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[quote=Anonymous]I am far from a helicopter parent, truly. My kids have grown up with tons of freedom, level of which many of you would judge me for.

But those who say it's because today's generation of kids are helpless, they're not. It's that everything is more complicated - and I'm not only talking about getting into colleges. It's the systems. There's Naviance or something else for requesting LOR and transcripts. Common App for the app. Individual school portals once you apply to schools. The process is bizarrely convoluted, and it took me a long time to understand it. Our high school (Whitman) did a pretty bad job of explaining it to students, in my opinion. I believe that's because so many of the kids whose parents would be squeaky wheels just hire college counselors.

Not looking at your kids Common App is crazy. It's important. They should fill it in on their own, or with you. But the level of detail and the potential for making mistakes or even missing whole sections is significant. It doesn't mean a kid is not ready for college if they can't figure out this complicated, multi-step system. Gone are the days where we typed or printed neatly our applications and mailed them off.

I would be upset if my kid didn't show me their app or have someone else look at it who we truly trusted to give it a good lookover. This is not something a typical 17 year old has been trained to do. There are some who can, sure. And that's great - and my guess is that capability shows up other places in their app too. But to diminish your child's chances in pursuit of independence - give me a break. I also think many of the smug "I never even looked" parents were paying private counselors. That's not the same as the kids doing it themselves.[/quote]

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