Kind of a random question, but has anyone gotten a healthcare proxy for their 18 year old? How did you go about it?
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as I’ve said so many times, there is absolutely not one part of this process where schools make it less stressful on the students when they could do so for the most part. This whole when will they release or wont they is just a part of that.
But hey, when you get in they’ll pretend to care about your kids mental health after screwing with it for the better part of a year.
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We will do one for my son. Got one for my oldest when she left for college - asked a friend who is an attorney to help us with it.
We also had her fill out the form that allows us to see her college grades (FERPA waiver). It might seem intrusive but thank god we did! She ended up needing to take a medical leave from college and we would have never known how bad things were getting if we hadn’t gotten access to her college records early.
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Interesting. So an attorney is needed for this?
We had medical power of attorney docs drawn up through a legal app for my older son who is in school out of state. I don’t think this service is necessarily better than any other, but it was reasonably priced and I have copies of the docs right on my phone in case of emergency. I’m happy to share a link if anyone wants one.
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I don’t think it’s necessary. We had some extenuating circumstances that made it a little more complicated
Ah okay. Thank you.
We used an attorney for my older two, but that was because we were having other documents drawn up at the same time. Having them on your phone is really smart, I’m going to look into that!
Like @anthromom, we used an online company to provide us these forms. Basically, we wanted to be able to call the hospital and get or give information if he wasn’t able to authorize us to do so. We used mama bear legal forms, which was able to put together papers for us to keep on our phone and, I think, his. We’ve never had to use it (not complaining!) so I can’t vouch for how “well” it works, but it’s some peace of mind, knowing we have it.
And yes, we did the FERPA waiver also - that’s something that each school will provide as an option to incoming students. It can waive access just to money stuff or money and grades (if I remember correctly). It’s been a while since we filled it out, but my S22 gave us access to both. The grades part doesn’t show in-progress grades, like my kids had in highschool via their systems (Canvas and ParentVue) it only shows end of term grades. So parents can’t see, for example, if Child is doing poorly on papers during the course of the term. Generally speaking I don’t really want (or need) to be checking his grades anymore. Sometimes he has asked me to look for him because he’s curious and he can’t get to a device to log in, but otherwise, I mostly only use the logging in power to pay the bills and to make sure that the money has appropriately loaded against his account.
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Thank you both. I’ll check out Momma Bear. 
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For the FERPA waiver, is that form provided by the college that the student is attending?
So for other possible documents to complete when they turn 18 - it’s healthcare power of attorney that’s important - any other documents that have been helpful to get in order, for those parents who have been through this before? They are our first child. This Parents of 2025 thread is so so helpful, thanks for introducing this question/topic @Mdowns123
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Yes- the college has the form.
There is also another power of attorney form (not medical) that helps manage financial stuff, especially if they are doing study abroad. We haven’t done one of those yet but will likely get that filled out for my son.
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The portals used by some schools now allow students to set up proxy access to allow their parent access to selected items in their portal (billing, financial aid, grades), so keep in mind that a FERPA form may not be needed if the student can just grant proxy access to their portal (the proxy access is basically giving an online FERPA waiver to allow you to access the info the student selects).
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I’d love the link, please (18th birthday today!). Thanks!
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It would be so interesting when this is over to hear about the 35+ schools and the results. It would be a very interesting study in the varied results that happen, especially between more holistic schools vs “we cut off at a certain gpa” schools. We know one boy who applied to 19. We did around 10. Many did around 10-15 max. What a broken system the US has where kids feel they need to apply to over 30 schools to have a fighting chance at something that’s affordable and they can be happy.
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I promise to post a full list when this is all over. We are definitely seeing a difference in schools where S25 was able to submit a supplemental art portfolio, video, or have an interview.
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Agree! We appreciate the schools that gave us a month’s notice/exact day and time for the release (Thank you, UMass-Amherst!) Schools with the a slow, drawn-out release in batches (looking at you, URI) or no notice at all (UNH—not even an email notification) make me worry about if these schools actually care about students.
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What annoyed me about URI is that they ALSO had big public hype for batch 1, and then a slow random release after for MANY people. Just do 2 big batches if you need to. That isn’t ideal, but I think would be better than current state. Quinnipiac had 3 release days for EA1. While not knowing which you’d get wasn’t ideal, it was only 3. URI we waited until 1/31 checking all the way through 1/2 of Dec and all of Jan 
For UNH we did niche, which was so nice and early so I can’t be mad:) I know a few UNH parents and they (and their kids) all like it. I heard particularly good things about business program from a (non-business) professor at an ivy (!).
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If anyone here is awaiting WashU RD decisions - according to an email we just received, decisions will come out this Thursday evening, March 13th.
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I hope this is okay to post here, but it should get you 20% off
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