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Women Quitting or Taking Leave of Absence to Manage Kids' College Applications?
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Anonymous
| This is a different world now pp. |
Anonymous
Wow. Just wow. I have a child in college (on a full academic scholarship), a high school senior, a high school junior, a high school freshman, and a second grader. I cannot fathom why anyone would need to visit 20 schools. My son narrowed his choices down to two. We visited both. He was accepted to both. Transporting to SAT, tutoring, what??? Your "child" (um...young adult) can't drive himself? Or the bigger question, why does he need tutoring or test prep. My three older kids scored very, very high on both the PSAT and the SAT. No test prep. What a waste of time and money. Attend college fairs and local events? Please tell me you aren't planning on going with him? How humiliating for the poor kid. Here's a novel idea. Let your kid grow up. He's going off to college not kindergarten. |
Anonymous
HAHAHA. Sure glad you got that MRS degree from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Cornell. Bet you needed it to change diapers and such! |
Anonymous
| That's really mean pp but funny |
Anonymous
I am not the poster you are picking on, but an education is never wasted, regardless what one decides to do with their life. This includes the choice of focusing your time and talents solely on raising your children. |
Anonymous
|
New poster here. I'm also a SAHM and my Harvard degrees are not at all wasted. Happily worked my ass off for years, am now happily home with the kids, and I'll probably happily work my ass off again. Figured out what works best for me and my family, and my degrees and good professional reputation allow me to stay home without worrying too much about finding full-time engaging work in the future.
I think it's great if people want to spend more time with their kids when they are going through the decision making process. At least to serve as a sounding board. My parents were both incredibly available and patient with me through the process, and helped me to clarify my thinking and priorities re: colleges. |
Anonymous
| Narrow down that number. 20 is too many: either busy-work or ego padding. First, your child is probably at a school which sends a lot of kids to competitive colleges. He or she should already have an idea of what the schools are like by looking at which types of students at their HS matriculate to which colleges. Use that as a first cut. Second, talk with your college advisor to understand where schools your child is interested in falls within the reach/solid/safety continuum. Third, fine tune your selection process with targeted visits. I only saw three schools before applications season. Finally, apply to your top two reaches, top three solids, and a reliable safety. Making the college applications process into the Most Important Decision You'll Ever Make inevitably leads to disappointment. Colleges are flawed human institutions, each with their own pleasures and problems. In fact, one of the best preparations I can think of for making college a profitable experience is the independence and resourcefulness that it takes to manage one's own application process. Things have a way of working out. |
Anonymous
|
When people say 20 are they including local schools? I can imagine visiting 20, but we'd figure out the basics with visits in the area, and in places we're planning on visiting anyway. Not sure how it feels to be in the majority vs. the minority? Great, go see Howard and George Washington. Not sure how a really big school would feel? Go visit U of MD, College park etc . . . Throw in some schools in the cities where grandparents live. Then, once you've got it narrowed down (I want co-ed, HBC, not too big, warm weather, in a city) you can take a trip to visit your top two or three.
I know I visited plenty of schools when I was looking, but many were in my community, or places we had another reason to be. |
Anonymous
Envious? |
Anonymous
|
Well, to each is own.
The latest child visited 10 schools that the child was interested in….once we determined what type of school worked best. It was a little easier for us because the child was a recruited athlete so there was more flexibility regarding tours and visits. But I think that we only had the patience for 10. More than that, it seems to me that the schools tend to run together or the child approaches the later visits with a little less enthusiasm. I mean, how many walking tours can you do and still remain sane? LOL!! At the same time, we know kids and parents who took 20 visits. However those were the folks who were always caught up in the thrill of the process and enjoyed talking about the schools they visited. We are not wired that way. Before that…we (or the child with some friends) did visit some schools to get a sense what type of school fit best. These were all local schools with different profiles or schools that were convenient to vacation spots and we could take a couple of hours while on vacation. Regarding parents managing the process, I think all that depends on the child. My children could do the actual work of completing the apps and ordering transcripts, but they needed us to help keep things organized and on schedule. So we had a regular Sunday night check-in where we discussed deliverables and objectives for that week and the progress from the prior week. We called it the “staff meeting.” It was fine for us because it provided a good balance of accountability and supervision. We did not ride them everyday to get the stuff done, but they knew they would have to report on Sunday. Other parents may need to be more hands-on in the process if that is what the child needs. |
Anonymous
| PP -- our child was a recruited athlete too but we only visited 4 schools. |
Anonymous
|
"PP -- our child was a recruited athlete too but we only visited 4 schools."
I was only mentioning the recruited athlete part to make the point that the tours and visits were easier beacuse we were not limited to the regular campus tour schedule. We were able to arrange tours and visits on weekends and such. Honestly, we could have gotten away with 4 visits also. The child (with our input) ended up selecting the 2nd place we visited. |