<p>I’m sure this has been posted already, in which case this will be removed, but just in case, do you remember remember the “prostitute college” thread of last year? Well here is some very sad news about the young lady’s mother, Cathy Seipp who wrote for National Review Online.</p>
<p><a href=“http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/[/url]”>http://cathyseipp.journalspace.com/</a></p>
<p>Very sad news indeed. Thank you for posting the link. I’m in tears after reading some of her blog entries and comments.</p>
<p>Can someone explain the backstory? Thanks.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=162149[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=162149</a> Here’s the original thread</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200603290734.asp[/url]”>http://www.nationalreview.com/seipp/seipp200603290734.asp</a> I think this is the article originally discussed, but the link in the thread above is dead.</p>
<p>I was looking for a reference to the original thread and got distracted reading some of Cathy’s blog.</p>
<p>I learned I should never deliver a big pot of soup to someone who is ill.</p>
<p>Same here fendrock…lol! Cathy’s World can be just as ‘frighteningly addictive’ as CC imho. </p>
<p>I’m very saddened to hear of Cathy’s illness. Lung cancer is a terrible and capricious disease…I know so many nonsmokers who have fallen victim to lung cancer.</p>
<p>Maia and Cathy will be in my thoughts and prayers.</p>
<p>17 yo college freshman losing a mom. Tough. I just read her mom’s “stuff” for the first time and it made me laugh. Even tougher loosing a mom with that sense of humor. Wonder how D is doing?</p>
<p>Sunnyflorida is right - it’s just really sad, and really tough. Young Maia has posted here in the past and demonstrated wit and spunk, but losing a parent to a brutal disease is a heavy burden at any age, let alone for a girl in her late teens. Obviously we cyberneighbors don’t know the real world friends and relations she has to lean on, but I’m sure that all the CC folks’ hearts go out to Maia at this tragic time for her. I’ll step into Berurah’s shoes for once and offer {{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}} for Maia.</p>
<p>She has, sadly, died. I feel terrible for her young daughter. And I will miss her writing - she was witty, perceptive, original. If you like her blog, you should read some of her columns. I remember several in particular - there was a compelling account of her battles with her health insurance company, a wonderful column on the Chronicles of Narnia that I happened to read when I was in the middle of reading the books to my younger son, a column on favorite out-of-print books. I loved her political writing, although I almost never agreed with her.</p>
<p>Longtime readers of the CC Parents Forum may recall a discussion last year about an LA Times op/ed piece written by Catherine Seipp in which she talked about her daughter Maia’s college admissions experience. </p>
<p>According to the article, Maia was a high school junior, a bright kid at a private HS who had taken a number of courses at a community college in a difficult language (perhaps Russian), with a good but not stellar GPA and good but not stellar SAT scores. Seipp was dismissive of the high school administrators who advised her daughter to complete four years of high school, and she encouraged Maia to apply to college during her junior year. When rejections came in from several of the highly-ranked colleges to which Maia applied, Seipp was incredulous - what was wrong with these adcoms? True, her daughter did get admitted to several colleges, but they were schools with lower rankings and higher acceptance rates, and Seipp seemed convinced that they weren’t good enough for her child. She confessed to only one moment of self-doubt about encouraging Maia to skip senior year, when a college professor friend she respected gently suggested that perhaps Maia should think about taking courses at a CC for a couple of years then transferring to a four-year school. But the story ended happily for Seipp and her daughter when Maia was accepted at at least one college that Seipp found worthy, thus proving Seipp right and the naysayers wrong.</p>
<p>At least, that’s how I read it at the time.</p>
<p>When a thread discussing the article popped up on CC, I happily joined in: not only was I annoyed by what I saw as Seipp’s arrogance and sense of entitlement, but also (to be honest), I was offended that she had characterized the college my daughter attends as unworthy of her child. The discussion went on for a few days, with both Seipp and Maia joining in, and Seipp later wrote about it in her column in the National Review online. I remember feeling sorry for Maia, who had to endure such not only the original story but also the CC discussion, and did so with uncommon grace for a seventeen-year-old.</p>
<p>Today, the LA Times carried Catherine Seipp’s obituary, and I discovered that what I read as arrogance in her article was, in fact, desperation. A single parent, “Seipp…was diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago…One of her final goals was to see her daughter, Maia, off to college. Maia finished high school in three years, and enrolled at UC San Diego last fall.”</p>
<p>How difficult it must have been for Maia last year, knowing that her mother was dying, feeling the pressure to fulfill her last wish, and enduring a very public dissection of her college applications. I’m sure Maia is no longer a reader of CC, but I’d like to offer her my condolences on the loss of the mother who was clearly so proud of her, and publicly apologize for my part in last year’s discussion.</p>
<p>I’m once again reminded that it is wrong to rush to judgment until one walks a mile in another’s shoes.</p>
<p>I have moved Pamavision’s new thread put up in the Parent Forum to the Parent Cafe and merged it with the existing thread about Cathy Siepp. </p>
<p>Very sad.</p>
<p>pamavision, great post.</p>
<p>We never really know all the facts about other people. Maia has shown herself to have a lot of class. I’m sorry to read that Catherine died.</p>
<p>“I’m once again reminded that it is wrong to rush to judgment until one walks a mile in another’s shoes.”</p>
<p>What a nice statement!</p>
<p>This is 3 and a half years later but thank you everyone above for the supportive comments. I’ve rebuilt my late mother’s website and am creating a mentoring program for young aspiring writers. You can find out more information here: <a href=“http://cathyseipp.net%5B/url%5D”>http://cathyseipp.net</a></p>
<p>I believe I still have that article clipped from the Times about Maia in my college files. Having lost a mom fairly young in life, I remember reading this article with the viewpoint of both a child who didn’t have mom to assist me with figuring out the little things as I journeyed through my life, and how that was a struggle. But I also internalized the op-ed as a parent, worrying what would happen to my own kids, if something happened to me before I could see them through these milestone events. </p>
<p>Cathy was a great journalist, but it sounds like she was an even better mom. Please know that she touched many people who read her articles routinely. She is missed. </p>
<p>Her legacy goes on in you, her daughter. :)</p>
<p>Maia, good luck to you.</p>
<p>Maia, it is so good to hear from you! What a wonderful and appropriate memorial you have established in honor of your mother, who was one of the best writers I’ve ever read. It is hard to believe that over 3 years have gone by since her death; it seems like yesterday.</p>