How to Get Through Applications Without Screwing Up Parent-Child Relationship?

Parents Forum
1

In every other aspect of his life, S18 is completely independent and self-motivated. But when it comes to college planning, it has been really hard to get him to do anything. He dragged his feet when it came time to make a list, when it came time to visit colleges, etc. Now it is crunch time, and he still has an “I’ll get to it when I get to it” attitude. I don’t think he can afford to have that attitude because he has a boatload of ECs, a rigorous class schedule that will take up a lot of time this year, and an ambitious list of colleges to apply to, many of which have November 1 deadlines (early action and priority consideration for financial aid and scholarships). Between his attitude and my anxiety about getting things done and about being able to afford college (which we can’t if he doesn’t meet the priority consideration deadlines for FA and scholarships), there have been a lot of clashes between us, and those are becoming more frequent.

I am trying as best I can to balance the need to let him lead this process against the need to make sure he gets everything done, done reasonably well, and done in a timely manner. But every time the subject of college comes up, he bristles. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t understand that. He says he wants to go to college. He has done everything he can so far – taken rigorous coursework with high marks, gotten very good (though not tippy top) ACTs and SATs, invested time in quality ECs and community service, etc. – to make himself competitive for admission and, at some places, for merit aid. I’m not sure what is going on.

He seems to have hit a particular roadblock with essays and frustration is at an all-time high for both of us. I gave him the Common App prompts when they first came out and told him to think about them. Shortly after that, his English class worked on college essays, and he had a hard time coming up with ideas. I helped him brainstorm about possible topics. He wasn’t happy with any of the essays he wrote at that time (he chose a topic just to have something to turn in) and didn’t want to use them for the Common App. Back in April, we talked about the need for him to have an essay ready to go by August 1, given application deadlines and all the competing demands for his time this year. Then I left him alone to figure out the topic and write the essay. I knew he probably wouldn’t have the essay done by August 1, but wanted him to have a clear idea of the time frame he needed to shoot for and I was hoping he would get it done before school starts on August 14, since time will be a factor after that. This summer, I have occasionally asked him (he would say “constantly grilled” him) about his progress, and he always assured me he was “working on it.”

Last night, I read the essay he has been working on, according to him, “all summer” (but I can recall lots of evenings out and days spent listening to podcasts, such that I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say he worked on his essay “all summer”) and honestly it wasn’t very good. The general idea has a lot of potential, but the essay was not executed very well at all. (It was mostly about someone else and it wasn’t clear how anything he wrote related to S18.) When he talks about what he wants to do with this essay, it sounds so much better than what he had on paper. I guess S18 could tell what my reaction was, because I had barely gotten through reading it and hadn’t had a chance to formulate what to even say when he took his tablet away from me and left the room, clearly upset. Meanwhile, I am frustrated because I don’t see how he’s going to be able to meet deadlines if he doesn’t at least have this essay out of the way.

Clearly, S18 is stressed out. Clearly, I am stressed out. I don’t know what to do. At this point, I am more worried about preserving our relationship than about where he goes to school. But at the same time, he has worked so hard to get to this point. He finally has some preferences about where he wants to go to school, and I don’t want to see him blow the application process.

Anyone else had this kind of experience with your child during the college application process and if so how did you handle it?

2

Have you clearly told him what the cost constraints are?

Is there an affordable safety suitable for his academic interests on the list?

If the answer to both is yes, then it seems like you are making stress where there need not be.

3

You sound like me and D16 the summer before applications. She refused to work on her essays all summer. She didn’t have anyone at school to guide her on the essays either. D16 did not have good application results in the US. Her results were fine in Canada, where we living at the time, but she had wanted to move back to the States. She was very stressed starting in December of her final high school year and continued to be stressed through her first semester of college. She didn’t want to leave high school, where she had been pretty successful for the great unknown. She was also not ready for mom to move far away, which I did once she graduated high school. She was not ready to cut the umbilical cord.

I ended up offering her a gap or postgraduate year. She didn’t take the offer, but I still think it would have been good for her. She is young for her year and I think she could have used another year before she went away.

Maybe sit down with your son and just find out what he’s thinking about going off to college. Maybe avoiding the essays is his way of avoiding thinking about the changes that are coming.

4

I can’t imagine having a kid who had written a rough draft of an essay in July. Count your lucky stars!

My oldest started on his EA essays a couple of weeks before they were due. What finally turned the corner for him I think was a conversation with his aunt (who is all but dissertation PhD in English). She said think about the prompts and there’s the question (which you have to more or less answer), but then there’s the agenda. The agenda is what is important. What do you want the admissions committee to know about you? Is there something you can communicate that either builds on what everyone/everything else will say about you or that no one knows, but is important? Both my kids had similar themes. They discovered something that interested them, and then didn’t stop teaching themselves that things until they were experts. But there are many other messages you can get across.

As for how do you deal. What I did with my oldest who really, really hated the process despite being a kid with academics good enough to get him into top schools was sit down and tell him that I was constitutionally unable not to do some nagging, but that I could nag on a schedule. I was willing to help with the application process in any way that he found helpful (well except for writing those darn essays for him!) In the end I nagged him once a week, and when he was actually trying to write I sat in the room with him which seemed to keep him focused. Eventually he was fooling around writing a program that combined application essays from samples various schools that he found on the web. The program spit out a pretty funny first paragraph. And he ended up using that as his lead. I would say his final essay was pretty good for an engineer, but nothing earthshaking. It basically said I’m a computer programmer, I have a sense of humor. Take me or leave me.

My youngest was a different kettle of fish all together. He wrote lots of good essays, and changed them up for every school he applied to. He was still writing his Tufts essays in January because there deadline was until the 5th. It drove me crazy, but he had it all under control and actually did much better than either of us expected in terms of where he got accepted. (He had lopsided scores and grades, so it was very hard to predict how colleges would penalize him for his weaknesses.)

5

My son sounds a lot like yours. He got through the process but with a lot of frustration. He put things off. His view of what we needed him to get in FA and his were worlds apart even though we communicated it clearly. It was the essays that he didn’t want to write. He didn’t apply to scholarships that I felt he could have received because he waited too long to write the essays. We could ONLY get merit so we needed him to have good essays etc. He had great ideas but just seemed to put off getting all down on paper. I did have to push him a few times to get the minimum done. One application in particular he put off and off.

Good news he finally did get everything done that was necessary on time. Do I feel he could have gotten more if he had worked a little harder? Definitely. He got three good scholarships that brought things within our range. We wanted $1500 more but that just didn’t happen. He got into the school and the program that he wanted and is off to school in three weeks and we are still talking!

Keep an eye out. I offered to edit his final essays and that helped. I would tell him to add more here or there. If he has a teacher that will look over the essay that would be great. (S’s teachers were too busy). Having an outsider, not mom and dad, look over it and make comments is very helpful and eases the pressures from the family. Good luck!

6

Both of my kids deferred to me to handle the scutwork. Keeping information in order – schools (and school literature and forms), financial aid information, tests and test dates (and scores), application/finaid due dates. Planning visits to colleges. You can put all this on a spreadsheet. It wasn’t annoying to my kids; it was a relief. I handled the mechanics, made sure they didn’t miss deadlines, managed the information flow and the money aspect of everything.

What I could not do is write essays for them. I could edit and comment on their drafts – and I did – but I wouldn’t touch the text, rewrite anything. In reality they don’t need that many distinct essays. So don’t despair if the first draft isn’t great – especially if junior realizes it. Both of my kids wrote decent autobiographic-type essays. Not exciting but clear and informative. We were not using the Common App at that time. Essays need to display a student’s interests, motivations and ambitions, achievements, insights, experience. In very little space. Telling a story in which they themselves as the key figures or agents. My daughter’s essay for art school did something important that wasn’t specified in the prompt: she talked about how people react to her art and what she learns from criticism. My son talked about perspectives and skills he gained from being a (champion) policy debater – why should a kid living in a mid-sized town in the Midwest care about China’s Three Gorges Dam? Essays aren’t lists of achievements and experiences (that goes elsewhere in the application).

For your own sanity, cut down the kid’s responsibilities. YOU do the worrying about financial aid. HE does what only he can do. But this obviously also involves choosing a list of colleges, and making the ultimate decisions. My son left a lot of the choosing of lists to me and my wife. (He was extremely busy and in the middle of debate season; on the road some weekends.) We knew his tastes and we knew the college scene. He didn’t actually visit the college he ultimately chose to attend until he did an overnight on “admitted students day.” The next morning, he declared “This will do.” And it was done.

My daughter also allowed me to gather info on art schools; she learned a lot herself by attending pre-college summer art labs. We agreed on which were the best and which were fit to her talents and preferences (for location in particular). The biggest part of the application process for her wasn’t essays and paperwork. It was preparing her portfolio. That would show her talent and perspectives more than anything she would write in essays. She took responsibility for this, but we also helped by taking her to a couple of National Portfolio Day events at which she got useful feedback and advice.

So again: they did things that only they could do; we did the rest.

7

As with @mackinaw, I was the administrative assistant for my kids. I kept the spreadsheets with deadlines, checklists for where scores had been sent, whether recs had been requested and submitted. My kids both had fall Varsity sport (one was a recruited athlete) plus substantial time commitments for another fall EC, so that is how we divided it up. They started working on the sections for Common App early on, and continued to edit those as they moved forward. Essays were drafted and revised by them, with comments from me. They each chose their essay by working backwards – what did they want schools to know about them, particularly given the schools’ priorities and focus, and then figured out anecdotes and themes to connect what they wanted to share with how they said it. We talked about their audience – what the kid applying to major flagships wanted them to know about him was different than what kid applying to LACs wanted them to know about him. In both cases, the essay was a way to paint a picture, hopefully consistent, with his guidance counselor and teacher recs, about the kind of kid they were and what they would bring to campus. Having a working draft in August, before the whirlwind of fall, is good shape to be in. As deadlines get closer, it will get more “real” and his editing and revisions will likely be more focused and effective.

It is a long season, made more manageable if there are a few EA apps submitted early with some early, affordable, acceptances to take the pressure off of Dec-Jan. Hang in there!

8

Is there someone else - teacher or advisor or just someone you know who is a good writer - who can be the person to review his essays? I would definitely look into that. I think that would greatly reduce essay tensions.

Additionally, with my older D we got to a point where we scheduled a weekly meeting to talk about applications. Other than that time, I did not bring up anything about colleges or apps. If she did, that was fine, but I refrained. That greatly helped as well.

9

At this point…drop the college discussion, and requests to get things done. The application deadlines aren’t right now…so just let it all go…for now.

10

We were very fortunate in that the college counselor at my son’s school was the ultimate bad cop with respect to her kids’ application processes. But we didn’t know that before the senior year started. My son takes lazy to an art form, so when he talked about his dreams for his future in a more general way, I listened. Then when he wasn’t moving forward, I told him that I remembered he had these aspirations, and he needed to go to college to meet them. I reminded him that none of it was my doing, but there were requirements and timelines that everyone had to meet, not just him, and I would be happy to talk him through the process, but other than paying and proofreading, I wouldn’t apply for him. He hissed and moaned, and his counselor embarrassed him a couple of times, but things did get done, and he was very happy with the outcome. Strangely, he’s been a different person since he has gone to college. Mature and responsible. Also a beard, but we don’t discuss that!

11

“Both of my kids deferred to me to handle the scutwork. Keeping information in order – schools (and school literature and forms), financial aid information, tests and test dates (and scores), application/finaid due dates. Planning visits to colleges. You can put all this on a spreadsheet. It wasn’t annoying to my kids; it was a relief. I handled the mechanics, made sure they didn’t miss deadlines, managed the information flow and the money aspect of everything.”

Ding ding ding ding!

Like Mack and Midwest, I served as chief administrative officer of the application process. Which let the kid focus on three things: prepping/taking the standardized tests, writing the essays, and deciding what the list of college apps was going to be. While keeping up with the regular schoolwork and ECs.

The essay writing inherently involves a lot of mulling, musing, percolating, procrastinating, stops/starts, one step forward/two back. You can’t simply force the writing of a clever, reflective, revealing, introspective etc. essay on demand in one sitting. No matter how hard you push on the string.

And recognize/accept that the college essay process is a painful and (imho) largely stupid exercise of humble-bragging. If the colleges really wanted to hear about the true interests/passions of the 17 year old males applying to their fine schools, then why aren’t all the essays R-rated (or worse) musings on girls? And maybe sports.

You seem to be in pretty good shape on the essays if you have at this point a service-able topic and a rough first draft. You should be able to turn that into a decent Common App essay by September 1. Which means you could be done with the supp essay writing by October 1. Which means you can send in that all-important first app sometime in early-to-mid October. After you send the first one in, the process of re-using/re-writing the same supp essays over and over again for the next app gets much easier and faster.

12

  1. The reluctance to “make a list” is probably because he has no idea where to start. One of my DD’s loves to research on the internet and made her own list. The other one asked me to help her make a list.
    A)The first question I would ask is Big School or Small School.
    If he doesn’t know, take him to visit your State Flagship and also a close by smaller school and see what he thinks.
    B) Then ask rural/urban/suburban.
    C) Geographic area
    D) Major
    E) SAT/GPA

  2. You need to know what you can afford per year. So if it is, say, $30000 then you need to find colleges that give enough merit that would make it likely that he could attend or schools that have that as a list price.
    Do a “NPC” Net Price Calculator at a couple of likely schools (State Flagship and a Private) and see what it tells you.

  3. Use a college search tool like https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search?navId=www-cs or the one on Naviance (or the one on CC if they ever get it going) and see what it says for the input above.

Once he comes up with ideas I would try to visit some of them asap. It is okay if you wait until admissions, but at least visit some to get an idea of different types.

  1. Re ESSAY Every parent ever wants their kid to write an essay over the summer. He has actually done something so really he is doing well. Often they have the kids work on their essays in english class. If not, see if you can get him to have someone else review it (English teacher, GC). Tell him that you just want him to have the most options for college he can.

  2. Tell him to imagine that he is taking AP this and AP That and doing his sport and is leader of the other EC and has to do all of this at the same time. tell him future him will be happy that now him has done all that! But if he doesn’t, he will eventually!

What it would be ideal he did this summer:

But in the fall you will be taking the toughest courses of your academic career and usually having leadership activities in your ECs…if you do the steps below you will be so happy you have all the grunt work out of the way for college apps.

  1. Make a list of all your ECs, when you did them, about how many hours a week, and descriptions.
  2. You only get 10 slots for ECs on common app, so start categorizing them. Like you may want to categorize all music ECs together, or split them up somewhat.
  3. Make sure to mention what leadership you have in those ECs, even if not a formal position…and talk about what you did as a leader.
  4. Choose a Common App essay prompt
  5. Write a draft of your essay this summer. Give it to your GC/English teacher to review in the fall.
  6. If you haven’t already, choose who you want to ask to write recommendations for you. If your major is STEM, ask a Math and a science teacher.
  7. See what your HS Guidance office wants you to do for college apps…(look on their website)…Do they want you to complete a brag sheet or something else to help the GC?
  8. Visit some local colleges…like your State flagship, a smaller private school…see what you like and don’t like about them. Or take a trip and visit more schools.
  9. Come up with a list of what you want in a college…major, location, urban/rural, size, etc etc
  10. Based on that, use Naviance, Supermatch (here on CC), Fiske Guide, etc to come up with a list of colleges
  11. Find out from your parents how much they can spend on college each year
  12. Run the Net Price Calculator on those colleges to see if they are affordable
  13. If not, look at colleges that give automatic scholarships and see if they are good for you http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html#latest
  14. Try to visit some of those colleges over the summer if possible if you haven’t already
  15. DO NOT APPLY TO A SCHOOL YOU WOULDN’T ATTEND. Also known as “Love thy Safety”. Pick your Safety first. I don’t know how many stories I read about people who didn’t get into an of their reaches and what they thought were matches and are only accepted to the safety and have a fit…find one that you like.

Yes this seems like a lot of work…but imagine doing it when you have classes and ECs too!

13

You should pick up "Crazy U’ by Andrew Ferguson. It is a funny and fast read about the process of shepherding your first kid through the college search/application rodeo. Including the dreaded essays…

14

Your son needs to take ownership of the college application process even if it means losing out on some imagined opportunities. Clearly spell out what the consequences are by not meeting the deadlines, not preparing for LORs, tests, essays, etc. Be sure to let him know that you’re not the one who’s going to college (and which college) and let him take the responsibility for his own actions. Then, step back and give him the much needed breathing room.

15

If no affordable safety has been selected and applied to, just mention that the default safety is starting at the nearby community college and leave it at that.

16

Essays are the worst! But for each kid I found a source of outside help.

Kid #1 used the Essay Hell video course.
Kid #2 used the classic Harry Bauld essay book.

If you can afford an ethical college essay advisor who is not emotionally involved, consider it.

While I have insist that certain time be allocated to essays, I don’t demand to see topics or early drafts. In fact, I don’t want to see any essay that’s not at least 75% done since I know parents should not be over-involved in the process.

I disagree on the “hammer home consequences” advice. Adding more stress will not get those creative juices flowing.

17

to solve this problem, we hired a reasonable college consultant, who helped D with the essay , but more importantly, met with D once week for an hour or two starting in middle August, to help her get everything done on the applications. The burden was then off of me, and just like having an assignment due for class, she had certain tasks that were “due” once a week . Overall I probably paid around 500$. but it was worth every bit.
With current S19. i am , with his criteria, helping to choose colleges to visit, and making him think about what he wants to accomplish his Junior year. Next summer he will be starting his process, and yes, I will be hiring the same person to help him.

BTW i know plenty of kids, mostly male, who have procrastinated to the last minute. One missed the Nov 1st deadline for a last minute school, and ended up getting in, but not getting the needed money that EA would have provided. i think the whole process just terrifies them, especially the rejection.

18

First of all, you need to relax! Some of my most key college applications didn’t even come out until mid-to-late October last fall. Now that was stressful! It sounds like your son is doing very well on his essay, already having a rough draft. Honestly, I found it easier to write essays during the school year when I had access to advice from English teachers and counselors. I would continue to encourage him to get his Common App essay done and maybe 1 or 2 supplements, but ease off on the pressure otherwise. There’s really no rush at this time of year.

19

It’s July…
Really, it’s July.

personally, I’d give him your financial parameters and expectations (for example, barring something major, he has to start college this fall whether it be a uni or cc) and tell him you’re there if he needs help.

By the time you apply for colleges, you’re mere months from college. IMO, you should be able to get it together to get apps in on time.

(Usual caveat that my opinions apply to most, not all students. I of course recognize that there students with special needs.)

20

I would leave it alone. It’s summer and the living is supposed to be easy :slight_smile: (Though his summer sounds awfully short). Let him relax before the senior year onslaught.

Two of my kids finished their essays the night of the deadline. I felt that was pretty normal. They went to tippy top schools. Photograph albums whether hard copy or on the computer, can be powerful inspiration for essays. Some of the best ones are about perfectly ordinary things. If you keep making a big deal about the essay, he won’t be able to do it.

My son showed little interest at one point and clearly felt I was nagging. I told him, in a friendly and serious way, that he did not have to go to college and could work instead if he liked. I went out and when I came back he had done a color coded schedule for visits!

I know that kids apply to so many schools these days, but keep it down. That is a better way to decrease stress than to nag him all summer. I can’t imagine doing a spreadsheet but that just lets you know I am a bit dated :slight_smile:

Remember what you wrote here and act on it: your relationship IS more important.