Applying to college is a family matter. Whether it becomes dysfunctional depends mostly on the parents, but not entirely. Marybeth Kravets, the college counselor at Deerfield High, hears it all the time from Mom and Dad: “We’re applying to ?K” She has to reply: “Pardon me, that pronoun is wrong.” First and foremost, counselors and schools suggest, parents need to enter the process with a bit of psychoanalysis of their own motives. Those who insist on their alma mater or only the most prestigious insti-tutions run the risk of a bad match–or, worse, no match at all. “Don’t push a school because it will look good on your bumper,” Kravets says.
Parents should obviously be invested in their children’s education. After all, they’re usually the ones footing the bills. But there need to be limits. “Some kids complain they’re served college for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” says Leonard King, director of college counseling at Maret School in Washington, D.C. He tells parents to set aside one “college hour” a day. What to discuss? Most counselors recommend that families cover things like: How much can they afford? How far from home is right? Is religious affiliation important?
Setting boundaries helped take some of the emotion out of the process for Marsha Stender, whose daughter Elizabeth just started at Boston College. “The parent-child relationship during that time is tremendously loaded,” says Stender, of Orchard Park, N.Y. She divvied up the labor with her daughter, partly not to meddle. Stender stuck to the financial end of things and didn’t even read some of her daughter’s essays. For all her restraint, though, it was her idea to “take down” the mail carrier midroute on the days when acceptance letters were due.
Overeager parents often behave worse than their kids. What they don’t realize is that such behavior can wind up hurt-ing their children’s chances of admission. There’s a difference between helping keep a busy student on schedule and actually filling out the applications. Parents also have to remember that it’s one thing to critique an essay, another to rewrite it. William Shain, dean of undergraduate admissions at Vanderbilt University, says he can tell when an adult has doctored an essay, and that throws the whole application into doubt. “It’s better crafted, but it’s not as compelling,” Shain explains. “It eliminates the voice of the 17-year-old. We’re not admitting 45-year-olds.”
And then there are the phone calls. Like most admissions directors, the University of Minnesota’s Wayne Sigler instructs the campus operator not to give out his direct number. With 25,000 freshmen and transfer students coming to his Twin Cities campus each year, he couldn’t possibly answer all calls from parents and kids. But every year a handful of parents will track him down at home. “If they are guilty of anything, it’s love,” says Sigler, who adds he never holds such calls against applicants but might worry about their “transition to independence.” Parents “need to let go and let the students speak for themselves.”
That may turn out to be the hardest advice for parents to follow. Stender, for example, these days has been reading through and thinking about “The Launching Years: Strategies for Parenting From Senior Year to College Life,” by Laura Kastner and Jennifer Wyatt. Other parents can’t resist trying to protect their kids from life just a little while longer. Kravets of Deerfield High says she’s heard of parents who’ve hidden rejection letters in order to spare their child’s feelings. No such trickery in the Shlensky home. Andy’s parents could see the large welcome written on his letter just by holding it up to the light.
