<p>I was trying to sleep, but the whirring of mummom’s helicopter blades woke me up.</p>
<p>I have heard of going to Alumni homes before. It is fairly common. Having a daughter of my own I understand your concern. IS there anything wrong with going with her? I would certainly tag along if I could.</p>
<p>Post #615:
“Not all schools are as detailed as yours in providing alumini instructions.
Not all schools place as much emphasis on the interview as your’s does.”</p>
<p>2nd statement about emphasis I agree with.</p>
<p>1st statement about instructions is doubtful. I have done alum interviewing for 2 of my alma maters, as did one of my parents. I have many friends who interview for other schools. Instructions are very detailed. </p>
<p>For many schools that offer (or require) alum interviews, it is a PR opportunity for the school as much as an opportunity for the school to gain info about the applicant. And…it becomes a blown PR opportunity when there is a bad interviewer…but not because the interviewer wasn’t provided with enough info. from the school on what they were supposed to do in the interview.</p>
<p>The one instance of a school that might not have detailed guidlines for the interviewere is if a school doesn’t have a formal interview program, but has alums available to talk to students if they are interested. In this situation, there might be less detailed information provided to the alum, but…it’s also not an interview.</p>
<p>One of my children had 2 alum interviews. One interview was in a Starbucks, the other was in the interviewer’s home. I dropped off my child for both. Never met the interviewers. Because I had done alum interviews, and my father had, I didn’t even think twice about it. More an issue of experience versus inexperience…a common factor in making parenting decisions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>While she is 23 now, I would have let her do this at 17 as well. </p>
<p>The fact that these are underprivileged children was not meant to have any significance. I was describing the job. It is government funded through an agency. The families themselves did not hire her. I didn’t mean for anything to be read into that. But as someone else mentioned, it is also factual that she’d be going into neighborhoods she was unfamiliar with. My 21 year old is going to work with kids in Harlem and The Bronx, but not in private homes. She also is unfamiliar with those neighborhoods. </p>
<p>Kerimulder…a parent should not be at the interview. The parent can drop the kid off and pick them up. I have had parents do that. They run an errand while the kid is in my home doing the interview. But they are not in the home where they can hear the interview. Please remember that in 8 months, the parents won’t be WITH the kid in every endeavor and every meeting they have.</p>
<p>All of S’s interviews were at homes. Since his GC had arranged 2 of them, never occurred to me to question their ethics. When he didn’t return from H interview for hours, my concern was that he got lost or had an accident. </p>
<p>S went to competitions around state with various teachers. I never heard of any impropriety, so had no concerns.</p>
<p>2boysinma…
I just want to clarify that another member assumed my alma mater put a lot of emphasis on the interview in the admissions process. I never said it counts significantly. I mentioned that it was indeed considered and not superfluous as some asserted. By the way my alma mater has an entire booklet, as well as online site, that goes over everything about the interviews, their purpose, types of questions, sample reports, etc.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to include your daughter’s opinions in this decision. If she is comfortable with having the interview in a stranger’s home, I think you should allow her to. Remember that she will be going to college very soon and will have to make decisions on her own. I do think it’s a good idea to drive your daughter to the house. When the interviewer opens the door for her, he will certainly see you sitting in the car. I also think she should ask what time you should be back to pick her up so that he is aware that someone will come back and be waiting for her. It would be best for her to take care of this though. It’s not necessary for you to introduce yourself or speak to the interviewer…your daughter will want to project a sense of responsibility and independence. And of course, remember that it is a risk for the interviewer to, and that he/she is doing you and your daughter a favor.</p>
<p>
Annie Le, the murdered Yale grad student, was 24, “street-smart”, and just went to her lab in a secure building in her elite university.</p>
<p>What does Annie Le have to do with anything? She was murdered by a crazed co-worker (and perhaps spurned suitor). That’s one of the ways women get murdered, unfortunately. It isn’t very common. But what’s the point? That even a sophisticated 23-year-old woman is constantly in danger, so she shouldn’t bother working or even going outside without her parents there to protect her? Or that, rare as it is, getting murdered by a crazed co-worker is a real risk, unlike getting murdered by a crazed college interviewer?</p>
<p>In fairness to the people I keep fighting with here, I don’t think any of them believes she should protect her daughters from every tiny risk forever, and I don’t think any of them really believes that getting attacked by a college interviewer is high on the list of risks her daughter faces. As several people have said, this is a fight about appearances, culture, and good manners, not about actual safety.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry you feel ganged-up-on here. You have been, and I’ve been guilty of that, and I’m still doing it now. But it really ticks me off that you keep whining about how nobody respects your opinion, without giving any indication that you respect any opinions other than your own, and without engaging in anything like actual, reasoned discussion of why you hold an opinion so strongly that others fundamentally don’t understand.”</p>
<p>jym, while I thank you for your apology, as insincere as it comes across, I am not accustomed to the name calling that has gone on here. What you see as whining is actually disbelief that grown adults actually talk to each other in such a way because they don’t agree with someone. </p>
<p>I’m all for people stating their differing viewpoints, how boring would this world be if we all agreed on everything. What I don’t appreciate is the implication that my child is somehow less mature or has less potential because of parental concerns over home interviews. I haven’t called any parent who is comfortable with that a bad parent; I only said that I wasn’t comfortable with it.</p>
<p>You want reasons? It’s a gut instinct, goes against the grain of everything we teach children, goes against all that is believed in a business environment, feeling of not being comfortable. It’s a feeling, it’s not right or wrong, it’s a feeling and that’s how I feel as a parent of my child, nobody else’s child.</p>
<p>Just for the record, also, my child is 22 now so this isn’t a looming issue for me. She’s always been a good, responsible kid and as others have said, I feel very lucky for that. Yes, I was a cautious parent in her upbringing but obviously it didn’t hold her back because I’d put her stats and accomplishments against any other young adult her age anywhere.</p>
<p>MM- You are going to have to thicken your skin (or as we say in running, HTFU). I get called a bad parent all the time on these forums! Guess what- in many ways I probably AM one! My kids both drank underage and one of them has a tendency to break the speed limit, and these are just the things I’ll mention here! All of this has been attributed to my parenting.<br>
Calling someone’s apology “insincere” certainly helps the dialogue!</p>
<p>SV: Imo, being in a car with a parent we “hardly knew” is different than going to the home of a stranger. I really understand why the interviewers here seem to be taking this stance so personally and are indignant at the thought that a parent/student might even remotely “suspect” them as being capable of any untoward behavior, sexually or otherwise. That is why my S did not want to request a change of venue. As I said before, we knew that request might jeopardize the interview. We also thought that the knowledge by the interviewer that a parent either drove the student, or was waiting in the car, might jeopardize the interview. That is why I sat in the car, down the road, huddled under blankets in 20 degree weather. We anticipated that a long-time interviewer might feel personally insulted. Most people take things personally. It’s my opinion, though, that any adult working with kids should be able to rise above these personal reactions to parenting styles and/or student responses that might be different than their own.</p>
<p>While I appreciate that I am in your thoughts, Magmom, I believe the post you quoted and railed against was from JHS (post# 574), not me. So feel free to call someone else insincere, not me. Geez, if you are gonna attack someone, find the correct person. Take a look at how sooze and mummom civilly resolved their error in recall of previous posts. Read and learn. I will await your apology-- please make yours sincere. Or you can just delete your post # 630 since it is unclear who you are taking to task.</p>
<p>And Kerimulder, just wondering- how old is your daughter? Your profile says you are 26 years old!</p>
<p>
JHS,
My point was that it is silly to claim that it is important to protect 17-18 year olds from their college interviewers because the kids at this age are young, naive and vulnerable, and when they get older they are inherently safer somehow.</p>
<p>I think that the risk to be endangered in any way by a college interviewer is about as high as the risk of being murdered by a crazed co-worker (actually, probably lower…)</p>
<p>Jeepers, Magnolia Mom! That apology might have been insincere coming from jym, but it was perfectly sincere coming from me – as honest as I knew how to be. I WAS sorry for ganging up on you, and acknowledging that I was part of the problem, and at the same time showing how (and trying to explain why) I was angry enough to do that.</p>
<p>One of the things I like about the Parents Forum here at CC is that most of us, I think, actually consider what other people are saying. I try to do that. This thread has interested me because it’s such a wide gulf on such a small issue, and I really know which side I’m on (which isn’t always the case).</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m not so stupid or out-of-touch as to believe that people whose parenting styles I consider over-protective do permanent damage to their children. Maybe some do – I can think of a few apparent examples from my youth – but then some permissive parents also do permanent damage, and in the end I believe that it isn’t likely the parenting choices cause the problems in either case. It doesn’t surprise me at all that you have a great kid. Some of my best friends are helicopter parents, and I am thrilled when their kids (whom I have known since birth) turn out great, too, even if I would have done lots of things differently if they were mine. (Even my helicopter-parent friends didn’t have problems with their kids going to in-home college interviews, though. That really was a new one to me.)</p>
<p>^^ Come on guys-- leave me outta your tangle! If I apologize for something I did (NOTE: I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING HERE) there would be no need to doubt its sincerity. I hope your comment above was just a joke, JHS. The last chat I had in this thread was a discussion with gourmetmom about chinese and japanese takeout, and then the summary of how most interviewers really DO try to do their best to accomodate the students needs, schedule, etc.</p>
<p>Please take me off your dance card for this round!</p>
<p>I second your motion, jym. This thread should be put out of its misery.</p>
<p>Thank you, gourmetmom.</p>
<p>Agree that this thread jumped the shark a long time ago. Maybe someone else can be selected for target practice. Lets you and I go out for lunch. We can meet in a safe, public place :)</p>
<p>Sounds good, jym, just as long as it’s not a Starbucks!</p>
<p>While I’m at it, let me apologize publicly (and with qualifications, so maybe not sincerely enough) for two other things I did that were provocative and upset some other posters. Really two versions of the same thing.</p>
<p>– I suggested that unwillingness to go to a home interview might disqualify a kid for elite college admission.
– I asked why people simultaneously wanted to be part of the elite-college “club” but had fundamental objections to the “club” rules, and said that if they really hate the rules they should go elsewhere.</p>
<p>The first I thought better of almost immediately, and backed off of in subsequent posts. I wouldn’t treat a kid that way, and I don’t think anyone else would, either. There is still a kernel of something I do believe – that universities get a lot of their energy from intra-community networking, and someone who imposes unreasonable restrictions on his or her participation in that is reducing the power of the institution. But that is a pretty weak factor. And I don’t make admissions decisions. And of course I don’t really believe that most kids impose these restrictions on themselves – I blame you parents. So it was complete hyperbole for me to suggest that this would cause a serious problem for kids. I was trying to get your attention, and apparently succeeded, but as with many provocative statements, what got provoked was defensiveness, not thought.</p>
<p>The “club” metaphor I’m a little less apologetic about. It came across as snooty, which is hardly surprising because it WAS snooty. I am a little snooty, and that’s not a character strength. Again, it was hyperbolic (like many illustrative, provocative metaphors), insofar as it suggested that some kids ought to be blackballed by the membership committee. See above. But part of me continues to think, “If you like how the military academies do things, why don’t your kids go to a military academy? The world is full of choices, and there are plenty of institutions that adhere to a more corporate, risk-adverse style, not just West Point, and many of them (including West Point) offer great opportunities. So go one of those routes, don’t ask my institution to change part of what I think makes it special. Or, if you think my institution IS special, at least think about conforming yourself to its norms.”</p>
<p>And yes, jym, the suggestion that an apology from you might have been insincere was a joke. How could you read it otherwise? Jeepers, indeed!</p>