THE NEUROTIC PARENT™

Take Two: Form Letter for Empty Nesters

Through the years, it seems as if every piece of spring correspondence from school has begun with the ultimate cliché:

It's hard to believe that the school year is almost over.  How the children have blossomed.

It's hard to believe that another year has gone by. It's been such a pleasure to watch your little ones learn and grow. 

Another year...and another...And now no more.  Hard to believe.

As we launch into the circumstance of graduation (our school is not so big on pomp), a dad of an only child remarked that he was determined not to let the sappiness get to him.  Instead, he said, embrace what is to come. This is too important a life passage to give in to the cheap emotions and triteness of all the Last Events: The last Soccer Awards Ceremony.  The last Senior Show.  The last Sports Thank You Dinner.  The last Parent Association Thank You Breakfast (with the Last Swag: the last Thank You mug).  The last Pre-Prom Photo Op.

And last Friday, the Last Day of School. As the bell rang at 3pm, the seniors formed a mosh pit on an outdoor stage, grooved to Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and lit up cigars.  A curious tradition at a P.C. school committed to the environment, but epic nonetheless.

Just the way the kids are telling each other in yearbook messages that they wish they had gotten to know each other better, the parent body has suddenly become inseparable.  We spent Saturday night drinking margueritas and toasting the past at an End of an Era party.  We posted photos of hugging, dancing and chatting with people we've seen around since kindergarten but had never spoken to. 

Still to come is Senior Parent Night.  Something to look forward to: That's when we find out how to become lifelong donors.

And today, we received an interesting proposal in the mail:

Dear Parent,

It's hard to believe that your children's elementary, middle school and high school years have vanished in a heartbeat.  Nothing left but archaic 8mm video footage of Halloween parades, rainy field trips, over-the-top birthday parties, squeaky recitals, dimly-lit plays, windy tournaments, controversial laser tag parties and snowy backpacking trips when everyone returned with H1N1.  And all that artwork you meant to frame, now covered with silverfish in a box in the garage.

We bet you're feeling old, ridiculously old.  What will you do with your time now that you won't be volunteering for your kid's school?  There are no Room Moms at college.  Horrifying to imagine that you'll never be a Parent Association Treasurer or a Little League Dad or International Day Pot Luck Chairperson again. 

So, we have a proposal for you: Adopt!  No need to pine over being stuck with your grumpy spouse when you can be playing Pictionary Jr. and roasting kale with an adorable six-year from Somalia, Bolivia or Guam! 

Just think - a chance for a redo, an opportunity not make the same mistakes again, this time with a child who will cheerfully walk the dog, put on shoes every morning and respect the laws about not driving with friends who are under 17.

And best of all, at birth we can guarantee a place for your sweet new baby in one of the top three colleges of your choice (Screw her - this time you'll choose!)  We'll even throw in a gratuitous online PPPSAT course, appropriate for seven and eight year olds.

So instead of sitting around wallowing in self pity, do something good for the world...and for your high school graduate, who needs to start thinking about his or her law school essay.

Sincerely,

The CB Take II Plan

So....the College Board, feeling regretful about recent events at Packer School, must have purchased our name.  Who would have known that their latest mega screw up could end up not only curing the doldrums of empty nesting, but also benefit the orphans of Somalia?

 

 

 

 

 

He's Leaving Home, Bye, Bye - Take 2

Mr. Neurotic Parent, the only unemotional father in the senior class, has asked me to revise today's post because he thought it was too melancholy.  Will fix it and repost later today.

#Attachment Parenting and other #Trends

Mid-May Questions for the Neurotic Parent:

Q: What are some trends you have noticed about this year's acceptances?

A: Trend 1: Those whose kids were not admitted to the Ivies often described the outcome as "My child didn't get in anywhere." 

Trend 2: Less annoying and more poignant -  Those who were admitted to top schools often ended up choosing "lesser" schools because of better financial aid or merit scholarships.  So far, we have heard of students who chose Oberlin over Columbia, San Francisco State over Oberlin, USC over Brown, and Berkeley over Stanford. 

 

Q: Wait list action?

A: Today, at 12:15pm ET, somebody on College Confidential reported that a student at his or her school received a call from Harvard.  That will officially start the domino effect. 

 

Q: We understand that you are working diligently on a review of your book tour.  Can you give us a preview?  Is it true that Pleasanton, CA is more neurotic than Westport, CT?

A: Pleasanton and Westport have a lot in common -  both scenic, competitive suburbs with stunning libraries. But Pleasanton wins in the stress department: all the kids in town all seemed to live in the library.  No joke - dozens and dozens were still there doing homework at 7pm when my event started.

 

Q: How are you coping with all the end-of-school events leading up to your empty life as an empty nester...all the Thank You Coffees and Lunches, Senior Speak, Senior Dog Day, Senior Parent Night, Senior Show, the End of the Era cocktail party, the Lifers Assembly, the final Parent Association Thank You Breakfast, the last Fundraiser...and, of course, Graduation?

A: The worst part about all of the above is Mr. NP's reaction - other than worrying about money, he is not even slightly affected by this epic transition.  One friend recently blogged that she was "grateful to have (her husband) to share all the bittersweet tears we are shedding at the thought of this stage in our lives ending.  We both started to cry watching a Subaru commercial. It's that bad..."  Hmm...the only thing that could make Mr. NP cry is that he will be forced to spend money in the reactionary state of North Carolina. 

 

Q: What about CJ? What is #trending for college juniors?  That would have to be paid internships - even more of a parenting badge than college offers.  Here on the west coast, students have traditionally been elated to procure $17 an hour positions at WME, Disney, Universal and, of course, MTV.  But CJ's friends are in a whole other category: Many are headed to Deloitte, Morgan Stanley and other I-Banks (truth be told: before CJ went to college, he had never even heard of an I-Bank).  One or two are going to CAA, but to the New York offices.  But the Ivy League of internships would have to be Microsoft and Google...and CJ has fraternity brothers spending the summer at both.  Luckily, he managed to snag a prestigious position as well, because bragging about where your kid goes to college is so 2011. 

 

Q: At what age did you wean your children?

A: CJ at 18 months and GC at 12 months - shortly before I began to think about the college application process.

Lit = Litigation

Thinking of suing a college that didn't accept you?  Take a number.  This could be the hottest trend since the Semester at Sea in Somalia. While in a shop yesterday (returning an outfit I had deemed unworthy for the book tour), I overheard two customers discussing a CNN story about how a girl was taking legal action against Harvard for race discrimination.  

But when I googled the incident, I discovered that "lawsuit" was actually a complaint filed by an Indian-American (as opposed to American Indian - those guys are cool with their admissions decisions) against the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, targeting both Princeton and Harvard.  The complaint, which alleges “discrimination against Asian-Americans on the basis of race/national origin," suggests that those of Asian decent need higher scores to be admitted to top schools than students of other racial groups. I did, however, discover a similar lawsuit filed against UT-Austin that is actually making its way to the Supreme Court. 

And, according to recent research project conducted by the Neurotic Parent Institute, thousands of other parents would like to fight their own kids' rejections in the Supreme Court.  We are compiling the many gripes about the system that came up again and again on the NP book tour and will post the results soon. 

25 Insane Reasons Why Kids Don't Like Certain Colleges

While parents work the waitlists, high school seniors all over the country are agonizing about where to send in their deposits. Students dutifully go on tours at Admitted Student events in hopes of achieving the clarity they need to make lifechanging decisions. But instead of checking out the seminars taught by Nobel winners or evaluating the neuroscience research opportunities, they tend to focus on the prep/goth/nerd quotient or whether you can use your meal points to order a thin crust marguerita pizza.

Here are some of the ridiculous reasons that kids dismiss some excellent colleges:

1. Dislike of archways

2. No Chipotle within walking distance

3. "I don't know anyone there."

4. "I know too many people there."

5. Aversion to tour guides' footwear (five-toed multiport sneakers) or headwear (Sherpa cap)

6. Tour guide too smug ("In my spare time I'm a midwife, and since returning from Uganda, I've started an NGO that installs solar panels in orphanages.")

7. Annoying bell tower

8. Too many Harry Potter references during info session

9. Not enough/too many vegan options in dining hall

10. Aversion to architecture: too Georgian, too Gothic, too Taco Bell

11. Too many mentions of how Oceanography course changed tour guide's life

12. Tour guide's resemblance to Justin Bieber

13. Too many homeless people

14. Professors look like homeless people

15. Aversion to upstate NY ("Upstate NY is for camp, not college")

16. Tour guide's repeated mention of a cappella groups and/or squirrel clubs

17. Rain

18. Woodland creatures: deer, raccoons, skunks

19. Aversion to school colors

20. Townies reminiscent of characters in Deliverance, Big Love, or Jersey Shore

21. Mean parking attendant

22. Long line for the ellipticals at the gym

23. Lame Latin words in school motto

24. Emma Watson transferred out

25. School is parents' first choice

 

College or Coachella

Last week was our final twelfth grade parent coffee.  Over quiche and muffins, more than thirty of us giggled about how we were once concerned about our kids hanging out on the Third Street Promenade, a neighborhood outdoor shopping mall with unsavory offerings like Pottery Barn, Old Navy and J. Crew. You would think the kids were visiting a real Banana Republic, the way we used to worry. 

We discussed prom (including last year's unfortunate "Promit" bus experience), graduation, grad night, summer plans, and then the conversation turned to the inevitable.  Someone suggested that we go around the room and each share where our children intend to matriculate. 

The list of schools was so impressive that you would never know that this was the Most Difficult Year to Get into College in the History of the World - Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, B.U., WashU, Michigan, Indiana, NYU, Barnard, GW, Tulane, WashU and more.  At least 25% were still deciding: Middlebury or Wesleyan? Columbia or Duke? Tufts or Johns Hopkins or NYU? Lewis & Clark or Bard?  Bennington or Berkeley? One harried mom said her daughter had applied to 21 schools and was now choosing between ten.

There was much discussion about the pros and cons of the life-changing decisions, even offers from certain parents to help kids get off waitlists.  But there was one course of action that was crystal clear: If a child had a choice of attending an admitted students weekend (even one that offered a free plane ticket), or the three-day/two-weekend desert music festival Coachella, there was no choice.  In every case, Coachella was the obvious winner.

The Neurotic Parent Institute has seized upon this opportunity to help the undecided.  We have contacted the festival sponsors, and next weekend, Coachella attendees will be awarded access to a Collchella Tent (next to the Red Bull concession, accessible on Sunday shortly before midnight, in between the performances of Pulp and Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg). Deciding seniors will be issued wristbands representing the colors of the schools they are considering, and will be able to chat with other festival goers who can provide real information about campus opportunities about what teens are really looking for in a school: insufferably loud beats, video games, hook-ups, illegal substances and mosh pits.

 

Why Your Brilliant Child Didn't Get into the Ivies

Last Thursday, decisions from top colleges were delivered electronically to stressed-out high school seniors. By early evening, more than 90% of those who had applied to the eight Ivy League schools plus their partners-in-prestige, Stanford and MIT, had received a gently worded "Good luck elsewhere." Or, even worse, "waitlist status," which means sending a deposit check to a fourth choice institution, procuring a letter of recommendation from Nelson Mandela and spending the summer in limbo.

These new Ivy rejects are far from slackers. They're incredible kids with impressive resumes -- 2,350+ SATs, straight As in their 16 APs, debate champions, flute soloists and MVPs. Parents who have been dreaming of an Ivy education for their kids since conception are scratching their heads, trying to figure out what went wrong.

So, why didn't your child get in?

1. She's a girl. Fact: Female applicants are, plain and simple, better students. (I'm not sexist -- check the statistics!) And girls are more apt to take ownership of the "process." They require less adult help, making their applications seem more authentic... and heightening the competition.

2. Your child is a BWRK (bright, well-rounded kid). These days, colleges want a well-rounded class instead. Lopsided kids are beloved... Renaissance children? Not so much. It's a lot easier for an admissions officer to convince the rest of the committee to admit a trapeze artist than a yearbook editor.

3. Your child's application stinks of privilege. You had the best of intentions when you sent your son or daughter to Oxford last July to read the classics. But guess what? The colleges, who eventually are happy to accept your $200,000, aren't thrilled about $11,000 summer programs, even the life-changing ones. Outward Bound now looks dubious as well -- it used to be about achieving clarity through eating bark, but now could be a euphemism for "troubled teen." And forget those service opportunities in Central America -- the whole isthmus is now frowned upon.

4. A lame essay. Admissions officers are sick of reading essays about the challenges of building a latrine in Guatemala (see above) or how "I found the people of (insert name of developing country) to be exactly the same as in my home town of Greenwich, CT."

5. Not enough leadership. Although team players are in demand in the real world, colleges seek those with a Machiavellian spirit. Colleges are also fans of "rigor," but they are averse to "robots" who studied so hard that they're now boring and obedient.

6. Not enough research experience. If I were a college professor, the last thing I would want is a messy, smelly high school student hanging around my lab. But the kids who get to do this win out.

7. The whole process is random and arbitrary. The admissions people, who say they consider each applicant "holistically" and pay no attention to who needs financial aid, are actually sitting in a room eating pizza and throwing darts. So find solace in the fact that they've rejected your brilliant child for no good reason at all.

What now? Send in your deposit to a great non-Ivy (there are many) and never look back. And if your own alma mater dissed your kid, you can take out your anger by burning your sweatshirts and tearing the license plate holder off your car.

 

Waitlist for You: Top Ten Neurotic Sound Bites

Nothing seemed to work this year at certain colleges, even wealth, legacy status or perfect scores.  The phone has been ringing, and this is what people are saying:

1. "The college counselor told my son's friend that he shouldn't even apply to Stanford, and he got in. But nobody else did from his school, including the son of a big angel investor guy."

2. "Harvard was a big diss because she's not only a legacy, but someone who could absolutely do the work."

3. "He had off the chart scores and grades, and found out that he was 1/16 Mohegan, just in time to put it on his application.  Got into Johns Hopkins, but waitlisted everywhere else."

4. "He never did anything interesting for summers, ever.  But he got into Yale and a full scholarship at Annenberg."

5. "This is a kid who had 800s on everything, a debate champion and fourth or fifth generation at Princeton, he wasn't even waitlisted."

6. "In a four-hour period last Thursday she was shut out by four Ivies, as well as Williams and Tufts."

7. "I hope she likes Vassar well enough to stay on the wait list."

8. "He had over 790 on four SAT IIs, but was waitlisted at Harvard, Brown, Williams and Georgetown (which was her safety)."

9. "From our daughter's school, you need to play golf or water polo to get into Stanford."

10. "She was rejected, not even waitlisted, although she's written for TED and had a letter of recommendation from Arianna Huffington."

Depressing, right?  Maybe not.  According to top independent college counselor Kat Cohen, "While the admissions data can be intimidating, there is no need for students to panic. There are 3,700 colleges in the US, and more than 80 percent accept over half of their applicants. So while Harvard's 5.9 percent acceptance rate might seem discouraging, rest assured that there are literally hundreds of excellent schools you may never have heard of, which offer great opportunities to reach your academic and personal goals." 

Wise words, Kat.  But somehow I cannot imagine Harvard hopefuls ever reaching their personal goals - and those of their parents - at schools they have never heard of.

 

 

Neurotic Decisions

As kids agonizingly log in over and over again to find out results, parents compulsively email the Neurotic Parent.  All these missives arrived unsolicited, with some moms and dads requesting that I help make life choices for their children.  Below is a sampling of the emails and FB messages I received today from all over the country.  Common themes: 1) There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to these decisions. 2) Kids no longer celebrate their acceptances on Facebook, but their parents do!

----

M got into Berkeley, NYU Gallatin, and Reed. BTW, she was rejected a few days ago by Pitzer and Pomona. Anyway, she has to choose between Berkeley and Gallatin. What would u do?

-----

Don't know about the Ivys yet as he is at a friends and will be home when he feels like it.   I have to say this has been one of the most stressful periods in my life!!!!!!!!!!!  With regard to everything else, he got into Northwestern, USC with a full tuition scholarship, Fordham with full tuition scholarship, BU with a $20,000 scholarship. 

Then, an hour later:

He got into Brown and is ecstatic! He did not get into Yale. 

-----

A's getting offers!  Chicago art institute offered her a $60,000 merit scholarship first.  Then came offers from RISD, Lewis and Clark, Carnegie Mellon, Reed and Oberlin offered her a $48,000 scholarship.  We're thrilled but still waiting to hear from Cooper Union...Wesleyan turned her down which is fine.  She's thinking of RISD, Thoughts of taking a gap year are rapidly disappearing as excitment over RISD takes its place, so nice to see.

---- 

C has BU, Wisconsin, Drexel and SFU to choose from.  He still hasn't heard from NYU and Michigan...all nice choices.

 

Personally, we were dazzled by Drexel's presentation this weekend, but C hated it. 

 

As for those other 5 or 6 schools he got into, what a waste of time!  So DUMB to apply to so many schools.  What's the point of 6 backups?

-----

something's got to give. and I don't mean the server. How cruel is it when the school's server goes down as soon as prospective students are "invited" to login for status? Five hours later it still wasn't working and then... drumroll...

-----

 h got 8 out of 11 acceptances - so we're deciding between penn> state/delaware/binghamton/pitt and james madison.  anywhere pop out to you?

----

J's entire hs ,his gf and a dozen others SLAUGHTERED today:( 

---

And, here's an embarrassment of riches:

> Rejected at Brown
> Waitlisted at Vassar
> Accepted at:
> Barnard
> USC
> Stanford – financial aid TBD
> Princeton – with $26,000 financial aid
> Yale - $6,000 financial aid
>
> Berkeley – not in yet
>
> Can you believe it????

----

Not everyone has reported back.  Waiting for a happy tweet from a reader in Pig Latin.  (The previous one was "ix-nay on esleyan-way.")

----

THERE'S MORE:  Parents are out of control on Facebook, listing acceptances and asking for opinions. Here are two more (thanks to SSO for the "shares")

O has final word on colleges as of today. 10 acceptance letters! Here's
her options:

UC Berkeley, Barnard, Reed, Lewis & Clark, Bryn Mawr, Oberlin, Tulane, UC
Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis.

Now it's decision time. Which one should she choose?

---

Here's a post from a mom who didn't ask for input, but couldn't resist providing the names of the various scholarships her daughter received.  I have a feeling she's not choosing Muhlenberg, but hey, why not add it to the list.

Joining D in being SO proud of K-
Kluge Scholar at Columbia University, Martin Luther King,
Jr. Scholar at NYU Tisch, Northwestern, Barnard, USC, Muhlenberg and
others-- (proud of all her amazing friends, too! What a group!)

 ---

> OK, the 2012 college tally is in:

> YES: CAL, Georgetown, UCSB (with $6,000 a year for 4 years)

> YES, but don’t show up until next Spring: USC

> Waitlist: UCLA

> NO SOUP FOR YOU:  Stanford, Brown
---

And, breaking news - this about the son of the ex-girlfriend of a colleague:

my ex girlfriend - told me her kid just got into harvard and yale.

he's at exeter - so it figures.

---

How to Plan a College Tour from Hell

Congrats to GC's friends on their recent acceptances to GW, Wisconsin, Michigan, Swarthmore, Colgate, UCSB, UCSD, McGill, NYU, BU, Bard, U of Miami, Pitzer, Columbia, WashU, Julliard and Deep Springs (plus the EAs/EDs at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Tulane, Bard, Lewis & Clark, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Dartmouth, Cornell, Grinnell, Wesleyan, WashU, GW, BU and NYU). 

SAT Word of the Day: RESCIND.  Seniors, Please hold off on the slacking!

---

On to the next generation of neurotics:

If you have a high school junior, you're probably ready to hit the road on an iconic bonding trip with your disengaged teen.  Here are ten surefire tips to help organize a journey that will turn off your student to higher learning and destroy your relationship forever:

1. TRAVEL DURING THE FIRST WEEK OF APRIL

Although one would expect glorious, or at least pleasant, weather during this early spring week, there will most likely be an ice storm in Ithaca, a blizzard in Bloomington, gale force winds in Providence and torrential flooding in Seattle.

2. BEGIN YOUR TOUR AT A COLLEGE THAT IS 400 MILES FROM THE NEAREST MAJOR AIRPORT

Start at Middlebury College in Vermont.  Because this excellent school lies off the grid, there is no easy way to get there, and your Garmin will spend the whole trip "recalculating."  By the time you arrive, your family members will not be talking to each other. 

3. IGNORE CHECK-OUT TIMES AT LOCAL HOTELS

Beware: Many sweet, charming inns are owned by their sweet, charming neighboring colleges.  If you don't show up at noon for check-out, you will receive a nasty text on your cell...which will be forwarded to the admissions office.

4. ARRANGE FOR YOUR STUDENT TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN A DORM WITH A "REAL" STUDENT

This sounds like a good idea, but will surely backfire.  If the college sets up the visit, the host will be so chipper and clean cut that your teen won't even want to apply.  But if your child stays with a friend, especially on a Wednesday (which is the new Thursday) and has too good a time with a borrowed fake ID, you won't be very motivated to write a check for $200k.

5. SIGN UP FOR AN 8:00AM INFO SESSION

Beware of undercover admissions officers who track yawning, squirming and snoozing.

6. ASK OBNOXIOUS QUESTIONS THAT WILL MORTIFY YOUR CHILDREN

Example: "Theoretically, if a student has taken every AP offered by his school, and has patented a non-surgical method to remove bunions, will you waive your four-year language requirement?"

7.  CHOOSE A TOUR GUIDE WHO HAS DISCOVERED A GALAXY

The smugger the tour guide, the less interested your teen will be in the school.  Other turn-offs: studded headbands, pink polos with popped collars, black nail polish, Sherpa caps, Uggs on males, preppy ponytails and persperation issues. Also overuse of any of the following terms: civic-minded, power of ideas, neuro-globalization and intellectual cross-training.

8. HAVE YOUR STUDENT CONTACT A PROFESSOR ABOUT SITTING IN ON A CLASS

If the class is fascinating, your teen will want to attend the school, but will probably not be able to get in.  And if it is dull, your child will be turned off to college, and will instead sign up to work on an organic farm. 

9. BRAG TO OTHER PARENTS ABOUT YOUR STUDENT'S VALEDICTORIAN STATUS

Sadly, colleges are equally braggy about the large quantity of vals they turn down.

10. BOOK NONCHANGEABLE FLIGHTS

After touring three universities, your son or daughter will have had enough.  He or she will want you to skip the next twelve schools on your itinerary and hop on a plane to the Turks & Caicos for a proper spring break....but unfortunately, you booked those seven nonrefundable flights! 

 

 

Dear Neurotic Parent

Since the publication of the book, we have received a great quantity of urgent queries from parents.  The most common recent questions are:

Q: What if my son or daughter does not get in anywhere? Have you ever heard of this happening?

A: Hate to keep you up at night, but we do know of a student who did not receive even one acceptance.  But he eventurally got into Williams off the waitlist, so all the stress was probably worth it.

--

Q: Did you get Cosmoderm for your book party?

A: No, just a blowout and some very pricey concealer.

--

Q: Which was more bittersweet, the last soccer game or the last pot luck? 

A: No contest. There will be more kale salad in my future.  CIF State soccer championships, not so likely.

--

Q: What do I tell everyone at the fundraiser when they ask where my daughter is attending college (she was deferred ED)? 

A: Change the subject.  Talk about how hard it is to type on your new iPhone.

--

Q: Is it selfish to apply to Swarthmore RD if you've already been accepted to Yale EA?

A: That is a question for the Neurotic Ethicist.

--

Q: What has been the best sound bite from the book tour so far?

A: The Director of Admissions of Columbia, a terrific guy and a fan of the book, attended our launch party in New York and stayed for the entire evening.  And he shared these words of wisdom with the crowd of anxious parents surrounding him: "What is my title? Director of Admissions, not Director of Rejections."

--

Q: Do you know anyone on the board of Brown?

A:  Could be.  Will answer definitively after you post a good review on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

College Timeline for Neurotic Parents

Here is a private tweet that I just received from a follower:

Q: I have ordered your book, but frankly, with all the stress involved preparing my junior for applying for colleges, I doubt if I will have the time to read it.  Is there any way you can provide a timeline of what I should do when?

A: If your child is a junior in high school, you are a tad late to begin preparing. But just in case you want to agonize about all the missed opportunities, here is a brief summary of what to do when:

ONE MONTH BEFORE BIRTH -- Travel to Dhaka, so your baby will qualify for Bangladeshi citizenship.

BIRTH -- Send APGAR scores to the colleges you will be considering in 17 years.

EIGHT MONTHS -- Hire a college counselor and invest in the Platinum Package. The first challenge will be to get you on wait lists for the most selective preschools in your area.

2.3 YEARS -- Begin Junior Kumon.

3.8 YEARS -- If you discover that your preschooler is singing "Wheels on the Bus" rather than discussing Quantum Physics, consider suing the school.

4.5 YEARS -- Start contributing to a 529, which will be worthless when your child goes to college, but will give you something to complain about at dinner parties. Or get a job with salary increases of 6 percent a year so you can keep up with the cost of tuition.

6 YEARS -- If your child shows a proclivity for something "normal" like piano, soccer or dance, find a good therapist. He or she will need an interest like bioinformatics to be competitive during the college process.

12.8 YEARS -- Now is the time to reserve tutors for the PSAT, SAT, ACT, GREs, MCAT and LSAT. Prepare yourself for the reality that, even with a GPA of 5.8 and an SAT of 2370, your child will most likely be deferred, rejected or wait-listed.

NINTH GRADE -- Quit your job! The college search and application process will take all of your time and energy from now on.

TENTH GRADE -- Move to Oklahoma. That will not only decrease your mortgage, but also make it a lot easier to gain admission to selective colleges. Once there, have your child organize a fundraiser for the Chicasaw Nation. Then, force your student to forget about a fun teen life and complete all the other grueling tenth grade stuff that top colleges want: hours and hours of standardized exams, dozens of APs and multiple national honors. Don't forget about kissing up to teachers and school counselors. Continue involvement in an unusual sport. And for important tournaments, make sure most of your teen's competitors are on the injured list.

ELEVENTH GRADE -- You know the drill: Rural or Urban? Large or Small? Rah Rah or Nerdy? Come up with a dream college list and go on an eight-state bonding tour with your teen, who will rarely want to leave the car. Invest in a storage unit to keep all the brochures about environmental studies programs that arrive in the mail. Teach your child how to send an email without using the salutation, "Hey." Employ David Sedaris for essay editing. Hire a Summer Activity Specialist to find space in an innovative, yet down-to-earth program that the college admissions people haven't seen before.

TWELFTH GRADE -- Congratulations! Your teen has survived 18 APs, 28 applications, 17 test sittings, 39 supplemental essays, seven awkward alum interviews and nine hours filling out the FAFSA/CSS. The reward? Several acceptances in colleges that are no longer of interest because the tour guides had mullets. If your child is wait-listed, ask the Dalai Lama for an additional letter of recommendation. But at least you can be grateful that at least he or she is IN! Donate the TI-83 Calculator to the homeless, dust off those BB&B coupons and buy a memory foam mattress topper. And before you know it, it will be graduation time, so make sure your child begins filling out those barista applications now.

Advanced Separation and Hovering Strategies

 

Last week I attended Senior Separation Night at GC's school. About twenty of us showed up for a poignant evening with the school counselor and the lifeskills teacher (yes, the school offers a lifeskills curriculum, although our son has yet to master the life skill of loading a dishwasher).

I cannot share specifics about what anyone said, of course. But I can say that all of us are more freaked about separating from our kids than they are about leaving us.  We sat in a circle and participated in a council, each sharing a memory about how it felt for us to leave home at age eighteen. There were a few emotional moments, but the common theme was that we had all separated with a heartfelt "Hasta Luego, Mom and Dad - Will be sure to call every Sunday, if there's not too long a line for the dorm phone."

So off they go, and here we stay.  Suddenly we are left pining away for them, waiting for them to call.  One mom said she already feels the onset of an unrequited love of sorts, compared to what she knew before. That is all I can tell you about the evening. Otherwise, I'd have to kill you. But I can say that what's in store for us doesn't seem nearly as appealing as what's in store for them.  

And...as involved as we are in our kids' lives now, it didn't seem as if anyone in the room was in danger of becoming a Velcro parent (even more attached than a hovering helicopter) once our kids are in college.  Or will we? 

---

A piece today in Salon discusses the extreme overparenting of kids.  A professor/mom at Drexel University discloses that her two daughters attend school where she teaches, but she doesn't even know which courses they're taking, and when they text asking for dandruff shampoo, it's just a joke.  Here is what she's observed:

- Out-of-control use of the plural pronoun "we" during the application process.

- Parents requesting to attend advising meetings

- Parents who spend hours watching surveillance cameras at their kids' schools, hoping for a sighting

- One humiliated boy had to take a photo of himself in the library holding up a newspaper with the current date, as in a hostage situation, because his mom did not believe he was actually studying.

- And.."The vast majority of my students talk to their parents three times a day or more."

Wait a minute! Our son CJ has never phoned us thrice in a day. In fact, he has only called three times since January 8th, when he returned to school for the spring semester.  And two of those calls (from random friends' phones) were to let us know that he had lost his phone!  I reread the Salon piece.  Could it be that the Drexel kids come from more neurotic cities than Los Angeles?  I can honestly say that I do not know one parent who spends his or her day watching campus surveillance footage.  Here is what we do instead:

- Use the pronoun "we" when discussing our pilates classmates

- Gather up the nerve to to online to glance at our kids' schedules, only to find out they have changed their passwords

- Force our kids to take photos holding up newspapers to prove that they are at least reading something, after all the money we've spent on their education

- Spend hours screening our friends' movies, so we can say something nice, hoping they'll give our kids a killer summer internship  

We do, however, text our sons and daughters.  But it's usually to remind them NOT to read texts while driving.

 

Toxic Levels of Obsession

It is mid-February.  Your son has written an update email to his top eleven choices describing his recent gig as a guest trapeze artist for Cirque du Soleil.  You've procured an additional letter of recommendation from Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  And the guy you flew in from MIT managed to help your daughter bring her physics grade up to an A-. 

 

What now....other than Valium?

 

How about indulging in some pleasure reading, like this piece from the HuffPost?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-gaines/obsessed-with-kids-college-choices_b_1207505.html

The author, Deborah Gaines, examines WHY we're obsessed, and cites some compelling examples of over-the-top-obsession, including an anecdote about the mom of a B student who took a leave of absence from work to manage her son's college search.  But Gaines doesn't provide a substantive way to calculate one's degree of obsession. 

So, the Neurotic Parent Institute has appointed a task force to develop a definitive quiz that will scientifically prove whether you are indeed too consumed with the process, and if you need to start thinking about getting a life.  If you can answer "yes" to four or more of these questions, you are indeed obsessed, and might need an intervention, like a community service trip to Ethiopia (business classs flights included).

 

1. Can you determine whether a 2310 SAT is better than a 34 ACT without looking at a concordance chart?

2. Can you recite the top 15 colleges on the U.S. News rankings list, as well as their supplemental essay topics for 2011-12?

3. Can you identify the following terms and abbreviations: LAC, BWRK, HYPSM, need blind, Twin XL?

4. Can you give accurate directions to Middlebury College?

5. Can you competently create new versions of the common app while on the phone?

6. Can you pinpoint the places on a map where there have been SAT cheating scandals, by both students and colleges?

 

The Neurotic Parent Institute has procured a limited amount of gifts for the Truly Obsessed.  If you have answered "yes" to all six questions, let us know and we'll send you a fabulous promotional pen in a faux velvet case.

 

Calculator Shopping, the night before the SAT

Check out the College Inc., the Washington Post's College Blog, for today's guest post by the Neurotic Parent.

 

Guest post: Calculator shopping, the night before the SAT

In this book excerpt, our guest blogger gives a brief history of college entrance testing and explains the difference between “aptitude” and “assessment.”

February 7th - Amazon Pre-Order Day

Tuesday, February 7th is Amazon Pre-order day - The Amazon computers will notice and create a buzz if they receive lots of pre-orders at once. So if you don't have a local bookstore or if you're in a non-neurotic city where we're not sponsoring an event, today is the day. No pressure...but we do have two tuitions to pay.

http://www.amazon.com/Neurotic-Parents-Guide-College-Admissions/dp/098345941X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328598043&sr=8-1

Senioritis Reaches Epidemic Proportions

It's official: Seniors from all over the country have completed their first semester and are coming to grips with the fact that, at this point, it's probably too late to do anything about getting into college.  So why bother doing anything at all?

According to UrbanDictionary.com, senioritis is "an illness that strikes high school seniors; symptoms include procrastination, laziness, excessive absences and tardies, a change in normal attire, pranks and multiple, multiple skip days. The only known cure is graduation."

Yesterday marked the official start of the Senioritis season.  As twilight falls on their high school careers, and our slothful, slovenly, tardy kids are shopping, attending Super Bowl parties and partaking in other activities we got to enjoy as teens. So no parents can move on to freaking out about the following - a sampling from the Neurotic Parent hotline:

1) "I've told my son he can go on a Eurotrip this summer with his friends, but he's too lazy to plan it."

2) "He's received his grades, but put them in his backpack, which he lost at the Wilco concert."

3) "She's been in her room crying because she has decided to end her relationship with her boyfriend now, to spare herself the agony of breaking up right before college."

4) "She's planning a senior project that involves analyzing owl feces and rodent mucus....in our garage."

5) "He has decided to go to Coachella rather than run the bingo game at the Hopi community center."

6) "She applied for a job at Jamba Juice, but showed up carrying a Diet Coke."

7) "His AP History exam came back full of doodles of unicorns."

8) "He has been wearing the same sweatpants for six days."

9) "He was 15 minutes late for his Johns Hopkins interview because he couldn't find two shoes that matched."

and...

10) Senior Moment Senioritis: "Sorry, I don't remember you telling me I had to pick up my sister from dance.  Chill, Mom, she'll be fine in the parking lot by herself."

Here's the Trailer

Will let you know when "the making of" is posted.  BTW, the very cool actress told us she was lucky to get her older child (3.5) into a preschool in Pasadena whose philosophy is "non-violent parenting," presumably unlike the outdated violent parenting we all practiced in the '90s.  The core of the movement is no timeouts, no bribes and no punishment (which our generation euphemistically called "consequences").  Hope these compassionately parented kids will be able to handle the brutalities of the college admissions process.

 

Colleges are Human too - Vassar Edition

This NYT piece discusses a bizarre deja vu-ish admissions disaster that occured a few years ago at UC San Diego.  Apparently, the Vassar admissions people were "testing" their Early Decision II acceptance page and posted it the online accounts of 76 kids whom they meant to deny.

After receiving the temporary good news, the applicants were sent a message citing a “system error" and an apology for the mistake.  Sweatshirts, mugs and champagne had been purchased for naught, and the acceptees' elation soon turned into depression.  One girl, whose intent was to study computer science, was grateful for the karma of the event, though, and recognized the error as a blessing in disguise. 

“I want to major in computer science,” she's quoted as saying in an email, “and Vassar doesn’t even know how to use a computer on the biggest day of our lives.”

The Neurotic Parent Institute has organized an emergency task force to assist the parents of the 76 students affected by the Vassar error.  We will be offering ongoing therapy, as well as hand-holding for dealing with Vassar customer service agents (should you be polite or threaten to sue?).  We fully expect Vassar to generously offer a consolation package to the wronged studentes, including certificates for attendance at an Environmental Science lecture, lunch at Sbarro and a coupon redeemable for a shotglass at the bookstore.

nytimes.com

 

My First Review

While I work on "Tales from the 12th Grade Final Potluck," take a look at this:

 www.nacacnet.org

 

 

Turn Defer into Prefer with the right emails

Deferred from your top choice school?  Here's the latest from the NYT, although I don't recommend reading it if you attend a top prep schol in the east...or the west...or anywhere else in the country.  Here's a quote:

So in certain precincts of Manhattan, parents of those who were deferred or rejected in December have been swapping stories ever since about the seemingly perfect senior at the Spence School who did not make the cut (“If not her, who?” lamented one parent) and the six Brearley School girls who were deferred from Yale (“I thought Yale loved Brearley,” cried another, pointing out that 20 Brearley graduates have gone to Yale in the last five years, more than any other university).

What to do if you're deferred?  According to the latest newsletter from Application Boot Camp, you might have a greater chance of eventually getting in this year because the new trend is to reject unqualified applicants outright.  But you can't just sit around. You need to get good grades, collect additional recommendation letters and engage in a full-fledged self-promotion campaign.  Here's what they advise:

Write a letter reaffirming that the college is still your first choice, send an extra letter of recommendation, make sure your grades go up and send updates about what you are doing in school.  The only deferred kids who end up being accepted are those who make themselves into polite pests.

More specifically, by the middle of February, draw up a one-page letter reaffirming your interest in the college, and then submit a bullet-point list of all the earth-shattering news/awards that you have won. 

Having trouble figuring out what to write?  Are you just a normal kid with few, if any, earthshattering news/awards?  No worries.  The Neurotic Parent Institute has come up with several adaptable templates, which we will share with you free of charge:

"The knitting club I founded has now produced sweaters for an entire colony of freezing penguins in Antarctica.  I have won a Golden Needle award for my efforts."

"I am proud to let you know that I am now shadowing an ENT at Cedars Sinai Hospital, and I have just assisted in my first septoplasty (repair of a deviated septum)."

"Since my deferral, I have composed a series of trombone concertos, one of which will be perfomed this season by the Cleveland Symphony."

"During spring break I plan to travel to Chinle, AZ, where I have organized an Intertribal, multigenerational pow wow.  I have received an advance to write a book of poetry about the event, tentatively titled "Meditations of Harmony and Wonder," and I intend to donate the profits to Habitat for Humanity."

and, finally:

"My grades, unfortunately, have not improved, and the only award I have won was 'Customer of the Month' at the Verizon store, after losing or damaging seven iPhones in a three-week period.  But I thought it would be of interest that my grandma's foundation plans to finance a state-of-the-art neuroscience lab at the university that I ultimately attend."

Neurotic Resolutions

1. Meditate, Zumba, Detox...anything to keep my mind off the scholarships at the schools GC turned down.

2. Do not allow myself with 100 meters of Bed, Bath and Beyond.  Send my son to college with ratty sheets from home - he'll never notice

3.  Look into volunteer opportunities for worthier causes than committees at my kids' schools.

4. Figure out how to hack Naviance to find out real statistics; charge for this service.

5.  Throw out seven years' worth of college brochures.

6.  Donate SAT prep books to neighborhood preschool.

7. Buy a small farm near GC's college town.

8. Read books instead of lurking on accepted students' page of GC's new university.

9. Translate this blog into Mandarin and Hindi - charge a hefty subscription fee.

10. Upload twenty years of childhood videos and photos.  Prepare for a melancoly life as a teary empty nester.

 

 

 

The Neurotic Parent in Teen Vogue

What to do if deferred?  Check out the NP's expert advice in Teen Vogue.

 

Applying to America's Douchiest Colleges

We are on vacation in Mexico, trying not to think about colleges - not an easy task in a group that includes three university students, a high school senior, a high school junior and two recent college graduates.  And, whenever we go for a walk on the beach, we run into anxious parents who we know from home whose kids were recently denied or deferred. 

Last night we had our annual Yankee Swap gift exchange. Those of us anticipating the release of "The Neurotic Parent Guide to College Admissions" were thrilled to see that humor books are hot, at least until our local Barnes and Noble closes. "The History of the World According to Facebook" and "Stuff White People Like to Talk About" were coveted items, along with a compelling tome called "America's Douchiest Colleges."  This mean and nasty guide published by Chronicle Books proves, once and for all, that this whole application thing is out of control because if, by some miracle, you're actually admitted to your dream school, before you know it, you'll probably just become another douchebag, or at least be surrounded by them.

What is a douchebag?  According to the authors of ADC, "You're a douchebag...if you're packing up your mom's Volvo and headed off to a college where the only thing more popular than saving Darfur is vacationing in Nantucket." 

Here's what the book has to say about alma maters and the colleges attended by those in our group:

Yale - Unofficial Motto: We're one horny bunch of nerds. 

Penn - Unanswerable question posed by this douche: Seriously, what kind of douche knows he wants to work on Wall Street when he's 17 years old?

Trinity College - The "I murdered someone at Exeter with a nine iron, but I had a really good lawyer and my dad got me in here" douche.

Michigan - Unofficial Motto: If it weren't for Berkeley we'd be the best state school in the country! Oh, and UVa.  And possibly North Carolina.  But not Wisconsin (right?)

Duke - Unofficial Motto: A beautiful campus built by people who profitted from lung cancer.

 ---

The Douchiest List goes beyond dissing the preppy schools.  Intellectual hubs such as Reed and U of Chicago are mentioned, as are groovy places like Brown, Bard, Oberlin, Bennington, Colorado College, Weslayan, and even Deep Springs. So are random schools in the "territory of Canada, including McGill, home of the "passively bilingual douche." 

So, have we been angsting about how to get our kids into these places for naught?  Will U.S. News get their hands on this guide and cause Harvard, Amherst, Princeton and MIT to fall in the ratings? 

The Neurotic Parent is hoping to halt the impending douche crisis before the only nondouchy school in the hemisphere is Slippery Rock State (not mentioned in the book). Because the quasi-anonymous authors discuss the fact that "Some douches are made. And some arrive already douchey. So where do these natural-born douches come from?....Let's just say it: It's where loud, enfranchised children leave home and don't come back until they're loud, enfranchised adults...It's Long Island!"

Aha! The NPI has gotten to bottom of this. Colleges, take note: Initiate a Douche Admissions Quota immediately.  In fact, why not require that kids from the Island have higher SAT scores than the rest of the applicants?  A cheating scandal might ensue, all high school seniors in the 516 area code might end up in prison, and douchiness might disappear from colleges overnight...only to result in a new list of America's Douche-free Colleges.

 

 

Refreshing Q's from Readers

Q: I have been refreshing your blog over and over again, waiting for news about GC's ED decision. Will you please share?

A: Well, if you must know....he's IN!! Had to take a break from blogging to celebrate with him and three of his friends who got into H, Y and P.  But, not to worry.  We will still find plenty to be neurotic about.

 

Rejection Rehab for Parents

The Neurotic Parent Institute is in the process of purchasing land in Utah to establish a supportive, restorative environment where parents can recover from the devastation caused by Early Action and Early Decision deferrals and rejections.  The mountain-view facility, called Early Visions (because all rehab places seem to contain the word "Visions"), will provide a holistic, healing focus which will include:

- techniques to help you refrain from whining and hyperventilating in front of your kids

- seminars by financial advisors who will assure you that you would have lost all your donation money anyway in today's volatile market, or in a Ponzi scheme.

- daily inspirational councils with successful graduates of schools that kids CAN get into, like Wisconsin and Tulane.

- spiritual voodoo-based ceremonies for burning collegiate sweatshirts, destroying car decals and smashing mugs

Reasonable, introductory rates are available, with discounts for parents of kids who scored over 2250 on the SAT, or any alum whose child has received a rejection after donating an amount greater than $500,000.  The first client to sign up has already posted on College Confidential this morning:

Today, 01:32 PM

#107

WordWorld Junior Member   Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Bay Area, CA Posts: 64

DS was rejected from Stanford's SCEA on Friday. He was a very strong contender and we are rethinking and mourning. He's white but also has Hispanic ancestry on DH's side. >2200 SAT, multiple 5 APs, Math II 800 and other subject tests >750. UW GPA around 3.9, weighted around 4.3. Multiple legacy and we have donated a fair amount every single year since S was born. Biggest weakness was less than stellar EC's. His essays were pretty darn good. Not a single applicant from his very competive public high school has been accepted to Stanford in the last two years. I actually think H is taking it worse than S--when I called to tell H, he went down and ripped the Stanford license plate holder off his car with his bare hands and threw it away (at work, not in front of son!). He then came home early to pack up every piece of Stanford clothing and memorabilia (his and son's, including two of my favorite wine glasses) and put them in a box in the attic.

Early Visions is filling up rapidly!  We have had five new reservations just since I started writing this post - from parents of highly gifted, qualified kids who were just rejected from Penn, Northwestern, WashU, Cornell, and Dartmouth.  Hurry and reserve your space before Brown, Yale and Princeton announce their EA and ED results later this week.

Early Craziness

One of GC's friends just got the great news that he was accepted to his ED school.  I can't post more info here because, believe it or not, he hasn't told his parents yet. (UPDATE: They now konw. It is Cornell.) 

GC has other friends who are doing phenomenally in the process with acceptances to Dartmouth (crew), Grinnell (basketball), Bard, Wisconsin and Tulane.  Many others are waiting to hear about their Early status at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, WashU, Vassar, Michigan, McGill, Bowdoin, BC, NYU and BU. 

For those who have been accepted, the general mood is not "Wow - I got into my dream school," but rather, "Thank goodness I don't have to complete any more apps and can start to slack off immediately - Bring on the senioritis!"

But on College Confidential, things are different.  The Early applicants are still working on supplements for their second and third choice schools, while compulsively refreshing their emails every five minutes to see if decisions have arrived.  Here are some random posts from kids waiting for decisions:

mba8inAZ

(applied EA to Stanford)

In less than 24 hours, I -- and 90% of all of you -- will know, officially,
THAT WE ARE WORTHLESS!

----

dartmouth49

(applied ED to Dartmouth)

i am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo nervous my best friend and I both applied ED and she has such higher grades than I do.....ahhhhhgg

---

laodicean

(applied ED to Penn)

I'm nearly certain that I won't get in, but I can't seem to move on with my life until I am explicitly informed by admissions.

---

Brown2012Hopeful

(despite the username, waiting to hear from WashU)

Oh oh....Do you think they'll start posting decisions soon (not exactly tonight...but maybe tomorrow morning...or maybe even by midnight?).  I'm so nervous!

He/She should be nervous - what if WashU finds out his/her screen name?

---

lolToasty

(wants not only to be admitted to Yale, but to enjoy an entertaining internet experience)

I know this will sound dorky, but will the singing bulldog always be there every time you log in if you get in?

---

power4good

(applied Single Choice Early Action to Harvard)

 

I just found out 5 minutes ago, that the girl I have been falling in love with for several years applied to Duke ED. I want to go to Duke now. Whatever Harvard's decision is, I don't give a F*** anymore. I don't think I'm even gonna check my e-mail on 15th...

---

bananafreak2u

(another Harvard hopeful)

lol. i wish a guy would do that for me

---

Moral: Early acceptances are nice, but at the end of the day, what matters most is love.

Last-minute Application Hysteria - Which Vacation to Ruin

LAST MINUTE APPLICATION HYSTERIA: WHICH VACATION TO RUIN

If your high school student applied Early Decision to a beloved college or a strategically-chosen likely, November 1st or November 15th were days of celebration.  By those dates a version of the Common App had to be completed, ending procrastination and endless essay revisions.

Now that November has come and gone, what sort of psychology should early applicants employ for completing their remaining 17 applications?  Some students, encouraged by independent counselors (who get paid by the hour), feel compelled to finish all 33 supplements before early results come out in mid-December.  They believe that if deferred or rejected, they will be too depressed to devote proper attention to their remaining RD (Regular Decision) apps. Students in this catagory end up with Application Insurance of sorts, but face the risk of having to write dozens of essays for naught. And they lose out on a relaxing, restorative Thanksgiving, their last one at home as a high school student.

Others who apply early believe that they should not spend one moment on any essay or application that they might not need to complete if they get accepted to their early schools.  These gamblers have even said that it is bad karma to even ponder "Why Johns Hopkins" when they have applied early to Northwestern.  Students in this catagory live dangerously, turning the application process into a true nailbiter, and often end up destroying their family's last ski trip, as they desperately work on apps until the moment the ball falls in Times Square.  

With this conundrum in mind, the Neurotic Parent Institute proposes a new anti-festival: Winter Hellday.  Falling on December 16th, prior to Christmas, Kwanzaa, the Equinox and often before Chanukah, this is a 24-hour period during which rejected and deferred early applicants must stay up all night with their bleary-eyed parents as support teams.  At the stroke of midnight on December 17th, all RD apps must be completed and turned in.  By embracing this new holiday, applicants and their families can spend the rest of their winter vacation worrying, rather than writing.

 

Thanksgiving Message to High School Seniors and their Parents

If your greatest source of stress is that darn college admissions process, be thankful.

Choosing a Low-paying Career at the Age of 17

When students compile their college lists, they are most often influenced by weather, sports teams (or lack thereof) and access to concerts/raves.  However some high school kids actually know what they want to study and seek schools that offer majors in their areas of interest.  A few practical kids go for Petroleum Engineering, a career with a whopping starting salary of up to $155k, but one that requires coursework like Chemical Methods for Subsurface Characterization, and Advanced Reservoir Fluid Analysis.  

It come as no surprise that those who choose the majors which are the most altruistic, most interesting and most important to society will never be able to support themselves.  

According to payscale.com, here are the worst-paying college degrees along with median starting and mid-career pay:  

1. Child & family studies $29,600 $40,500
2. Elementary education $32,400 $44,000
3. Social work $32,200 $44,300
4. Culinary arts $29,900 $46,800
5. Special education $34,300 $47,800
6. Recreation & Leisure $34,500 $49,100
7. Religious studies $32,900 $49,700
8. Athletic training $34,600 $50,200
9. Public health $35,500 $51,700
10. Theology $35,600 $52,000
11. Art $35,300 $52,400
12. Art history $38,300 $53,300
13. Paralegal/Law $35,300 $53,500
14. Animal science $33,800 $53,700
15. Multimedia/Web design $40,400 $53,900

Sadly, we don't know if we can trust payscale.com.  (One can only imagine how much they pay their researchers.)  In fact, we know a Public Health official who has three homes and a collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, a chef with a private plane, as wells as a web designer who charges $15k per website and is too busy to answer emails.  And we have never met a single Petroleum Engineer whilst on the gondola in Aspen.

Many students think they can increase their admissions chances if they indicate a preference for an unpopular major.  But many of the above starvation-level majors are hugely sought after.  The Neurotic Parent's best advice is to worry about one thing at a time. Having said that, if you can't stop yourself from prematurely obsessing about your student's mid-career salary, make sure his or her list includes Texas A&M, Colorado School of Mines and the University of Tulsa, all top institutions for petroleum engineers.

Our New Look/Instant Decision

The paperback edition of this blog, Neurotic Parent's Guide to College Admissions, is now a reality, so I have redesigned my blog to match the upcoming book. 

Please remember that my kids are both FULL PAY, so be kind and preorder on Amazon, while you enjoy the new graphics.  (Thanks, Kate.)

----

Texts were flying excitedly yesterday when two of GC's friends found out they were accepted to Bard, the school that gets the Neurotic Parent award for the coolest admissions policy.  Here's the deal: You read Plato and Galileo, go to campus, discuss what you've read in class, and on the very next business day you find out if you've been admitted or deferred to one of the hippest schools in the nation.

Not only that, if you choose, they will refrain from looking at your standardized tests. 

And, best of all, once you're in, you can join one of these clubs:

• (gluten-free/vegan) baking club
• Active Minds
• Bard Anime Escape!
• Bard Belly Dance Collective
• Bard Bombshells
• Bard Contra Dance
  
• Bard Freestyle Cypher
• Bard Guqin Society
• Bard Lawn Sports
• Bard Lumberjacks
• Bard Olympic Lifting Club
• Bard Paintball Club
• Bard Yarn Appreciation Society
• Beekeeping at Bard
• Biodiesel Cooperative
• Bloated Goat
• Boffing Club
• Bollywood Dance Club

Doctor Who Club Glass Blowing Collective Go Club Greek Dance Club Hands and Knees Collective Monkeys Moola Poi Joy: Poi Spinning and Fire Dancing Club Robots for Human Rights Sacred Harp Singing SMOG Socially Responsible Investment Committee Sound Crew Squeegee Collective Students for a Free Tibet Surrealist Training Circus The Mental Academy The Pin-Up Appreciation Society Tsuuuuupa Hoop Vinyl Preservation Society

Clearly, figuring out what these clubs are is more challenging than preparing intelligent comments about Plato.  The Neurotic Parent is offering a free book (publication date, March 1st) to the first Bard student who comes forward and explains Contra Dance, Squeegee Collective and Bloated Goat. I did, however, look up Guqin, and it is, of course, zither related.

 

 

 

Tales From an East Coast College Tour

Just received this report from a reader:

Setting: Columbia University Info Session

 

Chipper Admissions Dean:  What makes a school an Ivy League school? What do we all have in common?

 Eager Student:  I know.  I know.  None of you give out any merit scholarships.

 Chipper Admissions Dean (clearing throat): All of our admitted students have merit; therefore we only give out money based on financial need. The correct answer is football.

 

 

Hyper Skypers

Much has changed in the three short years between our two college-application journeys. One of the newest trends: interviews by Skype.  Great schools such as Wake Forest, Penn, Pitzer and Bard now offer applicants the chance to dress nicely from the waist up and have a chat with an alum or admissions official via a Macbook Air.

Parents of Skypers on College Confidential suggest conducting the interview in front of a "neutral, uncluttered background," but one girl we knew took the opportunity to the next level by prepping her room. She removed her Marilyn Manson poster, strategically placed her bassoon and mandolin on a shelf behind her and stacked such works as The Portable Nietzsche and Absalom, Absalom! on her desk.

Sure enough, the admissions rep asked about the instruments, and, before they ended their call, the girl had a chance to impress her Skype-mate with a few bars from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

This trend has inspired the Neurotic Parent Institute to offer a new service: Skype Staging, which will include wardrobe consultation and bong removal. For desperate applicants we will offer the upgraded Gold Package, featuring tips from a hair stylist, lighting director and sound guy. We will also provide the expertise of an IT expert, who will coach nervous interviewees in how to cause glitches and temporary breakdowns, such as freezing their screens, cutting off their callers, and even creating power outages when asked difficult questions.

ED Deadline Quote of the Day

From a reader by voicemail:

"Oh boy, what a day.  We...she....couldn't make up her mind, so she went with Penn.  And Cornell.  And Yale.  They're all a reach, but I hope they don't find out.  I hope they don't have a way of finding out.  Well, at least it's over.  Talk to you later."

 

Questions from Readers - Panic Time

On this momentous October SAT result day, here are some real questions I have received via email, phone or Facebook.

Q:   Do you know of any wonderful kids that didn't get in anywhere they liked, but took a gap year and then matured and went to a lovely school and lived happily ever after? Need to hear this story.

A: Lovely school - yes.  Matured - no.

--

Q:  Would you please explain to me the score choice option?  My son just got his superscore up to 2330. How does the cherry picking work?  You're the only one I trust, so I hope you don't mind.

A: I can explain everything.  But I'll only tell you if you promise me that your son doesn't apply where mine is applying.

--

Q: What is the chance of acceptance for ED as compared to RD at X University (popular top 20 midwestern school)?

A: I looked on College Confidential and several other sites and the statistic is missing!  You will need a Gold Neurotic Parent membership for me to keep investigating.

--

Q: (Chat during Facebook Scrabble Game) I have never ever looked forward to Jan as much as this year. S was concerned the impossible ED would cancel out the more impossible EA, his other fave school will be his ED2 -and the rest RD. Not what we would have chosen but it was his to decide. So he will likely now do two EAs and one priority, all but one of which is safety. The 'real school' that S should just have applied to ED will have to wait till ED2, but our best advisors say difference will be negligible. I disagree.

 A: Huh?

 

Grades from Heaven (found on Facebook)

Mom

you still have to do your homework, Allison

Penn Forgets To Tell Students That Their Prof Died

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/the-worst-thing-to-happen_n_970287.html

The school year got off to a rocky start for one class at the University of Pennsylvania. According to Under the Button, Professor Henry Teune's political science class convened last week only to be told that their professor had passed away over the summer.

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Stay Young. Stay Foolish.

Steve Jobs' remarks about college and life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

Abroad

Mr. NP and I have just returned from visiting CJ in Italy, where he is spending a semester studying Advanced Florentine Nightlife and Introduction to EasyJet Booking.  We shared memorable meals, scenic day trips and extraordinary sunsets with our suddenly-sophisticated son and his friends.  Then we had to return to the grind, leaving CJ to fend for himself.  Without us there, he will be forced to make complicated decisions on his own, like identifying which of the three shops on his corner has the best homemade ravioli and which train offers the most direct route to Cinque Terre. 

Upon our return, we discovered that although we had missed 12th Grade Orientation, GC was well adjusted to the demands of his senior year. He had filled out "the gold form," a list for his school of the colleges where he intends to apply.  He sought advice from his dean about one of his essays, and says it will take "fiteen minutes" to address her comments.  He attended two local info sessions, one at his school, and one at a hotel. 

He also briefly considered changing his intended major from International Altruisim to Entrepreneurism because the economy crashed again while we were gone and he thought he might need to make a lot of money before saving the world. 

Bottom line/Message to Neurotic Parents: Get yourself to a trattoria in Panzano.  Order a bottle of Chianti Classico and the duck ragu with parppadelle.  Turn off your Blackberry.  And let your high school senior fend for himself.

 

 

Rankings Are Up

U.S. News & World Reports, the "news" magazine that nobody reads for news, has just announced their college rankings for 2012.  Lots of ties.  Here are the top ten.  In case you want to apply to a #5 rated school, you'll have a very comprehensive selection. 

1. Harvard/Princeton

3. Yale

4. Columbia

5. Caltech/MIT/U of Chicago/Penn/Stanford

10. Duke

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/13/us-news-college-rankings-_n_958948.html#s359530&title=Harvard_University_Tied

Prayer for the September ACT

Here is a powerful, non-denominational prayer for those who wish to do well on the ACT Exam tomorrow.  This can be recited aloud in the car on the way to the exam, or silently between sections.

-

On this occasion of my (first, second, third) sitting for the ACT exam, I beseech the Almighty ACT.org to look over me and protect me from mis-bubbling.  Grant me the strength to avoid the Passive Voice in my essay.  Give me the focus to figure out the equation for a parabola graphed in the standard (x,y) coordinate plan. and remember the rules of parallel structure.  May I stay awake throughout the Reading section, even if I get a passage about the Oligocene genera fauna at the beginning of the Miocene epoch.  Bless my #2 pencils and protect their points; let me be forever grateful that they are not #1s nor #3s.  Allow me the good fortune to be blessed with a proctor who does not clear his throat during the Science section.  Save me from realizing at 4:00 AM on the morning of the test that I have left my TI-83 Calculator in the trunk of a friend’s car.  O ACT Inc., provide me with the will to resist temptation if my classmates invite me to spend the night before the exam partying in a hot tub, as came to pass in an episode of Gossip Girl. (Kaplan 119:9, 16)

Via Maffia

As one of my sons struggles to come up with a killer topic for his Common App Personal Statement, the other is settling into his new apartment on Via Maffia in Florence, where he will spend his junior semester abroad. 

Yes, Mr. NP and I are planning a short visit, so I guess we are lucky.  But we are not nearly as blessed as CJ, who gets to sip aperitivos (legally) every night at sunset, jet off to weekend with friends in Copenhagen, and take a class (for credit) called Italian Villas. 

Something's wrong with this picture: I'm the one who loves strolls through cobblestoned piazzas, who appreciates art, who finds inspiration in scenic hilltowns. If CJ gets to live this life now, what will he have to look forward to, other than being able to identify obscure kinds of pasta? 

Update: Of course, we have not heard from CJ except to let us know that he landed safely.  But the neurotic mother of his roommate did text to say she received a long email from her son to let her know that despite the street name, the boys love their apartment and that they're busy with orientaion and exploring Florence nightlife.  She also let me know that they spotted some authentic Banksy graffitti on a church wall in the Centro Storico.

Yes, my son is has finally learned to spot and appreciate art.  Perhaps at some point he''ll notice the Michaelangos and Botticellis as well.

 

24/7 Application Bootcamp/A New and Improved Country of Residence

Rising seniordom means rising anxiety.  Just heard three angst-laden stories from good sources:

1)  A rising senior flew 3,000 miles to spend a week living at a Vermont college counselor's home.  She returned with completed drafts of her Common App, Personal Statement and Supplemental Essays.

2) A rising senior's SAT tutor has moved into her guest house.

3) A concerned dad with business interests in Bangladesh is considering establishing residency there to increase his daughter's college chances.  (The caveat: He wants her to live there for a month before she attends her alumni interviews, so she will sound knowledgeable about Bangladeshi culture.)

 

 

 

A Mid-summer's Reality Check

August is the time, according to all the specialists, to get a jumpstart on all the stressful tasks that define senior year. 

After a major research study, the Neurotic Parent Institute has created two different checklists for rising seniors, one for each gender.

 

August To-do List for Girls:

1. Finalize college list

2. Download Common App

3. Complete rough drafts of three short and three long essays

4. Set up appointment with college counselor for essay feedback

5. Contact teachers to ask for recommendations

6. Write thank you notes to above teachers

7. Take weekly SAT II practice exams

8. E-mail college admissions officers with well-researched questions about potential majors

9. Organize fundraiser to benefit Tanzanian AIDs orphans

10. Shop for college interview wardrobe

Most girls we know are well on their way to completing the tasks outlined on the above list, so they will be able to focus on their challenging senior year courseloads and SAT retakes.

 

Here is the August To-do List for Boys, which demands as much as they can reasonably handle:

1. Turn on computer

2. Download Common App

3. Take a break and go to the beach - Why stress now? That's what December is for.

 

 

Questions from Readers

Q: Is it true that you have a deal to turn this blog into a book?

A: Yes.  It will be published on March 2nd.  And if GC is still waiting for admissions decisions, I will have to appear on the Colbert Report with a fake moustache. 

 

Q: Wow, that's exciting.  Will we have to read endless blog posts that we have already seen, or will the book include new material?

A: There will be plenty of new, depressing reasons why you should worry about your kid getting into college.  But because I'm not great with deadlines, there will be a lot of tried and trued stuff as well...even some of your comments.

 

Q: I am a major celebrity.  Can I write a blurb for your book?

A: As long as you don't expect me to help your kid get into college. 

 

Q: Are you planning to reply to the Tiger Scholarship Mom, who left a comment the other day?

A: You bet.  She made some great points - what's wrong with making your daughter write 67 essays if that helps her win all of her tuition money?  I am hoping that she will share some hints with us.  And maybe I can get her to help proofread.

 

 

 

Baristas/Scholarships

Nothing like the lazy days of summer to prove that a college education is not worth it.  Most of the kids we know are slaving away at internships, most earning nothing, and some extremely lucky ones taking home $9 an hour. Meanwhile, recent grads are competing for barista positions all over the nation.  One very bright and talented Barnard girl we know had FOUR interviews, including one with the owner, before she was finally hired to prepare coffee in Chelsea.  --- So, if you're planning to send your kid to college, maybe you should force your student to apply for zillions of scholarships.  Here is a report by a Tiger Scholarship Mom, whose daughter received seven merit awards, and has now exceeded her cost of attendance.  I'm imagining the lucky gal wearing an outfit from Kohls, enjoying a burrito dinner on her loftbed (just three scholarships on her enticing list - do you win goods/merchandise in addition to funds for schools?) --- If you read the following College Confidential thread carefully, it sounds as if the poster's daughter has also won some sort of lottery.  I wish I could find out, and also report how many essays this girl was forced to write, but I'm too lazy to do the research.  Any (unpaid) interns out there willing to help? 06-07-2011, 10:33 PM   #1 swicks2011 Junior Member   Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: South Carolina Posts: 102 Scholarships Applied To List Hi, I was asked to share the list of Scholarships my DD applied to so here they are: All Media NY Writing Scholarship Alvin Cox Memorial Fund Scholarship American Fire & Sprinkler Association American Public Health Association Get Ready Ashley Marie Easterbrook Scholarship Asian & Pacific Islander American AXA Achievement Scholarship Best Buy Scholarship Brandon Goodman Scholarship Body by Milk Sammy Scholarship Burger King Scholarship C. G. Fuller Foundation Scholarship - SC Only Charles L. Cummins/Mae B. Wham - LOCAL CIP Scholarship - Spring 2011 CIP Scholarship - Fall 2010 Federated Women's Club - LOCAL Kiwanis Club - LOCAL Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation Doing Good Scholarship Elks National Foundation MVS Award ESA Foundation Scholarship Freedom in Academia Scholarship Gen and Kelly Tanabe Scholarship GE-Reagan Foundation Scholarship Program Horatio Alger Scholarship ISSA Foundation Scholarship Jane E. Hunter Scholarship - OHIO or SC Janice M. Scott Memorial Fund Jimmy Rane Foundation Scholarship - NC,SC, GA,AL,OK,MO,NE, AR,TN,LA,MS, FL, KY,TX Kate Herzog Writing Awards Kennedy Foundation KFC Scholars Program Kittie Moss Fairey Educational Fund Scholarship - Must Attend SC College Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program Leopold-Schepp Foundation Scholarship Lowes Scholarship M.A. Lee Foundation McAlister Foundation Scholarship - LOCAL Mercer Silas Bailey Memorial - LOCAL OCA-AXA Asian Pacific American OCA-UPS Gold Mountain Minority OP Loftbed Scholarship RMHC-ASIA Scholarship Program Sam Walton Community Found Scholarship Scottish Rite Masonic Shepherd Scholarship Share Your Story Scholarship Simon Youth Foundation Scholarship South Carolina Sheriff’s Association - SC South Carolina State Fair Scholarship - SC Strom Thurmond Foundation - SC Sun Trust Off to College - Every Two Weeks TG Charley Wootan Grant - Outside Texas US Bank Internet Scholarship USA Funds Access to Education Scholarship Wendy’s National Heisman Award Scholarship William Orr Dingwall Asian Ancestry Grant Winthrop University CLOSE Scholarship - College Based Youth Foundation Hadden Scholarship 9 Beans and a Burrito Foundation Scholarship Abbott and Fenner Scholarship Big Sun 2011 Scholarship Breylan Communications Scholarship Directron.com Scholarship Dowd and Guild Scholarship ICBC Lawyers Scholarship Hope that helps! Take Care, Lisa

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06-14-2011, 07:20 PM	#2
bbarty Junior Member   Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 82	Wow! Thank you very much! This was very helpful. I'm a soon-to-be senior and although I was aware of a decent number of these scholarships, there are so many on here that I didn't know existed. Any thoughts from the applying/awarding of the scholarship process as to which of the scholarships seemed to be the "favorites" (most amount of money awarded, easiest to complete application for, and most fun to apply for)?
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06-21-2011, 07:32 PM	#3
ivybound1 Junior Member   Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: New England Posts: 149	Oh my... Is this a normal amount of scholarships to apply to? I've applied to one so far and that took me about a week to complete. How many did she get out of these?
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06-22-2011, 10:54 PM	#4
swicks2011 Junior Member   Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: South Carolina Posts: 102	She won 7 of them and18 of them are still pending but it doesn't really matter anymore because she exceeded her cost of attendance and now they are taking away from her SC Life scholarship (lottery money) & Federal SEOG. I have an appointment with one to see if they can wait and send the check next year when she would actually be able to benefit from it. We declined one because she no longer had a need for this school year and felt since the funds for it was limitted that we'd rather someone else get it that still had need for this coming year. She applied to 1 scholarship each week all of the past school year and 3 per week while school was out. I did all the searching and kept up with dates for her so literally just handed her which one to do next.
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06-23-2011, 03:24 PM	#5
doublerainbow99 New Member   Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 6	wow thank you so much! Your daughter is very lucky to have you help her with scholarship searches!  Can you share which numbers she used for the lottery?

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Prelude to Empty Nesting

After we put GC on a plane to his summer program, Mr NP and I set off on one of our first childless vacations ever - a summer respite at a spa in the mountains.  Which mountains?  The ones in the state where CJ attends college, of course.  That way, after three days of restorative romantic alone time, we could return to the joys of parenthood.  So here we are at our favorite hotel in CJ's college town, waiting for our son to wake up so we can help him put his belongings in storage after his stint at summer school because he's going abroad for the fall semester.  We thought we could make ourselves useful doing laundry and taping boxes, but it seems we only need to wash two towels (the other four are missing), one sheet and one duvet cover.  And the schlepping will involve just a few books, a fridge, a t.v. (which he somehow acquired without purchasing) and a floor lamp.

Everything else is already packed in two medium-sized duffles.  In fact, it was never unpacked after spring semester.  CJ has survived the summer semester in an apartment on campus with no tempurpedic pad ("it fell apart") no clip-on reading light, no message board, no shower caddy, no pop-up hamper, no tool kit.  Virtually all of the supposedly-essential items that we enthusiastically purchased for him when he started on this journey two years ago have disappeared, and our son has embraced the Simple Life.

Parents of rising freshmen take note: Donate your BB&B coupons to the homeless, purchase two towels, give your kid a hug and head to the mountains.

The Calm Before the Storm

School has been out for almost two weeks now.  And, before all the internships, summer programs and application bootcamps begin, GC and his friends have transformed themselves into happy, healthy stress-free teens. 

Their activities:

- a 3-hour night scavenger hunt, organized by two of the girls. 

- Trampoline World

- daily basketball (although GC is now on the injured list)

- reading (!)

- documentary night

- foreign film night

- Magic Mountain

- beach day

- cooking dinner for each other

The boys are rested, surprisingly talkative and...mature (!)  And the girls are fascinating and adorable.  Make that stunning.  How to preserve this bliss?  Why can't Good Clean Summer Fun be an accepted extracurricular?

Sacrificing

We have entered another dimension of time and space: CJ is a college junior.  And as of 3pm this afternoon, GC is a high school senior...and we are officially old people.

What a ride: It's too bad we cannot relax and enjoy one more year of pre-empty nest quality time with our teen, but instead have to deal with Early vs. Regular strategies, biting nails over test scores, proofreading activity lists, and agonizing over whether it was a mistake to not include Bowdoin and Bates on our tour.  

But at least we haven't blown all our retirement money on remedial help for our kids.  In yet another NYT piece about the outrageous level of out-of-control educational spending in New York, there is an account of a Riverdale Country School family that paid $35,000 in a year to one tutor from Ivy Consulting.  (This did not include the $100k+ they spent the previous year on SAT prep.)  The $35,000 accounted for preparation for one oral exam, the culmination of one high school course -$750 - $1500 a week for the year. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/education/08tutors.html?_r=1&hpw

The Neurotic Parent Institute has done some preliminary research about the class in question, and has discovered that it is not AP Calculus or Physics, but rather an interdisciplinary course called "Integrated Liberal Studies."  According to Wikipedia, there are "readings and assignments covering Western culture, surveying classical philosophy as well as the history of science, and featuring literature, religion and arts components." And the reason the class is so notorious is because it uses "source material" (real books) rather than textbooks.

I started this post somewhat depressed about the melancholy fleeting moments of youth, the circle game cliché that has taken over my life. But now I am energized, now I have something to look forward to. 

As soon as my youngest leaves the house I can move to a Hudson-view townhouse in Riverdale and become a Liberal Studies tutor. 

As a source material aficionado who is as liberal as they come, I am super-qualified to prepare kids for oral presentations.  Just ten students at $1500 each a week comes to $780,000 a year -  considerably more than I earn in the entertainment industry or as a blogger. 

I had planned to use this post to rant about how B's, once defined as "good," are now the end of the world.  But it is the pressure of those potential B's that make parents spend more on a tutor than on tuition at an Ivy. 

What joy it is to have found my cause: As soon as I brush up on my classical philosophy, I am prepared to devote the next stage of my life wiping out B's at Riverdale.

The right spelling errors = Admission to Harvard

We all know that China puts the U.S. to shame economically.  But for some weird reason, Chinese parents want their kids to study at our brand-name universities.

As most of you know, this is not so easily accomplished.  Even perfect students here find that Ivy admissions are a crapshoot.  But the Chinese have managed to figure out exactly how to win the game.  For fees starting at $15k, you can hire ThinkTank Learning and they will fill out your app, write your essay, help you come up with stand-out extracurriculars, tutor you until you get a 2250+ on the SAT and even bribe your high school teachers to change some of your grades. 

And, best of all, according to the New York Times, you no longer have to live in China to benefit from these services.  Six centers have now opened in northern California, with more to come.

ThinkTank, which netted $7 million last year, said they were "able to distill the college admissions process into an exact science."  Founder Steven Ma compared his methods to genetic engineering. "We make unnatural stuff happen," he said. "There’s a system built by colleges designed to pick out future stars and we are here to crack that system."

Although these "aggressive practices have been condemned by many American colleges," companies such as ThinkTank - and there are many others in China - are booming.

"Students, whose parents often pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, are molded by ThinkTank into well-rounded, socially conscious overachievers through a regimen often beginning as early as the year before entering high school," said Mr. Ma, a former investment banker.

Because of the poor English skills of ThinkTank clients, this can be a challenge.  “We really have to hold their hand...including deliberately leaving spelling errors in their essays so they look authentic...and building extracurricular activities from the ground up."

"ThinkTank has founded Model United Nations groups, built a Web site (sic) for a Shanghai student’s photography project to get news media coverage and helped another obtain funding to build a hydroelectric generator."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, I did not make this up.  I found it in the NY Times.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/global/30college.html?_r=1

A bit incredulous that a company would brag to the press about their unethical practices, I checked out ThinkTank's dense, unstylish website, which looks as if it were designed by the guys who leave carpet cleaning flyers on your windshield.  You would think ThinkTank would be somewhat embarrassed (or potentially litigious) about the questionable methods discussed in the article, but instead, they proudly have displayed a link to the Times piece. They even have lists of SAT scores and photos of their smiling clients holding up their big envelopes from Stanford and Harvard.

I have put in a call to ThinkTank to inquire about a position as a spelling error consultant.  Nobody is more adept than I at writing essays with a typo here or there.  For a massive fee, I would even be willing share my vast knowlege about authentic teen mistakes, including "definately" and "existance."  But so far, I have not heard back. 

Meanwhile, for the sake of our economy, let's hope that lots of these ThinkTank kids fraudulently get into Harvard.  Then, the first time they write an essay on their own, they will probably not include enough spelling errors to satisfy their professors, giving the competitive edge to the American kids who have beaten the system.

My New Extracurricular

Yesterday I participated in a Japanese woodcarving class in my friend's courtyard.  I signed up without knowing that this would be a spiritual, meditative activity, rather than an art project.  The point is to choose a piece of wood and whittle away, letting the object shape itself, rather than planning what you want to create.  There are a few unwritten rules: try not to cut yourself, don't keep dropping your sculpture and if possible, refrain from talking. 

Halfway through the process, I began to relax and de-stress.  I stopped worrying that everyone else's work looked like an egg, a whale or a giant chopstick, while mine was "nothing."  I didn't even care that the compliments I received were about the grain of my wood, rather than what I had carved.  For once, I was free to enjoy the ride and not care about the outcome.

Ah, if only the college process could shape itself like this, I thought.  Take a block of rough wood, focus on the journey rather than the destination, and poof! you end up with something smooth and functional, something that was meant to be.

My happy, zen ponderings dissapated when I broke rule #3 and began to chat with my carving buddy, a  young woman who sipped green iced tea as she whittled.  Although she was a first-timer like me, her piece of wood had transformed itself into the kind of pendant you could purchase at Barney's, while mine looked like a marked-down souvenir from the Maui airport.

The small talk did, in fact, to turn out to be a huge mistake:  My cool fellow carver was, I kid you not, ....an SAT tutor.  And once she found out I was the Neurotic Parent, all she wanted to talk about was whether the UC's really do want subject tests this year, even though they say they don't. 

So much for meditation and sprirituality.