<p>Am I having a flashback or was there not an almost identical thread about this same situation a few months ago?</p>
<p>*** found it:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1175705-lost-my-dad-over-hpys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1175705-lost-my-dad-over-hpys.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t have advice but can use some! We are in the same but different boat (in Canada) and I just want to say I feel your pain. </p>
<p>The grandfather in this case (located in the NE of the US), is obsessed with a few schools that he deems worthy. To humor him, D applied to those schools. But her first choice (and where she just got accepted early!) is highly regarded here in Canada, it is fantastic for her major and a perfect fit for her! She knew how her grandfather would respond when she told him, so she would not. Sad sad sad. </p>
<p>I did end up writing an email about her acceptance, and using the opportunity to tell him all the ways by which this school is fantastic and backing it up with data and facts. But when they called, H was interrogated for 30 minutes on this school and how can it be so great.</p>
<p>So so so tiresome. They aren’t footing a penny of the bill. Moreover, both H and I are professors, and H was trained in the field D wants to go in. You’d THINK FIL would at least have a little respect for our and D’s opinion to know what is best for her. Grr.</p>
<p>I just so wanted him to not to give her a hard time, and to be able to celebrate with her and mostly for her to feel she’s making him proud. Especially as she got into one of the most selective schools in the country, and into engineering, and with a scholarship. Instead, she has to deal with this nonsense. </p>
<p>This too shall pass I keep telling myself.</p>
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<p>OP, this really is the only way. You have to end the conversation. If you try to reason with them, you only give them permission to keep talking about it. </p>
<p>I liked my SIL’s approach when my parents started pestering my then-freshman nephew. The first time it came up, she simply said, “We’re not talking about college until senior year.” She wasn’t snarky or mean, but it was very clear that she meant it. It worked too.</p>
<p>I think all the “advice” to try to convince grandparents of x, y and z is well intended but wrong. Doing so merely reinforces to grandparents that their opinion matters and that they need to be aligned in the decision making. Thumper is right. You just repeat some version of “thank you, but we are satisfied with the decisions we are making.” It takes two to argue.</p>
<p>Nice post, fieldsports. H and I along with sister and BIL are in full sandwich generation mode now. My parents are doing well and in great health but, sister and I and Hs are both dealing with “wacky” in-laws with emerging serious health issues. It’s tough to change modes from taking offense to “water off a duck’s back” with comments that are less diplomatic than one would hope. We have tried to be on kids’ team and prep them ahead of visits to just let some things go. FIL passed away “on short notice” just before Christmas and I’m glad that we went to some effort to maintain a relationship. There were some comments made at the memorial and in all our visits back and forth to get arrangement made for MIL, but H and I reinforced to kids that we are a team and let others say what they want. We would be as gracious as we knew how in the moment. As pizzagirl said, it takes two to fight.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/grandparents-as-college-admission-guides/2011/10/16/gIQA3MbhsL_blog.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/grandparents-as-college-admission-guides/2011/10/16/gIQA3MbhsL_blog.html</a></p>
<p>My kids have one grandparent who has given lots of advice and done so with “an all knowing”, unrelenting attitude. My kids really did laugh it off, as I warned them and I explained our opinions to them. This grandparent feels very very strongly that the college one attends should be in a city and not in a rural or even a suburban area. We received recommendations that our kids should attend schools that we could never afford, but there wasn’t any financial offer to help with college costs. In fact not 5 cents was contributed by any of our kid’s grandparents for college.</p>
<p>Heh… original poster here for the “Lost It With My Dad” thread. I am sympathetic with this poster! My mom was quizzing me about some college visits we did over spring break, and I mentioned to my mom a good college we visited a couple of weeks ago that D2 liked where I had two cousins graduate 40 years ago… she said, “Oh, maybe your cousins can pull some strings to get her in there!”. Um… guessing not.</p>
<p>Have definitely NOT mentioned to them that D2 had a wonderful visit to Macalester on Friday, and I could see her attending there and being very happy.</p>
<p>Our nephew is in final decision mode, having finally heard from all his Us. He’s surprised & disappointed he didn’t get in to all the Us he applied to, as he has great GPA. (He & his folks were expecially shocked he didn’t get in to the U our kids attended & I said no one can understand the quirks of admissions.) Fortunately, he got in early to two great Us with significant merit aid. He’s probably going to his dad’s alma mater and pay less for college than they are paying for his private HS! It also pretty much guarantees admission into med school there if he does decently (which is his goal).</p>
<p>He’s still not 100% decided, but pretty close. The family toured most of the Us over spring break a few weeks ago. It has given his young brother (sophomore) a wake-up call that he’d better work harder so he can have good options to choose among as well.</p>
<p>Fortunately, he has been spared anyone criticizing the Us he applied to or his choices or options. </p>
<p>Since our kids both went to well-known private, we didn’t have people asking, “What U is that?” I’m sure that is painful. It really isn’t worth or productive to argue with people who “know everything,” but it is important to help shelter the kid(s) involved to the extent possible.</p>
<p>All of this brings flashbacks of how we were pretty much told we were awful parents for not putting our S into a elite private kindergarten & continuing him there until he graduated HS! One of them (BIL) even offered to help fund his education (but never put up a penny & his wife–my sister never would have agreed to it either). We are glad we had our kids go to public school until 8th grade & think they learned a lot from being with the other kids. It was a very touchy subject for many, many years.</p>
<p>I’m chortling at the suggestion in the Washington Post blog that grandparents be the ones to accompany kids on college visits. Let’s see, I’m 60, eldest child is 26 and not even engaged yet. Even if he hustles, his firstborn won’t be college shopping for at least 17 years. I don’t know what’s more unlikely, that I would want to spend any part of my late seventies shlepping to colleges, or that my hypothetical grandkid would want to drag me along at that age. I think I’ll just confine myself to the traditional route of offering unwelcome advice and making impractical suggestions!</p>
<p>Well, H is considerably older than you, MommaJ & neither of our kids are even dating (much less engaged). There are absolutely no grandkids in our horizon, so unlikely that we will be interested in going on college tours in another 20+ years. Will mostly try to be supportive of our kids in their angst trying to get their kids to remain focused and pick a college that will work for the kids at issue. Hope to still be around and taking an interest, but who knows what the future will bring. Am hoping to be around to see our kids in happy relationships and perhaps starting their families at some point while we’re still engaged enough to spoil some grandkids. :)</p>
<p>Ditto-- what mommaJ said. That said- I’ll be an old fogey but I love touring college campuses. We’ll see in 17-18 years.</p>
<p>I love college campuses too, but I really don’t want to be part of the stress of schlepping around to college visits again. I do hope when the time comes, I’ll be mobile enough to visit my grandkids once they’re settled into whatever college they choose. But, I hope I’ll also remember the experience of being on the receiving end of grandparental “unwelcome advice and impractical suggestions,” and just zip my lip until they’ve made their final decisions.</p>
<p>Thank God I stopped talking to my MIL years ago and she alienated our kids on her own! Lol! My parents have been listening to me rant on and worry over this admission process for the last six months. They thankfully trust me to help the kids make good choices without butting in. If my MIL said one word to either of my girls about what college they should apply to or attend, I’d be on the phone and rip her a new one licikity split. I’d say your parents are VERY lucky that you have any sort of relationship with them and that you allow contact with your children!! You are much more forgiving than I could or would be! Good luck!</p>
<p>We were very fortunate that all our relatives are mostly supportive and just encouraging the kids to choose well among their good options without making judgments. They mostly recognize the process is confusing and stressful enough without us adding MORE confusion into the mix!</p>
<p>I am amazed at these stories. So sad! My own grandfather refused to help us financially when Pell grants were cut in the 80’s and I took a semester off to work. I left school heavily in debt. I remember at one point my parents had a few hundred dollars in savings when I finally left school.
My grandfather sneered at my attending a US university and earning a phD in a useless field (economics). Perhaps in reaction to this, my parents have been polar opposites of my grandparents. </p>
<p>My father would love, love to have any grandchild go to his alma mater and has significant pull (famous UK U) but recognizes that it may not be the place for any of them. After I left college, his financial situation improved a great deal. He saved with 529 for all 3 grandkids and it is enough for them to go where they want and graduate debt free. Despite contributing financially to their education, the grandparents have so far been completely supportive. During S’s college search, not ONCE did grandpa opine on our S’s choice of school or, horrors, his intended major–art–despite being a very accomplished scientist. Visiting Duke last month with D we kept running into folks who congratulated the poor kid on having such a famous relative and assumed she would do science too. She is thinking anthropology! Grandparents took a vicarious interest in her college trip and reminded me how I refused to get out of the car at UNC since I had already lost my heart to Duke. They would never want to repeat the trip with another emotional teenager…Jay Matthews is nuts! but they definitely enjoyed talking to her about how difficult her mother was on her college trip…</p>
<p>I hope to have the financial strength to help out my future grandkids in the same way and definitely will be the biggest cheerleader for them finding the right path to reach their goals. The good side of a bad experience is teaching us how to do things better for the next generation.</p>
<p>I wish my son had any grandparents at the time he applied to college and then grad school. I know when he was in elementary school, my mom told him if he got into MIT or such (the worm was already a stem kid, not IVY focused), she wouLd help pay. I think the grandparents would have been proud of all his efforts and successes, and commiserated when he hit bumps.</p>
<p>I am grateful that my folks are alive to be with and supportive of us & the kids as well. My in-laws were mostly quite supportive of our kids. My MIL & FIL had particularly ungrateful relatives related to FIL, so they did everything they could do be as supportive and non-judgmental as possible. SIL was very attached to our S. He chose a U he was happy with and she accepted his judgment and was proud that he got significant merit aid. She was pleasantly surprised when D joined him as a transfer to that U as well.</p>
<p>We would like to be able to help pass on some funding for our kids/grandkids, to help them with housing and ed expenses that are likely to only get higher and higher all the time. We are very glad we were able to fund our kids’ UG educations. ;)</p>
<p>I posted back in Feb. about the pressure my son was getting from grandparents. S ended up being rejected by MIL’s Famous Private School with Big Football Program (FPSBFP). This saves us the cost ($220K) for a bachelor’s degree. S has happily chosen the smaller, not-famous school with which he became enamored last fall during our 2 visits. MIL is very upset that S didn’t get in to FPSBFP, and it bothers her that “no one” has ever heard of the school he has chosen. Meanwhile, my own parents seem to understand, sort of, that S’s choice has the degree program that is perfect for him. But they, too, are unhappy that “no one” has ever heard of it, particularly in their seniors-only gated community where “everyone’s” grandkids are going to Cal or Stanford. Our S did not apply to Cal or Stanford. Probably wouldn’t have gotten in, but also, once he started seriously thinking about degrees rather than D-1 sports, just wasn’t interested.</p>
<p>Great–glad your S is going to a school he loves, that has a degree program perfect for him. Wishing him & your family the best in this exciting journey!</p>