My D’s school was happy to answer questions from parents both via email and phone. We are in the process with S now and by the time he gets done with school it’s after hours on the east coast. When I had specific questions that were best asked verbally the best solution was for me to call when he was at school and nobody has minded so far.
It’s funny that I pay the bill but under FERPA I can’t even see her grades etc. unless D gives permission.
The doctor’s office wouldn’t even give me Ds immunization records because she was 18 when I requested them for registration. My D had to call and request them and then give me permission to pick up the records.
I have called and spoken to FA office on some questions, but that’s about the extent of it. It’s OK though, kids need to do this now; they are adults after all
annwank, P always sent home my D’s grades without my asking. I know what you mean, though. they are aggravating, contradictory, and dysfunctional policies – both FERPA and HIPA. Example: I have always paid (by myself) all medical bills for both my daughters. Prior to age 18, their medical records were fully accessible to me. Gee, I should have had the foresight, apparently, to copy all of that madly before their 18th birthdays, because now that they’re over 18, I have zero privileges to access the very same pre-age-18 records, including for INFANCY, that I once had. Talk about legalism to the nth degree. Only in America.
^ Totally agree. My D has always freely shown us her grades and wants to do so, but I know some kids who don’t.
ann, to clarify, the college sent the grades home without being solicited to.
^Wow. My Ds college doesn’t do that!
I am a parent who has called on my kid’s behalf whenever I deemed necessary - housing, dean, professors, doctors. Rarely has anyone said they couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to me. I would say almost all calls were per my kids’ request, and it is often after they have tried themselves. I have found it interesting that I could often get more attention when I call, while my kids are often ignored by those adults (or taken as seriously). D1 is 4 years out of college and she is probably better at plowing through than me now. D2 is still work in progress.
So …here is what happened. I finally talked by phone with admissions person and it became clear early in the conversation that she thought my kid had been deferred. When I mentioned that no she was admitted EA her attitude totally changed. No longer did she mention how " your daughter can look on the website or call this person…" Instead she was suddenly like “this is the answer to X " and " let me get YOU in touch with so and so who will know the answer to y”. And " please call me again if you have ANY questions".
By the way, my daughter is not afraid to make these calls. It’s just a very busy time between finals and her activities responsibilities. She COULD eke out the time but her attitude is " now that they aren’t going to hold it against me can you call, I have too many calls with the yearbook publishing company trying to fix some last minute issues before we finalize publication" so I’m not worried about her ability to deal with things in the future. She is a very competent kid and deals with all sorts of issues with adults and her own schooling all the time.
Good job! We have the same thing here. My kid has not been afraid to call anyone about anything since he was old enough to make a call. He was pretty much born advocating for himself. That being said his school day yesterday ran from 6:30am (HS jazz band) to 9pm (CC dual enrollment class). He had a few short breaks to eat and whatnot but if he needed to call anyone on the east coast they would likely have left for the day by the time he was able to.
There’s also the issue of time differences between coasts, for example, and if a student has a Zero period class and a long commute to school as well, it makes it virtually impossible to do a morning call, and definitely impossible for an after-school call. And my D’s have always had classes during their lunch hours as well. Spring breaks and the summer after admission are different matters. Communication availabilities open up then.
However, I have never found it necessary to initiate contact with professors. Before hosting days, an eager professor contacted us at home to ask her to stop by and discuss a particular major during her visit. She was at school so I just passed on his office contact info to her, and she did meet him on campus during late April.
Further, in many cases the colleges themselves initiated contact with me. Any college which does that and later complains about parents continuing the relationship by sometimes initiating contact after the admissions office itself does, is being contradictory and hypocritical.
As I have written in the past, I think the policy by colleges to “cut” parents out of the conversation is wrong, and especially so when the student does not object. The policy should probably be that a student HAS to request the privacy and not the other way around. Seems strange that parents are expected to cut the umbilical cord in its entirety at 18 years, but that is just me.
Despite being in favor of having the schools responding to the parents’ queries, I remain unconvinced of the inability or unwillingness of high school seniors to make the necessary calls or emails. And this after reading the excuses of full days and time differences. In this example, the student has the time to call a yearbook publisher but not the school where she will spend the next four years. Simply stated, I am not buying that lack of time argument. Kids can and do make time for what they care about. Does not any simpler than that!
I have always applauded the parents who invest the time and efforts in helping the kids with the nebulous world of college applications, but that should not be at the expense of the kid maintaining the full responsibility of the process and its details, safe and except for financial matters and health issues.
“I remain unconvinced of the inability or unwillingness of high school seniors to make the necessary calls or emails. And this after reading the excuses of full days and time differences.”
And I remain convinced that you have no idea that time differences are not an “excuse” for a student (not “kid”) without a cell phone or access to a landline during the day and with an hour’s commute to school during the college administration’s open hours. She actually tried a few times by getting up at 4-ish but that was BEFORE the college offices had opened. (Whoops, guess you forgot about that little aspect of being judgmental.)
College offices extend their hours sometimes during the deadline periods and later (sometimes) during reply periods, but she didn’t happen to have any questions then, nor during her earlier spring break. (Only the later spring break, when she WAS able to make phone calls, after acceptances. She also asked remaining questions in person during hosting days.)
And I repeat that when colleges initiate phone calls to PARENTS, not to “kids” (students), then both you and those colleges are out of excuses for objecting to parents returning the gesture. It’s sheer hypocrisy.
The common concern back when I was applying to colleges in the mid-'90s was mainly in the pre-admission stage as the risk was if the parent made the call, it meant the adcoms are likely to perceive the applicant as overly dependent on parents and lacking initiative and self-management skills to do it him/herself.
Not good especially for elite college admisssions…unless one was a developmental/genuinely legacy* applicant back then.
After admissions, it doesn’t matter except in terms of the applicant learning how to handle bureaucratic runarounds, ornery people, and the like.
- One not only with alum parents, but those who donate generously to the alma mater....say several tens of thousands per year every year or a multimillion dollar gift, not two or three figured donations per year.
Everyone I know who is a Prof or has worked closely with one worked under policies which prohibited them from discussing specifics with anyone other than the student unless he/she signed a release allowing third parties…including parents to do so or the student concerned is under 18. If no signed release prior to conversation, the Prof would have no choice but to politely state he/she cannot discuss that with the parent unless the student concerned is 17 or under.
The latter part could have affected me when I started college as I was still under 18 then. Thankfully, I had the foresight to not let them know about it.
Ironic considering I had nothing to be ashamed of and actually could take some pride in the undergrad grades I achieved.
Just that after dealing with parents…especially my father with grades in HS, I didn’t feel like dealing with that during undergrad. And since they weren’t paying any of my college expenses thanks to the near-full ride and my working part-time/summers, they can’t use the “we’re paying” gambit on me. 
Under no circumstances would I have ever initiated contact with any professor at either school. (Well, only if it was something extreme like, heaven forbid, a missing person :eek: and the missing person was last seen in the prof’s office or something.) I’m not commenting on any parent who might have judged some legitimate reason for such contact – a reason I have not encountered myself; just saying that I don’t think necessarily that needing clarification about a financial aid matter, pertaining to parental income or expenses not accessible to the student, is not, to me, in the same category as a phone call to a professor. My children were on their own when it came to their academic work.
Profs and others cannot talk to the parents even if they are under 18. My daughter just finished her first semester 2 days before her 18th birthday, and I had to sign all her documents, NCAA documents for drug testing, submit her vaccinations, PAY. But I had no rights to her records, billing, access to professors, grades, etc. She signed whatever she needed to to give me access (yes, a 17 year old signed even though she probably has no standing to sign…) but that is only for billing. Which I still don’t seem to get; I have to break into her student account to pay.
As I said upthread, my daughter tried to get her hold released so she could register. At 8 am she walked across campus to the registrar’s office and no one could help her. Not their department. Hold had to be release by ??admissions?? ??Financial aid?? I called at 9 my time, 11 hers, and it was release immediately. She’d been to two classes by then.
Schools require parent involvement until they don’t want parents involved. That’s ridiculous. If parents weren’t involved, most of these students would be at their community colleges or not in college at all. Almost all my contact with the school before she started were about finances, but some involved documents. I left the housing up to my daughter, and it was all screwed up when we got there. It was only partially her fault (for not checking the room assignment and just believing it was changed), mostly the coach’s fault and housing’s fault, but she paid the price when she was assigned to the wrong room and they wouldn’t change it.
Oh, Epiphany, spare me that judgmental crap, will you? I addressed the example of the person who can call a publisher and not a school!
Further forgive me for having a pretty good idea about how teenagers and young adults communicate. If you want me to believe that making a phone call between 730 AM and 6PM is an impossible task, you’d have to have more compelling arguments. A student unable to take a break at school? A student unable to make an appointment at the GC office during school hours for the purpose of making a college call? I attended a school where discipline was no small matter and cell phones banned, but I sure had plenty of opportunity to make authorized calls.
And this does not even addresses the communication via email. We are talking about 2015, aren’t we? Please check the days when admissions come out and see how many students are spending their entire day “monitoring” the web. But heck, the kiddos have no time, and I have no idea.
I do not buy it, but feel free to disagree.
Actually, some schools won’t allow students to take breaks even for such purposes.
Never underestimate the capabilities of K-12 school admins to be unreasonable to illogical extremes…
“Oh, Epiphany, spare me that judgmental crap, will you? I addressed the example of the person who can call a publisher and not a school!”
No you didn’t. (But thanks for the potty mouth.) You addressed time differences (a factor I brought up) as an “excuse.” and I’m telling you that you are not omniscient, which might be a surprise, but heck, someone has to break the news.
Yeah right, Cobrat. Except that I went to HS in THIS century! Where there is a will. there is way. High schools are hardly glorified Saint Quentins.