A Charlotte parent’s role in the college admissions process

In 2012 a student at the University of Cincinnati won a restraining order against her parents for “stalking” her in college.

They had installed spyware on their daughter’s phone and computer, regularly made unannounced visits by traveling over 600 miles to campus, and even met with her dean to accuse their daughter of promiscuity, doing drugs and having mental issues to the point where they were considering court intervention.

In an age where the media has as many terms for overly involved parents as Charlotteans have for Lower South End (tiger moms, helicopter parents, wolf dads, etc.), this anecdote, sadly, hardly comes as a surprise.

Parents are unquestionably a critical component to a student’s college transition but it’s important to delineate what parental action is helpful and what may be detrimental in the admissions process.

What hurts

(1) Sometimes parents, swept up in the college admissions frenzy, push their children to take an excessive number of honors and AP classes. Rigor is great, but excessive rigor only leads to sleepless nights, anxiety and a shortage of time to enjoy one’s high school days. It also may not help one’s admission prospects, at least according to a recent UNC study.

(2) Don’t sweat the summers. Your child doesn’t need to spend his/her vacation doing something absurdly original and high brow. Running with wild boars in Bolivia or hang gliding over the Zambezi River will not win you any more points with admissions officers than volunteering at Hands On Charlotte or scooping together $5 cones at Golden Cow Creamery. Expensive summer programs at prestigious colleges and universities are likewise unnecessary expenditures that add little or no edge in the admissions game. Instead, students should focus on competitive summer programs and other jobs/activities that can offer admission benefits.

(3) Pushing a particular college on your child because you think it will be their golden ticket to the good life is not a helpful or realistic message in the college selection process. It’s vital to look at an undergraduate education as part of a bigger picture. Championing a “University X or bust” mindset will only add undue stress to a student’s life.

What helps

(1) Think of yourself less as the manager of your child’s application process and more as the quality control inspector and deadline enforcer. Students are often self-motivated about their top-choice schools but sometimes get a bit lax formulating a backup plan.

Parents should emphasize the importance of an academic safety school and also a financial safety school. It also helps to put together a timeline of when to submit applications and other important documents, such as transcripts, test scores, supporting materials, etc. If your child seeks to apply to more than a handful of colleges, you’ll quickly learn there are a lot of moving parts and it’s important to be well organized.

(2) Speak candidly with your son or daughter about the financial realities of their college search. Don’t go into this process with an Enron-style business plan and assume that tuition money will fall out of the sky. Most teenagers have about as much financial sense as… well… Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.

Students absolutely need mom and dad’s help and guidance in this area. If loans are going to be part of the picture, parents should have a lengthy and number-driven conversation about how debt will impact young adulthood.

(3) Actively encourage your student to take ownership of the admissions process. As a parent, you should want your student to be invested in his/her college search. Here’s a brutally honest fact: Admissions offices cringe when they see emails from parents asking about the status of “our” application.

As a former college admissions counselor, I always appreciated the student who took the initiative, whether it was by email, phone or even during in-person meetings with their parents close by. Sooner or later, your child will be doing their own laundry, procuring their own meals, and hopefully learning to navigate the world successfully as a young adult. Let them start now.

Final thoughts: Parents should periodically take time to self-assess: “am I appropriately involved or overly involved?” It’s natural to cross boundaries with our children because we love them and want to give them every advantage in life that we possibly can.

However, the first time we catch ourselves going overboard shouldn’t be when the police arrive at our door to deliver a restraining order.