How to answer family's questions about acceptances

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid has an extremely valid reason for not announcing a specific acceptance right away. Unfortunately, close family and friends are already starting to ask how the application process is going. Some have been through this specific process before and are very familiar with the requirements, deadlines, etc. They will know when a particular school(s) announced. Is there a polite way to put them off? They just want to celebrate, but kid wants to make sure they're not celebrating too early.

Just say he wants it to be a surprise reveal. People do that for babies all the time so why announce whole process of college admissions.

He's not wanting to announce his choice immediately. That leads to questions.

[Anonymous]

This is reminding me of dealing with relatives when we were expecting our DC. We did not share our name choices AT ALL beforehand so no one could spend the rest of our pregnancy trying to convince us to change them.

Just don't tell them. There are some good suggestions for a standard (non) answer.

If they can't handle it, it is their problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is reminding me of dealing with relatives when we were expecting our DC. We did not share our name choices AT ALL beforehand so no one could spend the rest of our pregnancy trying to convince us to change them.

Just don't tell them. There are some good suggestions for a standard (non) answer.

If they can't handle it, it is their problem.

+1

You don't owe anyone anything, OP.

[Anonymous]

Op -- this is not your news to share

( I say this only to bolster your resolve to do what your DC wants )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has the same issue. I have encouraged him to keep everything quiet until he decides where to go. That is what we'll tell people too. Especially relatives.

Yeah, that's the problem - he knows which acceptance he'll take, and everyone else suspects, but the acceptance isn't the end. Attending isn't a guarantee if he's admitted.

This is family, right? Family that you love and who loves you and your kid? If that’s the case, *if it were us* I would just be honest. “He’s at the xyz stage, still hoping for blah blah but don’t know how things will turn out becaise of blah blah.”

The other vague responses are for people with whom you are not particularly close or there’s some issue about competition or something else that leads you to hold them at arms’ length.

OP, keep to the line that he'll announce when he's decided which school to go to and not before.

For those who keep pressing he/you can say that you understand that everyone wants him to go to their alma mater, but he doesn't want the pressure or opinions from family about why they wnat him to go to X school because he needs to make this decision for himself and doesn't want to be influenced by well meaning family members lobbying. So he's not going to say anything until he's made the decision on his own about what's right for him.

For PP above, the whole point is that no matter how hard they try, family that is pressing for an answer because they have alums of 3 of the 5 schools that he applied to, will definitely try to lobby "oh, Y college was so good. we did this and I loved that and this was one of the best parts of school for me!" even it is just reminiscing about what they loved about school. I have family like this and they say they don't lobby, but they do and they keep trying to put in the well meaning plug for their own alma mater and what the loved about it. I wouldn't want all of that either, so, I'm not going to do anything that will only encourage the behavior I don't want.

[Anonymous]

.

They're not as excited as they are competitive. They don't actually care where the kid goes. They want to compare to see if their kids did or will do better.

This happened with two of our kids and our family. It was awful. I know it is too late for the OP's kid and different circumstances but when asked where they were applying I didn't tell anyone. Unfortunately, the nosiest of them interrogated both of them (separate years) until they told them where they were applying.

It was worse for the first one because they didn't get into the school that was their top choice.

In the end, it really didn't matter. The oldest kid is happy where they landed. And the second kid went to the first kid's top choice but transferred in their sophomore year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has the same issue. I have encouraged him to keep everything quiet until he decides where to go. That is what we'll tell people too. Especially relatives.

Yeah, that's the problem - he knows which acceptance he'll take, and everyone else suspects, but the acceptance isn't the end. Attending isn't a guarantee if he's admitted.

This is family, right? Family that you love and who loves you and your kid? If that’s the case, *if it were us* I would just be honest. “He’s at the xyz stage, still hoping for blah blah but don’t know how things will turn out becaise of blah blah.”

The other vague responses are for people with whom you are not particularly close or there’s some issue about competition or something else that leads you to hold them at arms’ length.

OP, keep to the line that he'll announce when he's decided which school to go to and not before.

For those who keep pressing he/you can say that you understand that everyone wants him to go to their alma mater, but he doesn't want the pressure or opinions from family about why they wnat him to go to X school because he needs to make this decision for himself and doesn't want to be influenced by well meaning family members lobbying. So he's not going to say anything until he's made the decision on his own about what's right for him.

For PP above, the whole point is that no matter how hard they try, family that is pressing for an answer because they have alums of 3 of the 5 schools that he applied to, will definitely try to lobby "oh, Y college was so good. we did this and I loved that and this was one of the best parts of school for me!" even it is just reminiscing about what they loved about school. I have family like this and they say they don't lobby, but they do and they keep trying to put in the well meaning plug for their own alma mater and what the loved about it. I wouldn't want all of that either, so, I'm not going to do anything that will only encourage the behavior I don't want.

The funny thing is, he's really gunning toward three of five...only one of which overlaps theirs. So they're likely going to be personally disappointed in that regard, but excited for him nonetheless. But odds are he doesn't get into any, so lobbying is pretty much a waste of their breath.

But the real reason for the silence is 100% the medical exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They're not as excited as they are competitive. They don't actually care where the kid goes. They want to compare to see if their kids did or will do better.

This happened with two of our kids and our family. It was awful. I know it is too late for the OP's kid and different circumstances but when asked where they were applying I didn't tell anyone. Unfortunately, the nosiest of them interrogated both of them (separate years) until they told them where they were applying.

It was worse for the first one because they didn't get into the school that was their top choice.

In the end, it really didn't matter. The oldest kid is happy where they landed. And the second kid went to the first kid's top choice but transferred in their sophomore year.

How did family react when they didn't get into their top choice?