Meddling Grandparents

HImom
Sun, 08 Apr 2012 02:31:26 +0000

Our nephew is in final decision mode, having finally heard from all his Us. He’s surprised & disappointed he didn’t get in to all the Us he applied to, as he has great GPA. (He & his folks were expecially shocked he didn’t get in to the U our kids attended & I said no one can understand the quirks of admissions.) Fortunately, he got in early to two great Us with significant merit aid. He’s probably going to his dad’s alma mater and pay less for college than they are paying for his private HS! It also pretty much guarantees admission into med school there if he does decently (which is his goal).

He’s still not 100% decided, but pretty close. The family toured most of the Us over spring break a few weeks ago. It has given his young brother (sophomore) a wake-up call that he’d better work harder so he can have good options to choose among as well.

Fortunately, he has been spared anyone criticizing the Us he applied to or his choices or options.

Since our kids both went to well-known private, we didn’t have people asking, “What U is that?” I’m sure that is painful. It really isn’t worth or productive to argue with people who “know everything,” but it is important to help shelter the kid(s) involved to the extent possible.

All of this brings flashbacks of how we were pretty much told we were awful parents for not putting our S into a elite private kindergarten & continuing him there until he graduated HS! One of them (BIL) even offered to help fund his education (but never put up a penny & his wife–my sister never would have agreed to it either). We are glad we had our kids go to public school until 8th grade & think they learned a lot from being with the other kids. It was a very touchy subject for many, many years.