Parents Won't Stop Talking About College, Please Help

Your parents sound like a nightmare, frankly, and a lot of the stuff you’ve come to think of as normal sounds borderline abusive to me. (Apologies for using such a loaded word. My perception may well be completely inaccurate, so please don’t take it as an accusation that you have to confirm or deny. I’m just saying that, to an outsider with different experiences, the level of control they exercise over your life seems quite alarming.)

Unfortunately, I forsee a lot of future conflict when the reality of you going away to school and living on your own hits them; those faultlines are only starting to appear now. But that’s a problem for another day, so let’s focus on what’s bothering you right now.

I expect that any attempt to explain your emotional response to their overbearing behaviour will be taken as you acting out or seeking confrontation rather than as initiating dialogue. One hack you may try, which won’t help them see things from your point of view but may get them to cooperate with you, is to tell them that you need to go to the cinema or hang out with friends from time to time in order to be more effective in your work. Don’t just promise you’ll work on applications all day on Sunday if you can see Black Panther on Saturday; say that you’ll work regardless of whether they allow you to go out because you understand how important it is to get into a good college, but if you go out you’ll probably be feeling more refreshed and inspired in your work because taking mental breaks helps you to refocus. Maybe that kind of argument will get through to them.

Re. the application process, you absolutely need to talk to them about money as soon as possible. Tell them that all their preparation will be in vain if they don’t have an accurate idea of how much money they can pay, and how much money schools will expect them to pay. This is true, and they need to understand it.

One other thing: How many times have you taken the SAT? Maybe this has changed since I was applying to college, but as far as I know colleges don’t like to see students retaking it more than twice.

Sounds like your school choice may be a major point of contention if you get into a school they like more than UMich, so start thinking about ways to sell them on UMich or Barnard or Carnegie Mellon now. Again, an idea to work with their logic instead of challenging it (which is not a healthy long-term strategy): Get an outside authority they respect to make the case for what you want. A private college counsellor, another parent from your community, etc. Use successful alums who studied computer science as career exemplars. I don’t know. This will be tough.

I’m really sorry you’re in this position! The most important thing I can tell you is that your frustration is absolutely valid and the way they’re treating you is unfair and controlling. The parents in this thread who are trying to make you see things from your parents’ perspective may be well intentioned, but they’re misguided. I’m pretty sure you understand your parents’ perspective, and I imagine knowing they care a lot doesn’t make their authoritarianism and seeming lack of interest in you as a person any easier to swallow.

Please share this with your mom and or both parents, from one of your previous posts: "it’s just that it seems they lose interest in me as soon as I start talking about something other than school or college. " Do it at a time when all is calm and perhaps after you’ve had a pleasant, productive discussion about something they want you to do. I would really hope that telling your parents this, plainly, will be a bit of an eye opener to them. THat’s a terrible way for a child to feel. Tell them that you understand that they are doing it for you, to help you, and that their intentions are good, but that is how you are feeling.
Side note: I don’t think you should introduce your mom to College Confidential. While I can see the benefit of offloading some of the research/reality of college admissions to a third party source, I think it would just feed her obsession and give her even MORE things to talk to you about.
Finally: You are going to do great no matter where you end up. You will be OK. I’m glad your parents are encouraging you to get away for school. I wouldn’t worry too much right now about stuff like laundry and cooking…you have a lot to handle dealing with the pressures your parents are putting on you, and heck, your college roommate or new friends can show you how to do laundry (or youtube!) Now if asking your parents about those things eases off on the admissions stress, great. But maybe don’t add to your worries right now.

Thanks everyone! I’m really taking this all in, and will be definitely putting them into practice.

@GMC2918 Last summer, I went and lived in Chicago with my mom for 7 weeks, doing an Girls Who Code summer immersion program; this summer, hopefully, I will be going to Barnard College’s pre-college summer program, without my mom. If both the college and Joyce Ivy give me financial aid, then I will be okay.

@HopeTsai that Barnard program is great, I hope that you’re able to attend!

My daughter never really wanted to talk about college, so we often didn’t. Her school counselor required one by the end of Junior year so she could do the recommendation letters over the summer. So my daughter made a quick list. Her English teacher junior year required them to write an essay for class that could be the common application essay, so she did that. The common application didn’t open until early August, so she used that as an excuse to procrastinate. She had a bunch of reach schools, one she really wanted, and a bunch of safeties. She wanted to apply early action to the one she really wanted but didn’t get it don in time (possibly because my Mom passed away two weeks earlier). In the end, she got admitted to all her safety schools, rejected by all the reaches and waitlisted by the one she really wants. She now has less than a month to pick a school, and she is really depressed and stressed. She just realized last weekend that she never really envisioned herself being at any of these schools. She just kept putting it off and thinking it would work itself out without her having to do anything.

She’s miserable and everyone on in our house is sad for her. What should be a fun and exciting adventure that she is looking forward to is just a big mess because she didn’t want to talk about it — she just kept wanting to put it off.

Please think about why you don’t want to talk about it? We have talked about the idea of taking a gap year because she isn’t ready yet. I have no idea what she’ll do. I hope you don’t have this experience.

I think the ideas suggested above about setting up a dedicated time to talk to your parents is a good one, but also spend some time on your own thinking and reading about college so when you do meet with your parents about college you’ll have something to share with them. Good Luck!!

@GMC2918 Thanks!

@NinaBlue Hi! Yes, I have thought about it–I have a list of colleges I like, and I know almost everything about them, and my parents know that. It’s just that my mom starts ignoring me and goes on her phone whenever I switch the topic to something other than college; I’m not exaggerating–that happens everyday. But yes, thanks for the good luck!