Not who you might think
http://nypost.com/2017/10/15/crazy-parents-are-calling-up-colleges-pretending-to-be-their-kids/
Actually, it is pretty much what I thought it would be.
“I think the wackiest example was when a mother called and asked for permission to do her daughter’s internship for her because [the girl] had too much anxiety. I said, ‘It sounds to me that this would be a fun and interesting experience for you but I don’t think your daughter is going to get any credit for it,’ ” recalled Gibralter."
:))
General MacArthur’s mom pre-dates Jackie O:
https://lisawallerrogers.com/2009/11/23/general-macarthur-had-a-helicopter-mom/
The stories of the lengths to which Mac’s mom helicoptered her son are legion at the Point.
I was going to mention Mrs MacArthur as well!
Just ugh.
I understand that Sara Delano Roosevelt also held tight rein on Franklin.
Jackie Kennedy may have helped her son while he was at Brown, but I am essentially certain that she did not fill out his application for him. The related thread about the McSweeney’s article, on how to write your child’s application essay, has a link to copies of the pages of the application and also the Freshman Questionnaire.
If you look at these, you can see that the handwriting on the application is quite different from the handwriting on the Freshman Questionnaire.
I think the journalist did not understand the distinction between these two documents. The application was filled out by John, Jr. (to a reasonable level of confidence). The important thing about the Freshman Questionnaire is that it is essentially a housing and roommate compatibility questionnaire, filled out after the person has been admitted. The journalist may have been unfamiliar with this practice. Jackie states clearly on the Freshman Questionnaire that she is filling it out for her son because he is in Africa. I think one needs to take the era and the limited availability of rapid paper transfer to and from Africa, the summer before John, Jr. started at Brown, and then decide whether this was over the top or not.
The idea that Jackie filled out her son’s application–though based on careless journalism in my view–may already be too far embedded in the popular view to correct effectively, but it does not seem to be true that Jackie filled out the application to Brown, as far as one can tell from the pdfs.
In terms of her calling faculty at Brown–well, if I were a faculty member at Brown, I would have been bowled over by a call from Jackie. This is a situation that can’t be normalized, even if one tries.
Does anyone really care? Jackie and John John are both deceased. RIP