THE NEUROTIC PARENT™

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.