The Hardest Part of Waiting

Parent Cafe
1

<p>OK, I'm ready to buy my son a sweatshirt, but he hasn't gotten any letters yet (too early). If he gets his first choice, I've picked out a tee shirt, a sweat shirt, and an official university pocket protector. My wife gets a throw with a scottie dog on it. I get a ball cap. Stuffed animals for my other sons and the new grandbaby.</p>

<p>See? The waiting's not just hard on them.</p>

2

<p>Around here optimistic parents buy labeled jerseys in advance and display them on their front door upon receipt of acceptance. Perhaps they are returnable?</p>

3

<p>You are going to hate that stuff if your son gets rejected.</p>

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<p>I wouldn't buy a stitch of anything until my child is accepted. This is the same child for whom I did not buy a single item of new nursery furniture or clothing until he was born healthy. Call my superstitious...</p>

<p>I also find the idea of posting "trophies" of college acceptance slightly revolting, but maybe that is just me. Remember, for every kid accepted at Harvard, 10 were not.. I think it is one thing to be thrilled for your child, another entirely to rub it in others' faces. But then, I don't live in the US and maybe once you have gotten used to life sized football player cutouts on your lawn, college sweatshirts on doors are just the next obvious step. </p>

<p>The hardest part of waiting...staying away from CC...which I had done for a few days but now am back..for an hour only!</p>

5

<p>Uh huh Robyrm, and you came back at 12:17 am when nobody would be on to ENGAGE you, right? LOL</p>

<p>I do agree that discretion is the rule of thumb. The kids around here have lost close friends this week and the mood has shifted significantly. I'm sure there won't be any celebrations for a while.</p>

6

<p>Momsdream,
I hope that the bad news is over for your community for a while. Such sadness. Your note about the suicide was frightening, in particular. What could have happened to that girl in such a short time that she felt that was her only choice... Best of luck to your son at Penn...</p>

7

<p>My daughter wore only one piece of college gear -- a Swarthmore hoodie she started wearing in junior year. She wrote about it in her "Why Swarthmore?" essay.</p>

<p>We kicked around what to do with it if a bad news letter arrived. Burn it in the fireplace? My suggestion: Mail it to her adcom? I think she finally decided she would give it to a kid at the homeless shelter.</p>

8

<p>One good thing about a less-well-known ED school-- if my D is admitted and decided to hang college paraphernalia on our house, car, dog & cat, nobody would care! I would be surprised if there is even one other applicant from her HS of 2500 kids...</p>

9

<p>D bought a Smith sweatshirt on her first visit to Smith during her junior year. The only school where she bought anything, including where she ultimately applied to EA. I considered this An Omen.</p>

<p>My two favorite Smith t-shirts are:</p>

<p>Smith Football: Undefeated Since 1871</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>Smith College: Celebrating A Century of Women on Top</p>

<p>The latter is really funny when you overhear daughters in the store asking a parent if they "get it."</p>

10

<p>The only college labelled apparel that my son bought during the application process was a Michigan sweatshirt. He loved Ann Arbor for the sheer college-ness of it, but decided that a big university wasn't right for him. The sweatshirt became for him a symbol of what's right about the the American college system. It's hard to articulate, but the big midwestern multicultural university seemed so positive and optimistic egalitarian and powerful at the same time. The funny thing is that in Indonesia where we live US college logo clothes are quite popular among local teenagers and Michigan is one of the most often seen names. This among kids that barely make it through 10th grade, which kind of added to the poignancy. Well, there's always grad school.</p>

11

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<p>To which, the only reply is, "No. I don't understand. Explain it to me......"</p>

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<p>Momrath, my son and I felt the same way about U Mich. Archetypal, successful university system in the US. Ann Arbor is fantastic.</p>

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<p>Well, my S grew up swathed in UM stuff, so wearing this has always been second nature to him. Since it's so ubiquitous, he can keep wearing it at his school with no sense of conflict. His aunt (the one who recently died) regularly sent him all kinds of interesting UM stuff, including a T-shirt with "Go Blue" in Gaelic.</p>

<p>OTOH, like the more superstitious here, we bought nothing from the ED school till the acceptance came. That morning, I had a rush delivery sent of hoodie and T-shirt, to have them by Christmas.</p>

<p>In our town, both ED and highly selective college apps are unusual, so wearing his hoodie to school after vacation wouldn't have bothered anybody. Besides the fact that most people here see "Columbia" on a sweatshirt and think "outdoor clothes company".</p>

14

<p>Because I've worked at different colleges for the past twelve years, D has worn insignia gear since she was a little kid. Naturally, she's not applying to any of those schools--too close to home, for one thing. She did ask for a Cal (Berkeley) hoodie since that's an abbreviated version of her name. Since she's been in HS, she's been asked if she does attend the particular school whose gear she's wearing. The only insignia shirts S wore before going to college were Harvard wrestling shirts, one that I bought when I worked there and another he got from a camp. I didn't get anything for S because he's picky about clothes' styles and probably won't get anything for D for the same reason.</p>

<p>The shirt I like the best is "MIT . . . because not everyone can go to Wellesley."</p>

15

<p>"Harvard...the Michigan of the East"</p>

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<p>TheDad, my in-laws took the oldest boy on a trip to the Northeast this summer visiting college campuses as they went. For some reason Smith was one they visited. They bought a tee shirt for each of us at each school. The one my mtoher-in-law picked for Smith said: Smith College - A Century of Women in Interesting Positions. She didn't get it, though my son did. </p>

<p>Fortunately they didn't have that one in XXL for me.</p>

17

<p>Strick:</p>

<p>What a hoot! Around here, at certain times of the year, one can see young people walking around in T-shirts that proclaim "Yale Sucks" (I bet in New Haven they have similar T-shirts saying the same about Harvard).</p>

18

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<p>Traveling abroad on business I often see local teenagers wearing US college stuff. But I immediately became convinced that much of it must be phony foreign knock-offs when I saw a kid wearing a UCLA shirt that was in USC COLORS!</p>

<p>D grew up wearing all manner of Cal Berkeley stuff that was showered on her by a family friend who is a Cal alumna and had great hopes that D would attend. I think she still wears her Berkeley fleece shirt there at Harvard. Meanwhile D2 is still getting bombed with Cal-ware from the family friend.</p>

19

<p>Don't buy shirts until their mind is completely made up. From experience, it can be a very bad scene to have reminders of schools that didn't work out!</p>

20

<p>My son has obtained quite a few tee shirts and a couple of hoodies. His school is pretty insular about sending people out of state, so some of his motivation is to encourage his friends to look beyond Ohio. It has also, I believe, had the unintended but positive consequence of reminding his teachers and GC that he really is serious about this all.</p>