I am wondering if there are parents who ask for their kid’s log in and passwords for all their various portals so they can check admissions status on their behalf.
I have not and wondering what the masses do as this is my first college application season.
Considering that most kids have cell phones, I see no valid reason to give log in credentials to the parent.
I don’t either but I’m getting the impression that there are parents who log in to their kid’s portals to check on things. I respect and have no issue that this process belongs to my D21 and as much as my anxiety would like to refresh her portals I know it’s not my place.
There are indeed parents that do. But that does not mean that parents should.
I think it depends on the kid. If your kid is on top of things I’d say leave it alone. However, as an example, a friend’s son is struggling with depression amid Covid and virtual school. She didn’t know if he was checking his portals. Turns out he was, but was missing some items and was paralyzed about how to handle it, didn’t tell the parent or the GC. Finally he did when it was almost too late to submit the missing documents.
I didn’t ask my kids for their logins. But I did ask a lot about whether everything was submitted, how things were going etc… Also my kids’ GC was very on top of things as well. Not the case for all students/schools.
Yes, I can sympathize with that situation for sure.
There have been some bumps along the way with my D21 but she needed to feel the consequences of not being on top of things. Was it stressful, yes. Was it hard to watch, yes. But in the end, she learned that she was not being as responsible as she should have been. I wasn’t going to let it get to the point of no return, but I think now she’s learning some added responsibility that wasn’t there before.
Basically, she was scared and overwhelmed at how important it all was and it paralyzed her. Now she knows you can take small baby steps and tackle things until they are done. Also, teenagers and email don’t vibe 
If she had been getting text alerts all along, things would have been very different!
My heart goes out to everyone dealing with the pandemic and what obstacles it is presenting. It’s been awful. Our kids have been through enough already and now putting them through this college admission season is just too much for many.
We did not have access to applicant portals when D20 was applying. We DO have access to her student account where we can see her posted grades each semester (if we pay the bill, we deserve to see what she is doing with the money we pay)
My kid is applying for financial aid, the checklists are accessed via the same portal as the admissions decisions. We’ve had a number of different forms/communications regarding financial aid which required me to go into the portal. Kid has a shared Google doc with portal login info that I reference, as necessary.
Nope, not during the application process, not when they are in college, no financials, no grades. #4 and #5 are our last, my daughter applied to 18 schools with no issue. Her twin brother is not like her at all, so she’s been helping him (won’t let us, SAT’s he needs to do this himself). I’m guessing he hasn’t applied to a single local scholarship, I think she’s applied to all she is eligible for. He’s going to struggle a bit without her next year.
I don’t have login info for any college portals, for either D18 back in 2017-2018 or D21. If I need some info, then they’ll screen shot or snap a photo for me.
I’m going to guess that every family handles this differently.
The only thing I have access to is the financial/billing portal for both kids. I did have to nag my son every few days when he was awaiting decisions because I swear he wouldn’t have looked on his own. He rarely checked his email account.
I didn’t ask but just as acceptances were rolling in my son asked me if I could do the watching for him. He is not a phone/social media person. He just said he didn’t want to miss anything and he had so much going on. He said he would do it but would appreciate my help. I did help him. He has done everything on his own since he started college and we only have access to the financial/bill paying portal part. Almost 4 years in and he hasn’t missed a thing so I don’t think it hurt him that I helped when he asked.
And I think that is the crucial part: as a parent, I think my job is to be part of the support team. And being asked to help, when reasonable, is a big part of it. Some students will want/need to share this access, others not so much. Up to the family to figure out what works for them.
Both of our kids’ colleges allowed them to grant us access for finances. They didn’t want to handle the financial issues.
We didn’t have access to anything else!
Thanks everyone. My question was more geared to having access to our high school senior portals for all their applied schools and if parents used their log ins to check for decisions or missing forms etc. I have no clue how the portals work once in college, but I know I’ll want access to the financial aspect for sure.
This is an interesting question. I think this year was incredibly difficult to be a senior, and we handled things very differently as a result.
I never planned to have access to S21’s portals, but our HS changed its instructional model over the summer due to COVID, moving from a six year-long class model to compressing 3 year long classes into each semester. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time to really adapt the curriculum or teaching style, and it was a tumultous change for seniors right during application season. He was having some health issues as well, and he asked me to help manage getting his apps submitted (no, I did not write essays). In any other year, I’d have refused because I am big on accountability, but he was clearly overwhelmed. He’s always been a terrific, independent, earnest, and responsible student and we have never had to get involved but I was concerned about his mental and physical health.
Unfortunately, it meant he continued to disengage from the process, and now it’s a frustration point. I know he’s not checking his email at all, for example, because I find things out here on CC that he hasn’t mentioned to us. In fact, he wouldn’t even know any decisions have been released if I didn’t tell him.
I’m fairly confident that he’s going to miss an important deadline and not actually get to attend his school of choice. But I am remaining silent and not getting involved in that part. He has to have accountability and responsibility, and if his failure to stay on top of to-dos means he misses out on his top choice, so be it.
I have some regrets about helping, but don’t know if the alternative would have been any better. . Just another reason COVID turned this year upside down. There was no good approach.
Some colleges encourage that (or at least a form of it), but they’re very unusual.
My D19 is at Mississippi State, and there is a parent portal through which parents have access to billing, of course, but also (if the student allows it, and students are strongly encouraged to do so) progress grades are visible as faculty post them. (Usually just a midterm grade, but some post updates more frequently.)
As someone who’s been faculty at multiple colleges, I was kind of blown away by the idea of enlisting parents as allies in students’ academic success—everywhere I’ve worked, we’ve essentially worked hard to get parents to leave everything be.
I understand that he’s been lax but I guess I would give a nudge if there’s something this important to be done- at least make sure he’s aware of it.
What’s so bad about helping your kid with something they’ve never done before?
We did not have any portal access, but we did have a family calendar with ALL deadlines for admissions and financial aid to all schools. And our younger kid was asked to check her portals for updates and let us know every week. The older kid was a 2003 admit and online portals were not a thing. We got snail mail for him!
We had no access to online things for admissions results either. But again…many came via snail mail in 2003 and 2006. But we agreed not to open those. They were not addressed to us!
We never had access to college grades…but did ask our kids to log on and show us their grades at the end of each term.
There was one point when I got special permission from our DD to speak to the music department chairperson when DDs private music teacher left the school. I just suggested they include DD in the selection process because she was the first seat player in their orchestra. They did…which was very nice.
I just can’t imagine checking college things all the time for my kids…
What hasn’t he done before? He certainly knows how to read his email, understand what the school needs from him, and log into the portal to do it. If he has questions, he knows he can ask. It’s not like we would refuse to help him. Clearly, I spent most of the fall doing just that.
I have been nudging repeatedly over the last few months to reinforce the importance of reading emails. He chooses not to do it. In fact, just this week, I gently told him that things like housing deposits or roommate requests might need to be done as early as possible if he wants optimal choice, and he replies with “I do things at the last minute, it works for me.” And walked away.
Unfortunately, his current top choice school does not send communications to parents - only the student - so I won’t be aware of everything. It will require proactivity on his part.
If he needs help with individual tasks related to financials, registration, etc. we will obviously help him. But at some point, it’s got to be on him. And he may have some painful lessons to learn. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just my perspective.