helped calm her anxiety.</p>

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<p>OMom
If you think your child might have any interest in persuing music as a major in college,theres an excellent music majors section now available on CC</p>

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<p>thanks cathymee, I've lurked in those threads for ages -- even before they created a separate music section. What a wealth of information!</p>