What should Daughter Say?

blossom
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 09:46:21 +0000

We had different kids with different personalities and academic profiles, degree of paranoia, etc. but we had a standard party line which worked great. (But our school, neighbors, etc. were much less overt about asking than the OP’s circle).

“Where is he/she applying?” Answer- “oh, we’re looking at Spelman, Howard and a couple of other obvious choices” (we are not African American). “Why is she looking at those types of schools?” Answer- “She’s nearsighted so we don’t think the Air Force Academy will be interested”. End of discussion.

“What is his class rank?” Answer- “we’re still trying to figure out if his college fund has any money left in it. We’ll get back to you after we’re done crunching those numbers”.
End of discussion.

All delivered with a wide-eyed, friendly look. People don’t really want to ambush you- they are just doing a reality check (your kid is in my kid’s calculus class. My kid is applying to Caltech. If your kid thinks that no-name U’s engineering school is a high reach than are we crazy encouraging our kid to apply to Caltech?) That sort of thing.

But I would not discuss my kids stats or choices with anyone besides the GC or a teacher. Would you like it if your kids told their friends that you didn’t get a raise last year, or had cashed in a CD to pay the mortgage this month?