THE NEUROTIC PARENT™

BBM Anonymous

In my lifetime, phone technology has gone from party lines to busy signals to long distance operators to area codes to princess phones to calling cards to answering machines to wireless phones to call waiting to voicemail to mobile phones to cells to texting to skype...and the advances are not ending any time soon.  We have produced so many great telephonic ways to stay in touch that barely have time to communicate in person.

All of us know adults with "Crackberry" issues, those rude people who check their chats and peek at sports scores during meetings and in the movies.  But according to a recent Neurotic Parent study, the highest percentage of Blackberry and I-Phone addicts are now college students. 

Statistics reveal that text addictions begin in high school, but escalate the minute one arrives at college.  Back in the day, when your parents drove off, you would celebrate your independence by lighting up a cigarette.  Now, suddenly teens find themselves with nobody around to tell them to stop texting, so they send messages during meals, classes and parties...and some even sleep with their Blackberries so they can BBM during the night 

I observed this out-of-control texting last week when I visited CJ.  His new fraternity brothers were not ROTC-ish as I feared, and some actually looked as if they were on their way to MTV internships.  They were exceedingly polite, good conversationalists and could discuss anything from neurolinguistics to Arizona immigration policies. 

But even the smartest, funniest guys had more than their napkins in their laps.  My son was one of these offenders.  He already had a borderline addiction when he left for college; now he is so dependent on his handheld device that I fear he will not be able to resist as he drives around this summer.

The obvious remedy is to take away his Curve, but since that's the only way CJ communicates with us, that would be like cutting off our thumbs to spite our hands (poor metaphor attempt).

So instead, I have contacted Verizon, our provider, about offering a new Neurotic Parents' College Plan, which I hope will soon be available in our area:

- Limits "Contacts" to those over 45 years old

- Bans "Lost My Phone" messages on Facebook

- No connectivity in restaurants, classrooms, movie theaters or moving vehicles

- Keyboard locks after 2 am, except for texts to home

- Free satellite tracking and password change updates for account holders

So, readers, if you would like to sign up for this limited availability package, just sign the email petition I plan to send around.  And, in the meantime, you can bore your kids with stories about the days when we actually had to memorize phone numbers.

Course Selection Guide for Freshmen

After spending several days on a college campus during registration, I can offer the following invaluable advice for Fall 2010 course selection:

1. No classes that meet before 11:40 am

2. No classes that meet after 5:40 pm

3. Friday classes?  Forget it!

4. Try to find seminars that meet just once a week and require only two quizzes and an in-class power point presentation, even if the subject is of no interest to you.

5. Check the on-line catalog for courses that sound exactly like what you have already studied in high school, assuming you have held onto your old essays and papers.

6. Three times a week? Lab or discussion session?  No way!

7. Enroll in intriguing classes with Fullbright professors that require two 15-page papers? Not a chance!

8. Interested in Hip Hop Globalization, Entrepreneurship or Abnormal Sexual Behavior?  Don't even bother checking - those classes are full.

Legacy Conundrum

The NP has heard of a very qualified senior who was accepted to Berkeley, NYU, Vassar and WashU, but was waitlisted at _______, where both of her parents attended AND her mom is an interviewer. 

Moral: Apply early or forget about your legacy perks. 

But in the case of this girl, she wasn't ABSOLUTELY positive she wanted to attend _______, so she gambled and it didn't work out. (At least not yet - the waitlist domino action does not officially begin until May 1st.) 

Meanwhile, at the moment I am on my dream spring break trip - at a B&B in a gorgeous mansion a block from CJ's campus (my regular hotel of choice was full). I am pleased to report that my son has survived the pledge process and his new brothers-for-life are actually very impressive dudes who can hold their own in a discussion of current events at dinner, not as "fratty" as I feared. 

Now that I have approved his friends, I can worry about the 3.5" flying cockroach we found in his room, nestled in a pair of boxers on the bottom of a  semester's pile of unwashed clothes.  Luckily, after numerous tropical travels, I am not as neurotic about insects as I am about college admissions.

Mr. NP had to miss this trip.  But he is here is spirit - and since I've trademarked my brand, he has  finally become supportive of this blog.  He even sent some links to share with readers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/06/hardest-schools-to-get-in_n_526881.html

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/the-highest-paying-colleg_n_535061.html

 

http://www.tuftsdaily.com/number-of-new-england-schools-in-50-000-tuition-bracket-to-double-1.2220866

 

Rough Cut

The acceptance and rejection reports continue to trickle in, but because we are one year removed from CJ's class and two from BH's, the drama is not the same.  The stories of surprise, elation and disappointment are just not as significant when you don't know the kids involved.  Plus, there are so many reports of unhappy freshman who are transferring and frustrated seniors who are unemployable, that the whole admissions genre seems to be facing an existential crisis.

But that doesn't mean that the Neurotic Parent has lost interest in the college process....in fact, quite the contrary, now that students' applications have hit youtube big time.  One new development, which overshadows the videos produced by the admissions people at Yale and Macalaster, is that Tufts allowed prospective students to submit an optional video this year (in addition to three required essays).  For those of you who know me, you're well aware that the only activity that brings me more enjoyment than blogging is creating montages, and one student actually used that format for his video.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/education/23tufts.html

Now take a look at some of the videos, most of which have comments that reveal who got in and who was blackballed.

http://tuftsobserver.org/2010/03/the-top-5-youtube-application-videos/

Finally, watch the dancing math girl's video, also on youtube, with over 117,000 hits, which was profiled on NPR.

The Neurotic Parent applauds the optional video trend, and undoubtedly admissions officers will as well. Now applicants don't have to bore the committee with tales of Guatemalan latrine building.  Instead they can just head off to the park with a Flip camera. become famous overnight for reciting a brief Macbeth soliloquy. And watching a dumb one minute video is infinitely easier than reading a lousy 250 word essay.

We regret to inform you that you're a pathetic loser

The Ivies, in a time-honored tradition, have chosen April Fools Day to inform students whether they are accepted, or whether they'll have endure four years of academic mediocrity at somewhere like...UC Berkeley. 

Yes, what an appropriate date this is to open a double password-protected email and see the following message on the screen:

You had straight A's, got 2360 on your SAT's and built an orphanage for AIDs orphans?  You expect that to impress us?  Waitlist for you!

On a brighter note, two of my favorite seniors who had respectively been deferred and rejected early from Penn and Northwestern, now have received fat envelopes, one from Duke and the other from Tufts.  And the Quadruple 800 Genius mentioned in my previous post has been accepted to Northwestern and awarded the Regents Scholarship at Berkeley.

From the college road trip front, MUNC (Model UN Champ) and her mom survived their Pacific Air flight (now more aptly named Georgia Air) from Emory to Vanderbuilt, and even had the occasion to bond with the other seven passengers - four of whom were other mom/daughter couples on the college circuit, and one a high school guidance counselor. 

Here is MUNC's mom's report from the road:

We had a great meal at The Float Away Cafe: a very good restaurant located in an industrial building near Emory that housed a production company with an extra casting office... We had to change rooms due to a "power problem,"...I get your tour guide skill of walking backwards now -- only I learned that flip flops don't work.  I learned that all students who get through their sophomore year are considered alums, and I learned that Coca Cola has been very good to Emory.

Curiously, history is repeating himself here.  When Mr. NP visited Emory with CJ, there was a fire in their hotel, a tour guide crashed into a trash can while walking backwards.  And he also mentioned that the entire campus was Pepsi-free.