Women Quitting or Taking Leave of Absence to Manage Kids' College Applications?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why specify that you are an interviewer for a particular school in stating your views unless you intend for people to take something from that reference?

What a reasonable person should take from the reference is, as I stated, that I as a college interviewer am particularly knowledgeable about the unpredictability of selective-college admissions -- nothing more.
No confidences were divulged, no advice was imparted, and no opinions were expressed that were specific to my college.

Anyone who reads more into my statement may be mistaking this forum for a professional consultation.

I think that if I (and a fellow Harvard interviewer who posted after me) had not specified my college, certain posters would not have objected to my post. However, Harvard imposes no gag order on its interviewes, and I am free to express my personal opinions on college admissions in general.

[Anonymous]

Envy and resentment of Harvard interviewers.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, this never happens to the Dartmouth interviewers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Also, to the poster who takes 20 minutes of leave a week who seems incredulous about someone taking a LOA, please keep in mind that many people would consider your work to be part-time compared to their regular schedules, and that they may be more likely to take a LOA because they may be more thin-stretched than those who leave work at 5pm. It sounds like you have a very good schedule (at least on the evening side), but many do not.

I've been gone for a while and come back to find that -- I'm a total slacker because I'm not a law partner, I only work 40 hours a week! This is where DCUM gets snide and unbearable. You'd think I was a SAHM or something to deserve such self-righteous abuse....

(For you SAHMS out there, just kidding, and now I know how you feel!)

To set one thing straight: I actually work more than 40 hours a week, I was rounding down to what is, believe it or not, a reasonable approximation of a full time job for many people. And it's a high-profile policy job at a place you've definitely heard of. (Although why I'm defending myself to somebody like you I don't know.)

If you work 20 more hours a week than me, that's 4 hours more a day. I leave at 5:15 and get home at 6:15. You leave at 9:15. Seriously? Every night of the week, which is what would be necessary to rack up that 20 hours more per week than me? I find this extremely hard to believe. In any case, you may not have to lift your oh-so-important little finger because lots of privates offer SAT classes (already my kid took an SSAT class at her private). Otherwise, you take 3-4 hours of annual leave once a week for that SSAT class, for 8 weeks or whatever the length is. It won't kill you. There's not much else involved, except for a few road trips.

Unless I'm hearing that, with your 80-hour work-week, you never actually see your kid, and so without LOA you wouldn't have the time to get to know him or her well enough to write all his/her essays for him/her.

So, if you are looking for an excuse to take a long vacation and make DH support you, don't look to me for help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, like you we applied to only three private schools; we did so because we felt there were only three private schools we would have DC attend instead of our public school. With colleges, however, I think applying to just three is too limiting and risks ending up with no good results. I guess I can't believe that a parent would unilaterally and arbitrarily impose such a limit on her child.

Totally agree and we had the same logic on private vs public. I am just a little surprised how critical people have been of my daughter's interest in visiting a broad range of schools in order to narrow her list to 8. Although I suspect some of these people are parents of young children so don't have actual experience with the current realities of applying to college. Oh well. We are happy with our approach.

I'm with you, sister, about the tone of some of the posters here. I'm the slacker with the 40-hour workweek.

[Anonymous]

There are some organizations that take the kids around for you. They seem to have a set list of schools. As your school guidance counselor.

For my part, I'm sort of looking forward to a week or two of annual leave (no extended, months-long leaves of absence) to tour some colleges. If DC shows interest in California colleges, maybe we'll put her on one of the California tours so the whole family doesn't have to fly out there.

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing the jerk mocking the 20-school person is the same jerk who mocked the Harvard interviewers and the 40-hour "part-time" mom. At least, these posts have the identical "it's all about me and me views, and I'm always right" attitude. Yuck.

[Anonymous]

Just returned from 2 school visits out of state. Both schools much different than expected based on the research. DD loved one of them. This particular school said that of the kids accepted this year 90% had visited the campus at least once (many of them more than once) and 80% had done an interview, most of them on campus. There were 150 kids there for a junior visit day and every single one had at least one parent with them, quite a few had both parents. So I don't think college visiting with your child is really as unusual as some people (or maybe pp is right that it's just one contrary poster) seem to think.

[Anonymous]

For many of the college interviews -- at least one parent will take the child. The parent should not really accompany the child on the tours if the child wants to stand out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm guessing the jerk mocking the 20-school person is the same jerk who mocked the Harvard interviewers and the 40-hour "part-time" mom. At least, these posts have the identical "it's all about me and me views, and I'm always right" attitude. Yuck.

I'm a PP who thinks 20 campus visits is absurd, and I definitely was NOT the PP who mocked the 40-hour PP, nor did I even notice the Harvard interviewer posts. I thought the latter two seemed totally normal, but I still think 20 college visits is pretty crazy.

[Anonymous]

I am a PP who thinks 3 is too few and 20 is too many. It's gotten out of hand, the large number of colleges a student applies to, and the number is rising precisely because people are applying to so many schools that the acceptance rates are going down and people are getting more scared about their odds. I'd hate to have a law instituting a cap, as there is in the United Kingdom, but fi people don't exercise self-control, what can we do? I am going to counsel my children to apply to no more than 12 schools as the upper limit.

[Anonymous]

Some college counselors do limit the number of schools kids apply to

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some college counselors do limit the number of schools kids apply to

I don't like the idea that some kids are limited to a number set by their college counselor while other kids have no limit or some other limit. If there's to be a mandatory limit, I would like to see it be uniform across the nation. Of course, in the US individual freedom and the American dream of college for everyone is so important an ideal that there would never be a law setting a limit, as in the UK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For many of the college interviews -- at least one parent will take the child. The parent should not really accompany the child on the tours if the child wants to stand out.

In our experience the tours are not about standing out. They are group tours conducted by students. Usually the students don't even know who is on their tour (a lot of them just divide up the kids randomly or the kids can self select a particular tour guide). And I don't think they are providing input to admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some college counselors do limit the number of schools kids apply to

I don't like the idea that some kids are limited to a number set by their college counselor while other kids have no limit or some other limit. If there's to be a mandatory limit, I would like to see it be uniform across the nation. Of course, in the US individual freedom and the American dream of college for everyone is so important an ideal that there would never be a law setting a limit, as in the UK.

Since the HS college counselor doesn't pay the app fee or do the app then it is none of their business. Ours have big general meetings and meet individually with the students. Show charts etc on apps, acceptances, ED, rejects, etc.

The charts don't have any coding for bumps: FOB [friend of Bill, Barack types], donate a building, athletic team in college, underrepresented group. So what are the chances??? Unknown. One gave absurd advice stating a specific school is harder to get into ....