The Neurotic Parent

 

It’s late September, and that means college application panic time for high school seniors.

At this point, you’ve already nailed the ACT on the seventh try and received a glowing letter of recommendation from the genome lab where you interned last summer.

All that’s left is that darn essay, arguably the only place on the whole application where you can let your “you” shine through… even if that “you” is conjured up by a college counselor.

No pressure here, but you should know that college admissions reps read thousands of these awkward teen musings. Your job is to make yours stand out — without being so good that it’s obvious you got professional help.

If you’re planning on writing the essay yourself rather than hiring David Sedaris to do it for you, here is a handy list of five topics NOT to write about:

➢ The illness of a pet

➢ The death of a pet

➢ My grueling internship at Prada in Milano

➢ I went to (fill in name of developing country) and learned that everyone there is just the same as the people in my hometown of Greenwich, Connecticut

➢ “Soccer is a metaphor for life’s more difficult lessons. Our team, faced with adversity, only triumphed when all the players realized that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

Ah, but you say that a grown-up is assisting you? In that case, here are five ‘Boomer/Gen Y’ topics/words to stay away from:

➢ Surviving a ponzi scheme

➢ How quinoa helped cure my acid reflux

➢ How a chemical peel Groupon changed my life

➢ How our contractor ripped my family off installing our outdoor firepit

➢ The words “aforementioned” and “heretofore” — in fact, we advise thinking twice about using any compound word other than “snowman.”

Now it’s time to get to work. There’s no point in procrastinating or being nervous just because this is far and away the most important piece of fluff you’ll ever write.

Here’s a summer rerun originally posted on the HuffPo. Readers pointed out some must-brings that I left out. Please see the bottom of the list.

1. A decent mattress.
Forget the memory foam topper, feather bed and bed bug protector. Face it, no matter how many bedding enhancers you invest in, that saggy, smelly dorm cot will just never be comfortable. Instead, just spring for a brand new mattress, which will cost $89 compared to the $400+ needed to alter the yucky one in the dorm. But remember to get Twin XL. Even though kids manage to fit into normal-sized beds at home, the colleges have conspired with BB & B to scare you about the dire consequences of too-short sheets and force you to purchase all new bedding.

2. A pitch pipe
A capella competition is so fierce these days that your son or daughter will want to practice on the way to class.

3. Unlimited text plan
If your child has been sending 10,000 a day, he or she will now send 20,000. If you have a girl, you will be the lucky recipient. If you have a boy, look forward to one-word responses to your cheery questions, such as Yaaa.

4. Parking Permit
Much cheaper than a car. Can be bartered for free rides from all the students who have brought vehicles to campus but have nowhere to park.

5. Settlers of Catan
College students spend so much time playing this board game (a Germanic combination of Monopoly and Risk, but with sheep) that you will wish they would go back to playing video games.

6. “Find my iPhone” App
The most essential possession of them all. Just be sure that your kids know not to harrass the residents if the phone is located in a crack house.

7. Hot Pink Hair Dye
College students like to show their individuality, by going for the ombre-all-over/look… like everybody else.

8. Fake ID
Although highly fraudulent, it’s at the top of most students’ checklist, even above the shower caddy.

9. This phone number
To deal with the consequences of #8, the phone number of a local attorney.

10. A subscription to the Wall Street Journal
So students can keep track of all their high school friends who have dropped out of college after receiving seed money from angel investors.

Practical additions from HuffPo readers:

1. A dress up box – “Have two sons in college and
they always seem to be going to themed parties, so the
equivalent of the dress up box from nursery school would have
been a good thing to take.”

How could I have forgotten this? One of CJ’s first purchases was a Sponge Bob costume.

2. Rackraisers (for the daring) – “They appear to be out of stock everyplace I googled, but they raise the beds up to 25″ off the ground”

3. “Mosquito repellent if your child is heading east (it was a warm winter there). And as part of my new campaign to make the kid pay for more of his own stuff, I’m renting him out (only on weekends) to sleep in your son or daughter’s room — he’s a bit messy, but I can guarantee that his mosquito magnetism is so severe, that the annoying pests will never bite your child because they’ll be so happy biting mine.”

4. Insurance – “My son dropped his new MacPro off his loft bed in December, as he was packing to come home for break.”

Hmm…Maybe the Rackraiser comes with insurance.

Late last week, 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.