<p>. . .when
I hit the minimizer button when my H comes in the room so he won't know I have been on "that site" again. :)</p>
<p>Carolyn, maybe we need to write a 12-step program.</p>
<p>Step 1: acknowledge you have a problem.</p>
<p>OMG - These are funny because they so describe my behavior!!!!!! Anyone have a 12-step program for weaning ourselves from CC once the process is over?</p>
<p>Well, Step 2 is about "returning to sanity." Are we that far gone?</p>
<p>Step 3: Acknowledge the people you have hurt in your drive to get yourself or your child into college.</p>
<p>Hi, I'm Helicoptermom and I'm a CC addict....</p>
<p>I'm between applicants; one child is a freshman in college and the other just a freshman in high school. I got so consumed by the admissions process last year that I'm still lurking on CC and also, like kathiep, looking for fresh victims. I keep offering advice, solicited or not, to anyone whose child is applying to college.</p>
<p>I keep offering advice, solicited or not, to anyone whose child is applying to college.>></p>
<p>Oh, Helicoptermom, isn't this the worst. I tell myself that I WILL NOT offer advice to people I meet on the street but it just seems to pop right out. </p>
<p>Maybe that should be step 4: Forget any knowledge you have already acquired.</p>
<p>Alas, I'm not enlightened enough yet for step 4: I'm still secretly indignant when everyone doesn't rush out to follow my brilliant advice.</p>
<p>Step 5...Make sure you reread Steps 1, 2,3 and 4</p>
<p>I recently read Carl Sandburg's Biography of A. Lincoln and thought to myself that AL would be a real "catch" for any elite school and qualify for both merit aid and a pile of need-based aid as well: well-read, self-motivated, hard-working, articulate. with definite leadership potential--evidence of intellectual curiosity, wit, and desire for public service.</p>
<p>And he was not even homeschooled, but largely self-schooled in between doing hours of backbreaking farmwork on the frontier.</p>
<p>I found myself at this particular establishment where alot of kids from CMC hang out and I found myself looking around trying to figure out if any of them were Ziggy. And, there are days when I wonder what Soozievt is making for dinner.</p>
<p>OK, since there are so many people who are admitting to this condition, I have to ask -- just why is this so? Is it because college admissions is so unnecessarily (and often unfairly) byzantine, that it seems to require a secret password? Haven't we all said at some point: Boy, if I only knew then what I know now . . "?</p>
<p>...anybody else having problems with posts getting out of order, like it did on this thread? it may be due to us setting local time zones, but the forum sorts by time stamps (ignoring the time zones) and things are out of whack...</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>OK, since there are so many people who are admitting to this condition, I have to ask -- just why is this so? <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>As I once posted back on the old forum by way of explanation:</p>
<ol>
<li>College admissions is a complex process with many layers and variables. </li>
<li>It's important. </li>
<li>You can do tons of research and find out many things you didn't know before. </li>
<li>There is money riding on it. </li>
<li>There are real consequences to choices and performance. </li>
<li>There will be a decision, a clear outcome, at the end. So many things in life end inconclusively. This isn't one of them. </li>
<li>We love and want the best for our kids. </li>
</ol>
<p>What's not to like about an adventure like that?</p>
<p>Alas, I'm not enlightened enough yet for step 4: I'm still secretly indignant when everyone doesn't rush out to follow my brilliant advice.>></p>
<p>LOL! Helicoptermom!</p>
<p>I actually found myself asking the check out boy in the Supermarket what colleges he was thinking about the other day...what's next? Picking up strangers off the street for a little "off the cuff" admissions counseling?</p>
<p>Step 6: Accept that you will eventually have to surrender to the higher power of an adcom committee decision.</p>
<p>Coureur - I must have missed that list the first time around. I am now printing it out to use as a cheat sheet the next time my husband asks why I enjoy reading about and discussing the whole college admissions world.</p>
<p>By the way, Coureur, I noticed that UCSD is now offering a credential in College Admissions Counseling. I guess that would mean I've really gone over the edge, uh?</p>
<p>When you take a low-paying secretarial job in a junior high in the hopes that you'll eventually work your way into the high school college counseling office. And in the meantime you try to predict where the junior high students will wind up for college.</p>
<p>Heyy, ever thought of going into college advising? So many guidance counselors in so many high schools are so inadequate, people go crazy for college counseling services. Just a thought...</p>
<p>Oh, Carolyn - you have got me laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes! And helicoptermom, I love the "fresh victims" analogy.</p>
<p>I knew that maybe I was over the top when someone I just met mentioned she had a jr. and I immediately asked which SAT was she planning on taking. And then proceded to advice her on which one she should take. I know too much...just take me out to the middle of the lake! (The Godfather...Fredo...you all get it)</p>