The only time I go into my DS’s portal is to pay the bills.
There seems to be a mix here of college application/acceptance portals (which OP is asking about) and college student portals.
I had access to all of my D’s application portals to track the application process.
Once she was in college, I have access to a parents portal, which includes all financial/billing info and transcripts, but not ongoing grades/assignments/etc. I had her original student portal password and asked her to change it.
The original plan was to have access b/c according to my DH “if I’m going to get shot at so you can go to school, you can at least give me access to your grades.” S19 agreed, but in practice it didn’t end up being feasible. There’s a dual authorization that is linked to S19’s cell phone. So it’s just a pain to get in w/o S19 right there anyway. So far it hasn’t been an issue as he did really well his first semester. But just keeping the lines of communication open and honest is working so far. Fingers crossed it stays that way!!
Edited to add: yes, we had access to app portals. Although I wasn’t allowed to open them if a decision email had been sent. I had to wait for him to get home to actually see the decision for himself, which seems more than fair.
My daughter gave me a temporary password for one of her accepted colleges because she says that she uses the same password for other things…my guess is social media, email etc. and to tell the truth I might just take a quick peek if I had it 
DD also has an excellent college counselor and is very independent. Since she is my youngest it’s hard to come to terms with sometimes.
My daughter did ask me to edit some of her essays so I pretty much know what many of them said. Bottom line is that what is done in the dark comes out in the light so if there are any secrets they will come out and chances are that before any definite decision is made, any offer accepted there will have to be a meeting of the minds.
Re the comments about “what is there to hide” etc. That’s got nothing to do with it especially at application stage imo. My daughter wanted to adult and handle the process herself, simple as that. I hadn’t (to refer to another thread) even checked her homework since some time back in middle school (maybe even elementary school) so in the same vein, I was going to trust that she would figure out what had to be done and do it. And she did.
I have parent access to her portal now including grades, nothing is “hidden”.
I agree with @EconPop I think it’s a valid concern that you might miss some merit info, like for example, an invitation to apply to Honors programs which may come with merit. It would likely be coming to her email, not necessarily through her portal. It would be good to explain to your D that you expect her to open all college emails (I know, this should go without saying) and to forward you anything related to merit aid and/or billing deadlines.
Honestly the simple password issue described above could be it! But yes, it could just be stress/control. My S was this way.
In a few months, she will have the decision whether to sign FERPA forms or not, which gives permission for the college to share information about her with her parents. So you’ll be hitting this issue again, so opening up lines of communication now, both ways, will be good.
Make sure they check their emails regularly for communication from their college.
I have access to all my D’s application portals. I don’t think she has looked at them at all. When she gets an email that a decision is in, she stands in the other room and has me open it. She gets too nervous to look herself. Luckily, they’ve all been positive so far. She’s a very organized kid with homework (I haven’t even know what assignments she’s had since elementary school) but she just looks at this college stuff as administrative work and knows I am better at that than she is. She wrote all of her own essays and didn’t even let me see them until we were submitting the apps, usually a few minutes before midnight on the due dates. I have 2 more kids to go and they are both different personalities than her, so we’ll see how they want it handled. Agree with the other posters, that it can be too easy for them to miss a scholarship deadline (since most of these kids aren’t paying for college themselves) or possibly miss that some financial aid info is missing.
During application time, definitely. My kid was applying to music and academic programs and it was SO complex. While dual enrolling, trying to record prescreens, heavy extra curriculars, writing 40 essays, etc. He would say his life this year as a college freshman is much more straight forward than his senior year. We shared the info and links and dates in a google sheet.
Now that he’s enrolled, no, we have no portal access. We do have a parent portal to pay housing and tuition.
I think it depends on the kid and what kind of application process you’re going through, etc. I suspect my 2nd born will want me involved less. And again, no one seems to call foul if you hire a consultant to help their kid with apps. I was just the secretary.
Those who are doing this because its “admin” and keeping track of things etc, when do your kids learn to do their admin? At college? At work? Do your kids just get better at this as they mature? Not being argumentative, genuinely wondering.
I think it’s a fair question. Some teens certainly know how to do it as a HS senior. Some learn earlier than that. some later than that. Maybe my son could have learned before now and I failed in not making sure he did. Ultimately, I think the following answer may seem like kicking the bucket down the road to some parents.
My answer is, at this moment, I can’t concern myself with when he learns to handle all life-related admin skills. I know that this is a very important time and that his college options depend on this specific admin portion of life being handled correctly. Thus, I make sure it is handled correctly.
This is simply too important to use as a perform-or-drown moment. It can be a teaching moment, as he gets to be closely aligned with me as we go through the process, create and manage the spreadsheet, and read and respond to emails together. But I’m not going to allow him to slip into a college that doesn’t fit him because he is what I consider to be a typical teenage boy.
Let him learn when he fails to fill out the forms for his 2nd semester classes and he can’t get into a class he really wants/needs. Let him learn when he fails to do his first big college project correctly, and he has to spend an entire weekend redoing the project instead of going to the big game and parties with his friends.
But with the punishment for failure being so HUGE with the current process, now is not the time.
Yes, I think this is something he will get better at with time. I know I did. I would have screwed it up completely at his age.
My oldest gave me her passwords so I could keep checking the portals for her for news but my younger daughter isn’t giving me her passwords. I think she wants to check and see for herself if she gets accepted/rejected or deferred. She has 1 acceptance so far and came bursting out of her room with excitement but when she got deferred from a couple schools she waited a day to tell us so she could process the news on her own for a bit. She doesn’t need me checking the portal and telling her the status has changed because she’ll know by the look on her face if it’s good or bad news.
In hs we did the admin for him because we knew he could do it but really wanted to concentrate on his classes, sports, jobs, and applying for a couple of special programs. It made his sr year more relaxed and made us feel we were keeping up with merit data, when things were due, etc. He is very organized and ended up running an entire Fraternity for a year so I think he learned to do the admin stuff without doing the college app stuff.
I don’t think I learned my life admin skills because of a ridiculously complex college application process, that’s for sure. I applied all on my own, but that meant I studied for the SAT one weekend, applied to three schools the fall of my senior year, and got in. I think I spent a fraction of the time my kids did on ECs and homework. Maybe that’s where they learned it.
@SJ2727 , I think that entering and being in college is when many kids learn to do their admin stuff, if they weren’t doing it before then. They kind of have to, as there isn’t really parent access and we certainly aren’t there to do it for them. This has been my two kids’ experience so far, their life/adulting/admin skills are continuing to develop throughout college. I know getting a part time job (in high school) was also a big step in developing admin skills such as paperwork, scheduling, communications.
We have no access to D’s app portals. She wanted to manage this part of the process herself.
She logged in to one school last night on my computer, and it saved the password :). So I took a look around. There’s nothing private on there that I didn’t know already. She is already good at checking and sharing her emails, she forwards them to me if they contain anything financial (merit info). So there was verification of her acceptance, saw that already. Copy of her merit letter, she had showed me that already. There was an organized summary of expected costs that yes, I could have figured out myself from the website, but it was nice to see it confirmed and personalized for her in black and white.
Then there was a whole section on scholarships. Maybe they are on the website somewhere but this was much more organized and specific. I have questions and will call to clarify next week, but she might be able to apply for some of this.
We don’t want to stress the kids about money, on the one hand. We are blessed with 529 accounts from my late father ( I cry whenever I think about it). On the other hand, there is not an infinite supply of funds and every merit dollar now helps secure further education later if they want/need it. So they should not be ignoring scholarship info! Different topic for a different thread, I guess.
Also, for FERPA we will absolutely insist. Just like scholarships have minimum requirements to continue receiving payments, we do too. S20 won’t care at all, and D20 will have to live with it. It’s like your health insurer wanting your medical records. Cringy, but you have to do it for payment.
I had no access. I also did not see his applications (although his CC at school insisted he share a draft of his common app essay with us.)
It was through this site that I would learn that decisions had been released (and then ask if he’d looked, which was not always the case.)
This allowed him to stress at his own level, not mine. Probably a good thing. And he willingly gave me access to his college portal to see schedules, grades, etc. when he enrolled, so it wasn’t a terrible precedent!
Never had access to my kids college portals, but then I was the parent who never even saw my kids applications or essays. Both of my kids were plenty busy but managed to do what they needed to get what they wanted.
[quote=“EconPop, post:51, topic:2079886”]
AMEN TO THAT !!! I have one of those typical teenage boys as well. Might be different for the girls who generally ARE more organized. T’would be interesting to see how many of the folks who let their kids do it all ARE parents of females. From my chair though, I agree with Econ Pop 100%. MUCH too important to use as a perform or drown moment indeed.
When he gets into College, he will have plenty of time to do that. Most colleges we’ve visited even have a “First Year Experience” type course JUST for that reason; to help the kids get acclimatized to college life and work on the organizational/admin skills. it might be called something else but MOST of the colleges we’ve been to have a similar course. So whatever my kid missed for not having full admin control of his college apps, he’ll pick up there. And yes, some from his j-o-b. ‘Our’ kids who are not admins of this process will be just fine come next Fall. Good luck to all of them !