Letting Grow: Admissions of a College Parent
KUR, CAROL
LETTING GROW ADMISSIONS OF A COLLEGE PARENT CAROL KUR The trunk, which has served until now as the harbinger of summer (its beginning and its end), stands open in her room, spilling over with an...
...We sat at the kitchen table one night, in a marathon session that lasted until 2 a.m., with lists and catalogs and notes on the backs of envelopes and, of course, the trusty Barron's, and finally managed to narrow the list to seven colleges that we wanted to visit, a modest number compared to other families we knew who traveled to as many as twenty...
...It's not just home that they're leaving, it's our values, our set of imposed standards (for good or for ill), and more...
...Or the youngster whose parents have convinced him that he must go to Harvard, only to Harvard, nowhere but Harvard...
...Or with Patrick O'Reilly...
...Our daughter had a pre-prom party...
...Will she come home one day head over heels in love with Wellington Pembroke Wellington III...
...So we worry...
...We'll get seven more like this...
...For on Sunday, we will load the lot along with its owner into a borrowed station wagon for the short but significant journey to the brink of adulthood...
...Ah, nostalgia...
...Now, we hold our breath, hurt when they hurt, hope and pray that if we will it hard enough, life will, most of the time, be a piece of cake, all the while reassuring ourselves that at least we've tried to provide the right ingredients...
...After all, he must know something that's worth knowing...
...And a significant parental concern: cost...
...Distance from home...
...We alternated between screaming .matches and stony silences...
...Fortunately, school vacation was almost over...
...For the others, there are a few things that it is helpful to bear in what's left of the mind...
...The transformation from childhood to a grown-up world is hardly steady and sure...
...A series of frantic phone calls finally gets him a place at the state university, with assurances that he can always transfer after a year or two if he's unhappy...
...It—the process that leads to this climactic day—begins innocuously enough...
...She'll cope, as we will, with the new and dramatic next stage in our lives...
...My husband, meanwhile, kept appearing in the dining room, shaking his head and muttering, "Who typed your college applications...
...On the morning of the 31st, when the three applications were at last sealed, stamped and gingerly deposited at the post office, my daughter spoke to me without the accompanying note of hysteria that had crept into her voice during the previous hellish week...
...It was a good deal simpler when we could kiss the childhood bumps and bruises and make them disappear...
...Why not...
...We worry about our own good sense and patience and wisdom and, yes, acceptance, in learning to cope with life styles and value systems that are different from our own...
...It is called procrastination...
...LETTING GROW ADMISSIONS OF A COLLEGE PARENT CAROL KUR The trunk, which has served until now as the harbinger of summer (its beginning and its end), stands open in her room, spilling over with an astonishing (we differ over this) collection of sweaters and assorted department store bags containing nightgowns, underwear, button-down shirts, permanent press sheets and a handsome, but feminine, twin-size comforter...
...Graduation, with its attendant activities and festivities, is a marvelous opportunity to vent the emotions that have been building all year...
...Does that computer ever make a mistake...
...She is ready...
...And so will we...
...Although we've exchanged voluminous correspondence during that time, we have yet to develop a relationship...
...The applicant (in between taking phone calls) was doing the rough drafts...
...And we all know it...
...It is no exaggeration to say that the last week of 1978 was among the more trying periods of our family's life...
...And, six weeks or so after that effort, it (ETS, the room and the computer) graces us with an ominous square envelope the contents of which will determine, in large measure, a chunk of my child's future...
...They, surely, are better equipped to deal with it than we were...
...there has been an exchange of correspondence with a young woman from a distant part of the country whose mimeographed sheet bore the same information as ours...
...What if I decide to defer for a year and travel around Europe...
...And in two years, when her sister goes...
...They're leaving the comfortable institutional (read Jewish) structure that we've provided...
...Later, even he stopped muttering and started collating...
...And, several days later, at a graduation exercise in which she was asked to read something* our child-woman-daughter reduced an audience to tears when she read from the last few pages of House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin tells Pooh that he can't, you know, do nothing any more, while extracting a promise from Pooh that no matter what happens, he'll always be there...
...The first three applications were due no later than January 1. The straightforward information—name, rank and serial number variety—was easy...
...And how about the story of the willful but determined young optimist who falls in love with the college of her dreams and will apply nowhere else...
...The most creative essay question we heard about this year, devised by an institution to which our daughter did not apply, was, "If you were able to invite three people—contemporary or historical—to dinner, who would they be...
...Combine the importance of the event with the general manic-depressive nature of adolescence and the result is explosive, If we were somehow able to harness the energy (and explore the resource potential) expended in shedding the lakes of tears that must be generated at the thousands of graduations held each year, someone other than tissue manufacturers would surely be richer for it...
...We are shopping, and having lunch together, and she is saying difficult goodbyes to friends who are off to many distant places...
...That may have signaled the first awareness of how fleeting the time really is, because a buzzer went off in my head, just a quiet little buzzer, as I looked at our three daughters and wanted desperately to freeze the moment, preserve it...
...A mimeographed sheet (one of hundreds—it is truly awesome to consider the sheer heft of paper generated by admissions offices) informs us where to deposit our cargo...
...Mom—one of my co-counselors knows my roommate...
...We quickly learned to find a spot in a far corner so that we could size up prospective applicants and their families (while they, no doubt, were similarly engaged...
...Except, of course, distance means nothing in our small Jewish world...
...As D-Day approaches, the tension inevitably builds...
...Approval of the system matters not...
...And if she doesn't call, is that a good sign or a bad sign...
...But, by the first of May, everyone—almost everyone—has a place...
...It is, I suppose, easy to give advice about diaper rash and babies who can't tell the difference between day and night and roseola...
...And there they sat...
...And I'm saving my best—and private—cry for the moment I put the Pooh Bear in the duffle bag...
...I remember an evening, perhaps eight or nine years ago, when we were sitting in a restaurant and someone, a stranger, walked over to our table and said to my husband and me, "We just wanted to tell you what a beautiful family you have...
...She is also procrastinating again, this time about packing...
...Winnie the Pooh, garbed still in the red sweater crocheted at least a dozen years ago ,in a rare moment of domesticity, keeps docile watch from his perch atop the books...
...Well, what if I decide I don't want to go...
...The phone calls became fewer, briefer, hushed...
...Eventually, my friends tell me, I'll accept it, and I'll even learn to feel good about it...
...We worry about hurts and vulnerability, and wonder just how much we should interfere...
...And by the time we wended our weary way to school number seven, our prospective applicant glibly rattled off a set of universal answers to whatever questions the admissions officer could possibly ask...
...Large institution or small...
...Stacked next to the trunk is an assortment of books including a brand new leather-bound dictionary and thesaurus, half a dozen volumes of poetry, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a Bible, Chemistry for the Non-Science Major, and a rather worn copy of Shaaray Tfillah, the new Reform prayer-book...
...It was at about this time that we began to be aware that our daughter was suffering from a new (for her) and disturbing malady...
...Couple the college rounds with the High Holidays...
...But— the nemesis of every college application is the essay question, or questions...
...Naturally, we want them to be the "right" decisions, even as we know that "right" for us may not be at all right for her...
...I imagine it to be a huge room in a vast (windowless...
...How often will she call...
...building (somehow hidden from everyday view in Princeton, New Jersey), in which a massive computer greedily devours not only my checks but also my child's best efforts at filling in the right blanks on reams of standardized tests...
...But so am I. Because I understand that this packing is very different from that which we do each summer for camp...
...When I was pregnant for the first time, I read Dr...
...What-if" is dangerous, and really should be avoided, the experts say...
...He winds up taking a "13th year" at a posh prep school...
...College admissions offices are fascinating places, particularly for people watchers...
...It wouldn't cost you any more than a year of college would...
...Holyoke without telling anybody, then announces to her parents that she's decided to go (with him) to Fitchburg Junior College...
...Defend your choices...
...Take it or leave it...
...What is important is that those early results factor strongly in the next step of the decision-making process—which schools to visit...
...And here we are...
...I keep thinking that someone should have warned me...
...Campus or urban...
...Guess who was doing the final copies...
...I hope...
...But then you will have spent the money that is earmarked for a year of college...
...Thanksgiving slid into December vacation...
...Naturally, everyone who has been through the process is an expert, too, so we deferred to all those experts...
...We know that, for our daughter and for her peers, the next years are abundantly rich with promise and opportunity and options that are practically limitless...
...Scattered about are several bright cardboard boxes whose outer display advertising announce their contents: a hot pot, a popcorn popper, a four-cup coffee maker, a portable electric typewriter...
...It's not that we would wish to turn the clock back, or change what is happening...
...Every senior class in every high school has a horror story—the captain of the soccer team (alias the editor of the school paper) who got 800's on his boards and is fluent in Russian is refused by all of the schools to which he applied...
...Or the one who falls in love with her prom date and turns down bids from Radcliffe, Wellesley and Mt...
...I didn't necessarily accept it all, but I was prepared...
...And our friends and our daughter's friends made helpful suggestions to us and to each other, and we were as guilty of giving as we were crazy from getting...
...events— and the calendar—often control...
...Even the parents, brave and steadfast bit players in the drama of the past months, begin to feel it...
...But when you are, be as tough (and negative) as possible, beginning each answer with something like, "Now, honey, you know there's very little chance that all those terrible things...
...Once we got started, we became greedy for every last scrap of wisdom to be had...
...But try explaining to a devastated youngster why he was refused at the institution that took his classmate who had lower scores, lower grades, and no extracurricular activities...
...But, of course, I wrote the check without flinching, not realizing that it would be only the first of many checks to that organization, or service, that I would write over the course of the next two years...
...We watched, bemused and misty, as she and her friends, with the wave of a magic wand, suddenly appeared as glamorous young sophisticates...
...Spock and everything else I could get my hands on...
...Some are interesting, some are tricky, some are clever...
...But I, with my basic math block, have an inherent distrust of machines...
...On balance, my daughter is much better prepared than I am...
...Not that she was disorganized...
...Child of a working mother (and father), she does not suffer from over-parenting...
...And even though we may still be permitted to influence some decisions, we can be expected to be consulted far less often now...
...A student can program all the important factors, and the machine will spew forth a list of potential institutional candidates...
...And we hope, but are not certain, that the university community will provide a warm and inviting Jewish setting...
...Now I am unprepared...
...For those lucky enough to have a clear first choice, and to be accepted there, springtime is grand and glorious...
...no, in fact, as the applications from each school arrived in their bulky envelopes, each accompanied by a booklet reminiscent of an IRS instruction manual, she carefully filed them in color coded files and stacked them neatly on her desk...
...Is it possible, just possible, that there is ever a mixup in its innards so that my child gets not her batch of magic numbers but those that belong to one of the other hundreds of thousands of people whose checks and little black pencil marks have been fed, fed, fed to the insatiable beast...
...Different from home, but comfortably familiar—a tall order for institutions which must cater to eclectic needs...
...We're with you, Ralph Nader...
...There was one point, I believe it was the evening of December 29, when we had two electric typewriters set up on the dining room table...
...She says she's brilliant, gorgeous, and thinV) So be it, I think to myself as I contemplate our eldest child with as much objectivity as I can muster...
...Mom, you and Daddy were really terrific," she said...
...Most important, there is absolutely no rationale to the process...
...That doesn't make the decisions easier, the compromises less difficult...
...I don't know anybody else whose parents are still speaking to them...
...And sat...
...I nominated the parents...
...We called one university in mid-summer and were told: "October 27 at 10 a.m...
...The importance of an on-campus interview varies from college to college, hence the ease of setting up appointments varies as well...
...In real life, avoiding it is about as likely as finding a taxi in midtown Manhattan on a rainy Friday afternoon...
...Everybody had at least a half a dozen suggestions...
...It was awful, and knowing that ours was hardly a unique experience provided very little consolation...
...With the postmark deadline only hours away, teeth firmly clenched, I was trying very hard to be a model mother...
...Now, I know that some parents are well acquainted with this affliction...
...After the first one or two interviews were behind us, we felt experienced and initiated enough to the process to relax and enjoy it...
...In between moments of reminiscence these days, we have done our best to present a strong and positive front, for ourselves as much as for our daughter, who, predictably, is nervous and very busy now...
...Those visits are not as simple as they appear to be...
...As for me, I could hardly wait to get back to the office—normally a zoo, now a beckoning oasis...
...That's not an option...
...Pooh will always be there, of course...
...a few record albums are propped against the books...
...And before we knew it, it was Thanksgiving...
...Nonetheless, we feel the wrench of this departure...
...have been administered, documented and duly registered at the office of the University Health Department...
...Our manic applicant spent a considerable amount of time on the telephone, comparing notes with her buddies, all of whom were in the same quagmire, trying to determine who among them was in the worst possible state...
...But the transition from active to a much more passive kind of parenting, the withdrawal, the letting go, is far more complex...
...There are other determinants: school grades, possible areas of academic interest, and the youngster's own personal preferences...
...What could they possibly know about going to college...
...It represents a most important leave-taking...
...I am considering having Barron's Guide dipped in bronze as a permanent memento of the experience, but now that we're paying tuition, it may be an indulgence I'll have to forego...
...And we know they'll replace it with something, but neither we nor they can predict the set of options they'll choose...
...It's much too grownup...
...This is what the textbooks say is the beginning of separation anxiety," my husband whispered to me one particularly bad evening...
...We are pleased (and proud) that she—and we—are exactly where we are, at this place and at this season of our lives...
...It will take some time for us to learn what to expect...
...Then, we began consulting secondary sources, the kid next door who applied to six Ivy League colleges and got into all of them...
...Co-ed or single sex...
...With the trauma of applications behind us, we were able to enjoy a brief but refreshing period of relative calm...
...For this child, in all her seventeen-and-a-half years of living, had never before suffered it...
...has been paid, a checking account has been established ("I can't handle this," our suddenly reluctant entering freshman announces...
...On Monday, the room will be neat again...
...But it will be different...
...It is a personal agenda item that, like midlife crisis generally, has to be worked through...
...Because we've heard a great deal about what happens to kids when they leave the nest...
...Does it ever require Di-Gel, Maalox or Pepto-Bismol...
...It is prudent, for starters, to visit schools while they are in session, to really get the feel of the place...
...Directions are sometimes reversed...
...She is independent, resourceful, armed with a healthy sense of self...
...Our experienced friends say that most youngsters, once they get to school, are happy with the place, and that college is as successful as the youngster makes it...
...Battle weary but grateful, we, along with all the other parents of the class of 1983, hastened to mail in our deposit check, lest student or institution have second (or zillionth) thoughts...
...Nobody, but nobody, develops a relationship with ETS...
...The first semester bill covering tuition, room, board, and assorted miscellany ("Good grief...
...Then you'd better come up with a productive (income-producing) plan for next year...
...I was mildly surprised when that happened...
...Don't be opnned into playing What-if...
...I remember looking askance at my parents' friends when they told me how quickly these years would go by, I believed, for some period of time, that I would spend the rest of my life changing diapers...
...And the books—all of us were taught to have great respect for the printed word, so we read all the books...
...Probably not...
...Or at least a good swift kick in the gears...
...In fact, she never needed nudging (pronounced noodging) to do her homework, to practice, or to write thank-you notes...
...Everything is in order...
...Did we get advice...
...It's tough to have perfect faith in anything whose disks are floppy...
...We took it...
...But no two are exactly alike...
...But we don't know for sure...
...So we went to people...
...We even worry about phone calls...
...But that's for another time...
...It seemed to me that I didn't even begin to think about college until I was a senior...
...I have spent many moments these last few days thinking about the early years, when the children were very small...
...First, we went to the real experts, the high school counselor and the private college counseling service...
...What if everybody accepts me...
...Sometime towards the end of the sophomore year of high school, or early in the junior year, the child (it is still safe, at this point, to think of the child as a child) comes to you and says, "I need a check for $12.50 made out to the Educational Testing Service for my Chemistry Board (or for PSAT's, as the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test is so fondly known...
...I listened to advice, good and bad, from many quarters...
...medical examination and required booster shots ("You'd think I was going to a malaria-infested tropical jungle," she grumbles...
...Many high schools are now equipped with (or have access to) computer services as part of their guidance counseling programs...
...Most of the tales are less dramatic...
...There was little to do but wait, and, while we were waiting, to play the What-if Game...
...What if nobody accepts me...
...We worry about the ability of our children to live with the consequences of their decisions, or even to know that their decisions have consequences from which they can no longer so easily be protected...
...The whole thing, of course, is a self-protective device...
Vol. 4 • October 1979 • No. 9
