Learning to Let Go: How Parents can Best Support their Students through the College Process
Ok, I’ll admit it. I was thrilled. These days, my husband and I have less opportunity to be active parents now that our children are out in the world post college, but every once in a while they will still seek our counsel. So, when my 26-year-old son asked me to comment on his essays for business school, my heart felt full. He even went as far as to admit that I am an essay expert. Joy!
As Mark Twain once said, "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
Reviewing his essays was not a privilege he extended to me in 2013 when he was applying to college. Yes, my husband and I read them in their finished form and were even allowed to make a couple of grammatical suggestions, but we were not invited to participate in any way with topic selection or essay development. And that was exactly right. He was at a point in his life where his growing sense of autonomy had to be respected. He needed to let his own voice and vision of the world shine through: imperfectly, as a 17-year-old’s should. Without saying so, he was asking us to trust him - to believe that he could independently manage his own college process. Were other adults involved? Yes, but part of his college journey required that he manage external working relationships with adults who knew what they were doing, and who were not called Mom and Dad.
Giving Your Children Autonomy in the College Process
I would give myself an A for arm’s length parenting during each of my children’s college process - it is in my wheelhouse, after all - but I’d probably only give myself a B (maybe B+) in staying out of their way during high school overall. You’d have to ask my sons, and they might grade me even lower. Mama Bear definitely showed up here and there, and I cringe now at a few of those times. Parents are not perfect, but we operate in a place of love and of wanting what is best for our kids. Balancing that against letting them go, allowing them to make mistakes or watching hard things happen to them, and having the patience to let them handle their world as teenagers, and not fully formed adults, is the essential tension of parenting high schoolers. I know I didn’t always get it right. I doubt any parent does, but we need to try.
Micromanaging is a Failing Strategy
Parents view college acceptance as a can’t fail event, and we seek to control as much of the process as we can, so that our children’s happiness is ensured. Except that in truth, the less parents micromanage the process, the more successful our children’s long-term outcomes will be.
Supporting Your Child While Managing Outcome Expectations
Of course, students need guidance and support; if they didn’t, I’d be out of a job. What they truly need is for us to help them see that they can be happy at lots of different colleges, and that despite what the media tells them, if their goal is to go to college, they will go to college. Parents need to work hard at embracing the reality that trying to secure a specific outcome at a specific college is harmful, because then we are sending the message that if only they do certain things a certain way, they will achieve their dreams (or ours). When that doesn’t happen, and it doesn’t happen for a lot of kids, we have inadvertently set them up to feel failure, which is so sad, because most will be really happy wherever they end up.
How Can I Help my Child Develop Autonomy in the College Admissions Process?
There are many ways to help young adults develop autonomy. In fact, I’d argue we should actually start when our kids are really young. For the purposes of this essay, I’ll limit my advice to the high school years and the college search and selection process.
In general, by the time students are entering high school, they have been involved in many activities. Sometimes, those will remain serious interests. Sometimes not. Lots of students have played an instrument since elementary school. They don’t all want to commit to the band or orchestra. Your daughter may suddenly announce that she is trying out for the high school musical having never before revealed any budding theatrical interest. The high school experience is richer when students are involved in co-curricular life outside of the classroom, and yes, keep them busy in summer, but help them identify their own interests, whether they are long-standing or brand new. Let them choose. Be a guide, be encouraging, and try really hard to forget that you’ve driven 500 hours to club soccer games over the past ten years when they tell you they want to quit.
There will always be that teacher or that class. I am being very hypocritical here, full confession, but resist the temptation to involve yourself until your children have done all they can to solve the issue themselves. The absolute best role you can take is to help them understand what is within their power. Help them email their teacher. Show them extra help resources. Encourage them to meet with their school counselor to change a course or a level, if necessary. And by all means, do not check Power School or Aspen every day. Just don’t torture yourself that way. Trust me on that one.
So, Where Can You as a Parent Make a Difference?
1. Building a College List
Parents, you can be a great help to your kids in identifying colleges (if you aren’t hiring an expert like me). It is critically important to set any parental parameters early, especially when it comes to financial considerations. School counselors know where past students have matriculated. The absolute best guidebook, in my opinion, is the Fiske Guide to Colleges. As I wrote in a previous blog post, the absolute worst guide is US News and World Report. Rick Clark of Georgia Tech just wrote the best article I have ever seen on the topic of rankings. https://sites.gatech.edu/admission-blog/2022/09/15/top-3-reasons-not-to-trust-rankings/ There are lots of really good resources out there. My colleague Steven Antonoff, who practically invented my profession, has a fabulous work book called College Match: A Blueprint for Choosing the Best School for You. Look at Scattergrams to determine academic fit. A word of caution: it is really tempting to focus on prestige, so the real work (for me too) is to identify and generate excitement across a range of colleges.
2. Honoring the Do’s and Don’ts of College Tours
When it comes to visiting colleges, let your child drive the entire process. I mean it. Figure out dates and timelines for trips, but then let them book the information session, tours and interviews themselves. Yes, you can be sitting right there, but the act of filling out the online form themselves, or even calling the admissions office, is a terrific way for them to begin to take ownership over their process. Try really hard not to say “we are interviewing”, or “we are touring”. Maybe don’t post your visits on Instagram or Facebook.
When you get to admissions, stay back and let your kid walk up to the desk to check in.
During a visit to Middlebury College with one of my sons, a parent of a high school freshman completely took over the information session to the point where the admissions representative had to request that all questions going forward needed to be from people under 18. His son was wearing headphones and listening to music. I don’t think I need to say more than don’t be that parent. As an aside, your kids are not graded on their “performance” in an info session (headphone kid excepted). It is really hard to ask a question in a room full of people. If it isn’t natural for them, I truly don’t think it is important to force the issue, and you aren’t moving the ball forward by taking on that role yourself.
3. Remaining Neutral
You might love a college that your kid hates. Even your own college (personal experience). Bite. Your. Tongue. You are not the one who will be spending the next four years there. You might hate a college your kid loves. Same advice.
4. Staying Out of the Writing Process
Do I need to say anything about why it is the worst idea in the world to write, or heavily edit, your kid’s applications and essays? You might think you are being really clever in using the language of a teenager. You are not. I always know. So do college admissions readers. It also sends the message that you don’t think your kid’s own work is good enough. There are really effective ways to help them generate essays that are authentically theirs, and if you don’t think you can do that, there are people who can, like me, or like WOW Writing Workshop, who provide some free resources. https://wowwritingworkshop.com/free-student/
5. Helping them Deal with Disappointment
Disappointment is not uncommon in the college process, especially for high academic achievers. The higher they shoot, the tougher the road. The best way you can help them after an adverse decision is to calm the waters. Let them cry. Let them mourn. And then get them to move on. It will work out. Teenagers do not have the gift of perspective. That’s where parents can really make the difference. There is a wonderful story of a parent who wrote a letter to their child the night before their early decision was being released. The letter stated unequivocally that their love for their child had nothing to do with where they went to college. The parent wrote that no college could ever determine the worth, talent or promise of their child. I’ve adopted a version of that letter which I send to all my seniors, but when it comes from a parent, I think it is especially meaningful.
When it’s Finally Time To Go…
The final challenge for parents in the transition to college is to let them go. You’ll move them into their dorm. You’ll look at their childhood bedroom that is too clean and the empty place at the dinner table, and you will miss them. A lot.
Hopefully, you’ll have given them the tools to solve their own problems or know where to go for help. College can be hard. Resist the urge to jump in unless it is a true emergency. Let them learn to be an adult. Let them own their college years. Cheer them on from the sidelines.
I promise they will always need you. Now, back to those essays to review for my son…
