A funny essay about college admissions/HS graduation

[skrlvr]

<p>Here’s an old piece (from 2007) a friend sent along about the whole college admissions process and high school graduation.</p>

<p>Sorta an antidote to the Tiger Mother attitude.</p>

<p>[Never</a> Mind the Snakeskin, My Boy Got the Sheepskin - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060101842.html]Never”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060101842.html)</p>

<p>

How well I remember. Graduation 2006. The families gather at the Greek Theatre, nestled in the hillside of Griffith Park. By 8 a.m., the California sun blazes on the 1,000-plus graduates boiling in a sea of royal blue. Flower vendors hawk wilted orchids as temperatures soar to 100. Under his cap and gown, our son, Flannery, sports snakeskin sequined pants and plaid high-top Converse sneakers. </p>

<p>I do not care. He is graduating. </p>

<p>After all the mental anguish of the past year, this is what matters. After the essays, the SATs, the teacher meetings, the tutoring, the online applications, the rages, the letters of reference, the deadlines, the warnings, the $700 in application fees, the threats, the late-night trips to the post office (the one by the airport stays open until 11 p.m. and my husband drives fast), our son has made it to graduation day. And he is going to college. Like thousands of parents, we are sending our child off to make his way into the world, and feel secure in the knowledge that we’ve raised him right. </p>

<p>Except that’s not what I feel. What I feel is that the feeding frenzy of college application and graduation time has done just the opposite and made me wonder whether everything I did as a parent wasn’t somehow, well, wrong.

</p>