Parent calling admissions office?

[Anonymous]

NOT viewing as helicopter but i dont think the school can/will provide you any information. Obviously you're paying the bill, but agreements are between the 18yo student and school. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this??

[Anonymous]

I would call. It's about payment, that's you.

[Anonymous]

Not overstepping if you call. A similar thing happened to my DC where they emailed and voice message when they called. I called and said was calling on behalf of DC, informed them of DC attempts. Took less than 2 mins for person on phone to fix. I think I just got luck when called with reaching someone and they were accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NOT viewing as helicopter but i dont think the school can/will provide you any information. Obviously you're paying the bill, but agreements are between the 18yo student and school. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this??

Might not be 18. So parents can call. And if it's using the parent's credit card, then yes a parent can call. The AO doesn't care who makes the call. Usually, we have our kids handle this - but at some point, they will come to us and ask for help. If we can't do it together, and my kid has often said that it's loud at lunch, it's the phone call or him eating etc. He's not doing it when he's driving himself home. So if we feel he's attempted or really can't make it work - we will make the call. I don't see an issue with this at all. Sometimes kids need help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s fine people don’t understand how hard athletes schedule can be.

I’ve had to call in the summer when my son had a job in a skif during office hours.

Lol the kid isn’t Patrick Mahomes he has time. Call if you want just don’t use the lid not having time as an excuse.

[Anonymous]

I’ve called for both of my kids. Related to payment.

[Anonymous]

It's perfectly fine for the parent to call, OP, when it's a money issue. Whenever finances are involved, universities prefer to deal with the ones actually paying the bill!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a snafu with application fee. DS keeps getting emails that he needs to pay the application fee (was paid.) He has emailed admissions counselor at school x2 with no response. It is time for a phone call, but DS is in school from 8a-3:30p and then sports practice immediately after until 6. So he isn't available until after the admissions office is closed. I would like to call to clarify the issue and am not a helicopter parent, but emails have gone ignored and ES deadline is approaching. What would you do?

I assure you that the student employee who answers your call in the admissions office is not going to care that you are calling on behalf of your DS. So call them, tell them the issue, and go from their. If college admission counselors don't understand that high schoolers are in school where they aren't provided the luxury of a private space to go make phone calls and deal with administrative details then that reflects poorly on them.

[Anonymous]

Totally fine for this kind of practical stuff. My kid was overseas senior year and 12 time zones away. This was fine except when we had some tech/payment type glitches come up and so I just called the offices to make sure we were all set etc. They were all kind and helpful.

[Anonymous]

I agree it’s proper for parent to call for payment issue. I assume it’s your credit card anyway so the cardholder should be the one to communicate about it with the vendor (school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would tell my kid to call during lunch. If no luck resolving (admin offices might be closed/lightly staffed during lunch), I'd call. Try to get your kid to do the work first, but don't live in fear of helicoptering. I always handled the 'money' part of school so application fee sort of falls within that realm. FWIW my kid succeeded in a tough college, got a good job and is living in a HCOLA as a recent graduate just fine. The anti-helicoptering folks are too much in my opinion--in real life family members help each other out on all sorts of things throughout their lives. My kid helps his grandparents set up their tech--this disempowers them from growing their own technology knowledge/independence but no one thinks he's "helicoptering" them--most just think that's a nice thing for him to do. You probably know when you're overstepping your bounds from innocuous help to thwarting his development. If your kid isn't calling because like most of Gen Z he hates cold calling by phone, make him do the call. If it's genuinely a schedule issue and he's got enough on his plate to manage, make the call. It's not a big deal--he's already emailed them so he's done his part.

Thank you for this. I totally agree with this approach and find that we can all help each other out. In a work environment, a good team is one in which people volunteer to support each other. It's no different in the parenting realm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a snafu with application fee. DS keeps getting emails that he needs to pay the application fee (was paid.) He has emailed admissions counselor at school x2 with no response. It is time for a phone call, but DS is in school from 8a-3:30p and then sports practice immediately after until 6. So he isn't available until after the admissions office is closed. I would like to call to clarify the issue and am not a helicopter parent, but emails have gone ignored and ES deadline is approaching. What would you do?

Just call. Ignore the idiots who insist on following a script written by someone else on how to communicate with college admissions. You are the customer and they are not doing their job. Call and ask them what's up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He doesn't have any breaks in school between 8 and 3:30pm?

I know my high schoolers have study halls, flex periods, lunch, etc.

I don’t know about OP, but my kid’s school did not allow use of cell phones during school hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's about a credit card charge - of course the card holder and parent can call.

+1

[Anonymous]

Unless all of your computer science / orchestra / national award winner nerds were redshirted like 10-15 years (and are now around 30 years old), you're being dishonest that you wouldn't dare call the admissions office to work through a paperwork issue / payment delay.

This is a nothing sundae. Call them. They're not logging your phone number to triangulate back to the common app ID.