Do you guys think that the parent response carries any importance in the application process for schools like Andover, Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Groton or Middlesex?
The purpose of the parent statements is to enable the schools to verify that the parents are on board with the decision to attend BS and that they have reasonable expectations of the school, that they are not going to helicopter, that they aren’t crazy, and to skip on those who will be a pain come college counseling time. Pretty much anything they write that avoids those negative boxes is going to be just fine. No worries.
Does the parent statement carry much weight? No, IMO, little to none.
Is it important? Yes.
For many schools, the entire family is being admitted, in a way, not just the kid. So the parent’s perspective allows the school to gain a better insight on the applicant, while ensuring no/few red flags. e.g. ensuring the whole family is aligned on the reasons for the boarding school, or that the parent/child has no unrealistic expectations of the BS experience. I’d like to say that it weeds out helicopter parents, but IME, it does not. >:)
On the other hand, it is the kid applying, not the parent. So nobody is expecting a Pulitzer Prize winning essay from the parent(s).
Thanks @skieurope ! I’ve been convinced my awful parent essays were the reason for so many WLs last year! I’ll try to quit being so hard on myself, because the one thing I am not is a helicopter! Drone…maybe?
Without being an AO, I can 99.99% guarantee that this was not the reason. Remember, many parents (like one of mine) learned English later in life (if at all). Eloquence is not necessary.
It wasn’t your fault; it was your child’s. Now, don’t you feel much better? >:)
Seriously, don’t worry about it. My kids also had a ton of waitlists, and if the decision had been made on the basis of parental behavior, etc., they would have been rejected outright.
@twinsmama =)) after becoming more and more educated through CC, I realize it was most likely the FA issue for WL more than anything else…but the ‘beating self up’ phenomenon after M10 doesn’t only rest with the kiddos! And, as @PhotographerMom can relate to…they never met my husband nor did he write any if the parent essays…if so, door would have not only been slammed shut, but dead-bolted!!!
I highly doubt they place much importance on the Parent Statement. Like @ChoatieMom said, it’s probably just to weed out the crazies. Both of my parents are immigrants from India and English isn’t their first language, so my mom wrote it and had my older brother look over it.
Also, most of the schools don’t really put any guidelines on the parent statement, yes, they give parents a maximum number of characters but it is quite unlimited. Additionally, the parent statement questions are mainly questions like, “What else would you like to share about your child,” with questions like those, the schools can’t expect much from parents as they aren’t telling them exactly what to write about their child. In addition to those questions, there are also questions that ask about the child’s academic history, such as if they possibly were held back a year or skipped a year or had been expelled or other behavioral issues in school.
My parents aren’t really writers or English speakers, so I had to write all of these questions down from the parent statements in their native language. Which they then had to write in their native language so I could then translate it back to English to type into the admissions portals as the parent statement.