<p>I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about parents who did almost all of the college search and selection process. While I’m not saying that that’s wrong for everyone, I know that personally, I’d go crazy if my parents tried to take charge of mine (not to mention I’d likely end up at a school I hated). </p>
<p>So I’m wondering: who is/was leading the process for you? Why? Would you change/have changed it if you could?</p>
<p>I was in charge of my college search. It was something I enjoyed doing–I wasn’t one of those teenagers who balk and procrastinate about it and pretty much force their parents to take charge. My mom was always researching colleges on her own and telling me about ones that sounded interesting, but that was partly because she’s a high school teacher and likes to be able to advise her students. (There isn’t a whole lot in the way of college advising at my high school.) </p>
<p>I always value her opinion greatly, so I talked to her a lot about different aspects of the various colleges, compared notes, discussed what I wanted in a college… but in the end, there were only two colleges that she insisted that I visit on my college tour back east with my dad–colleges that I wasn’t too sure I liked enough to attend–and she didn’t object at all when I told her that they didn’t impress me much and that I wouldn’t be applying there. She said, “Well, okay. I liked them.” That never meant that I had to like them. :)</p>
<p>Oh, yeah, and then there was my dad, who warned me about the colleges that had produced or encouraged infamous neoconservatives. :p</p>