Summer Conundrum

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FROM THE NEUROTIC PARENT ARCHIVES:

Everybody knows that the colleges care about more than GPAs and standardized testing.  They look at curriculum strength, essays, teacher recs and, in particular, extracurriculars.  It is no secret that the admissions committees are very concerned about what you do with your spare time – be it volunteering with lepers in India or interning as a trapeze artist with Cirque du Soleil.

And it is equally important that you do not begin a brand new extracurricular activity during your junior year.  The admissions committees will not be impressed with your story unless you have demonstrated a lifelong passion for your extracurricular of choice.

This makes it a challenge to choose a summer activity for the summer between junior and senior year of high school.  Our younger son GC has brought up several possibilities, but we just cannot find one that will help his college chances.  Theoretically, it is best to be chosen for a prestigious, competitive program related to your passion, a program that ideally you can position as an award or scholarship on your application.  Unfortunately, there are only seven of these programs, and four are for New Jersey residents only.  And, if you’re anything like our son, you missed the deadlines, and your hang-gliding skills are so rusty that you probably wouldn’t have qualified anyway.

That means you will have to choose between the following:

– A CHALLENGING SUMMER COURSE AT AN IVY.  Schools like Brown, Columbia and Cornell offer fascinating classes for pre-college students – courses in Great Books, Genomes or Globalization. Unfortunately, these programs cost $5000-$8000, and although the colleges like keeping their dorms filled, they are not particularly impressed when they see these classes on your resume. They assume you’re a rich kid who settled for Genome Studies because you couldn’t get into a more prestigious program.

– A LIFE-CHANGING TRIP TO A WAR-RIDDEN, DEVELOPING COUNTRY.  These excursions, which often involve performing bunion surgery in Mongolia or training villagers in Guam to grow sustainable kale hydroponically, take high school students out of their comfort zones.  The participants live with local families in mud huts and come back with a new appreciation for the after-parties they attend at home.  But sadly, the colleges don’t like to hear about these adventures.  They want you to wait until you’re IN college to go on expeditions to the rainforest, because then the profits will go to their own institutions.

– AN OUTWARD BOUND EXPERIENCE BACKPACKING BLINDFOLDED IN WEST VIRGINIA.  Again, the colleges once respected students who spent their summers eating bark.  But now they look at these programs as magnets for troubled teens.

– AN INTERNSHIP ON YOUR UNCLE BRAD’S NEW PILOT FOR FOX.  Don’t even think about it.  Stinks of privilege, especially if the show is picked up.

That leaves just one desirable summer activity:

– A JOB AT JAMBA JUICE.  This, my friends, is what the colleges want to see.  All the better if you don’t actually get to blend the juice and you spend eight full hours a day peeling carrots and mopping up.  But landing one of these coveted assignments is not as easy as it sounds. I’m sorry to report that all of the summer Jamba Juice positions have already gone to recent cum laude neuroscience grads from UCLA.

That’s where the Neurotic Parent Institute comes in: For a mere $6500, less than it will cost to go to Ghana or Cornell, we will personally arrange an UNPAID INTERNSHIP at a Jamba Juice for your high school student. Although there is no compensation, we will make sure that your son or daughter encounters severe traffic, rude customers and rancid protein powder – a plethora of excellent essay material….and all in all, the kind of experience that jumps off the page.  Apply soon – opportunities are limited.  You don’t want your kid to end up spending his or her summer studying International Relations at Columbia!

The Waiting: Who Not to Talk to Until April 1st

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Once college applications are completed, high school seniors enter a lull period, an interminable limbo, worsened by the pressure to keep their grades up.

This time can be even more terrible for parents, who need to remain cheery even though they can no longer ‘make things right’ for their kids….as they contemplate aging, separation and financial doom.

If you’re the parent of a senior, you can feel productive during this stage by selling your embarrassing large library of SAT prep books on e-Bay and ordering Twin XL sheets on sale.

And, to maintain your sanity, here is a list of people NOT to talk to until after April 1st:

- Parents of kids who went to college ten years ago, when everything was different.  Not so very long ago, a 4.0 was a stellar GPA. Now, thanks to APs, honors and other weighted classes, it is possible to have a 5.8. And back then it was a good thing to be the captain of the soccer team or the editor of the school paper. Today’s high school seniors have discovered galaxies and invented antibiotics.

– Parents of Intel Award winners, oboe soloists and any sort of national semi-finalist, especially if their kids are applying to the same schools as your child.  Colleges are not fans of helicoptering by parents. But helicoptering by kids is another story. In a bizarre metaphorical coincidence, our son actually met a teen helicopter pilot – the only one in our state – who was also applying early to his chosen school. Yikes!

- Parents of recruited athletes, whose kids have already decided between three Ivies. You didn’t start those squash lessons at age three? What were you thinking?

- Parents of relaxed, grounded kids who are only applying to two public schools, a match and a safety, and would be thrilled to go to either. Luckily, we don’t have many of these kids or parents in our neurotic city. But they are annoyingly ubiquitous in the Midwest.

– Parents whose kids got letters of recommendation from the Dalai Lama and Stephen Hawking.

- Parents who say that “they all end up in the right place”, and go on to tell you how much they themselves hated Princeton. My sons’ high school was filled with all sorts of alumni of top schools who secretly wish they had gone to Slippery Rock State. And, expertly self-effacing and braggy at once, they say the same thing about their kids once they’re admitted: “Virgil likes Columbia, but I think he would have been happier somewhere that was less of a pressure cooker.”

- English teachers who believe your child should not have used any forms of the verb “to be” in his/her essays. In the old days, kids could trust their high school teachers to provide valuable feedback on their college application. But now, because the passive voice has become a no-no, educators despise Hamlet’s favorite verb and cause parents to spend all day thinking about how their students could have reworded their personal statements.

– People who put down the liberal arts. This year’s college anxiety is not just about whether one’s child will get in. Instead parents are panicking about the existential dilemma of whether college is even worth it at all in the long run, especially if their kid’s passion is history or literature. But, take heart, parents of non-STEM students: The one recent Google hire we know was an English major and a Visual Studies minor. There is indeed room in the marketplace for fans of Socrates…and correct apostrophe usage.

Help Stop Tufts Syndrome

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If you thought your stress levels were high, one reader just emailed to say that she is proofreading her triplets’ college apps today. She mentioned that she had dug into the Neurotic Parent archives and found a wealth of information. These tips bear repeating for the current generation of applicants. So, take a Xanax, sit back and enjoy a week of provocative reruns, slightly tweaked for the new year.
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HELP STOP TUFTS SYNDROME:
The website www.collegeconfidential.com is no place for neurotic parents. Just about every student who posts on the site has perfect grades, exceptional scores, grew up in an igloo with multi-generational Inuit relatives and has recently sold a patent to Intel. These super humans usually want to know their chances at top schools, but occasionally ask others for nurturing and support.
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Today I discovered a desperate College Confidential post from a senior, gender unknown, with the screen name of weisenheimer2u. Weisenheimer has a 2340 SAT and a 3.9 unweighted GPA, and wanted to know if anyone could figure out why he or she was waitlisted at Bard. There was an immediate response from randomname25, whose theory was that Weisenheimer was the victim of “Tufts Syndrome.”
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Weisenheimer2u:
WAITLISTED with 2340 SAT, 3.9 GPA
I just got waitlisted today! I thought I was in for sure and Bard is my #1 school. Does anyone know WHY? I mean I know Bard is a great school but I thought I was qualified:
GPA UW: 3.9
GPA W: 5.2
SAT: 780 CR/800 M/760 W
SAT II: Math level 2 800/ French 760/ Chemistry 780/ Physics 800Took the hardest course load at my HS: all honors
freshman and sophomore year (no AP’s allowed until junior year); junior year APUSH (5), AP English Lang (5), AP Chemistry (5), AP Calc BC (5), AP Computer Science (5); senior year AP Econ, AP Euro, AP English Lit, AP Physics C, MV Calc/Linear Algebra, AP French.ECs: Captain of the math team, co-captain of Science Olympiad, co-captain of the chess team, volunteer tutor, started own web design company. Why on earth did they reject me? I know I must sound stuck-up but I really can’t figure out why, my stats are above their accepted averages, I’m a good student and I thought my ECs were good enough. What was missing?
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The response comes from randomname25, who nailed it:
randomname25: Tufts Syndrome?
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What exactly is Tufts Syndrome? According to Wikipedia (Yes, I’m aware that you’re not supposed to cite Wikipedia as a reference, but I’m not a college student), Tufts Syndrome is a synonym for “Yield Protection.” This occurs when a university turns down highly-qualified students who seem to be using that university as a safety school. Top colleges such as Tufts routinely waitlist or reject these students in order to keep their admissions yield high. They want to admit students who are really going to attend.

Now, as evidenced by Weisenheimer’s post, Tufts Syndrome has spread to Bard. I have also heard that UC Davis and Pitzer have been waitlisting valedictorians and dolphin trainers, assuming they’re not really interested and will go to Stanford or Pomona instead.

The Neurotic Parent Institute predicts that Tufts Syndrome will reach epidemic proportions in 2014. It has become impossible to find safeties because if you’re an outstanding candidate, colleges won’t want you because they think you won’t attend. And paradoxically, if you’re a nice, normal kid who hasn’t written an operetta, they won’t want you because they think you actually will attend. The trick will be to find a college that isn’t as sensitive as Tufts (or GWU, Skidmore, or WashU, which now lead the ranks). Is there a school out there that doesn’t have an ego, that won’t have hurt feelings if smart kids turn it down?  If so, in just one year, that college can become as selective as Tufts, or at least as Bard, because the Weisenheimers of the world are not getting in anywhere else.

But until that day comes, there is something you can do rather than sitting still, watching Tufts Syndrome spread from one fine school to another. I ask all of you to take a moment to help stop this dreaded pandemic. There is no time to be wasted, and you can make a profound difference in a most simple way: First, find a mediocre student. Then encourage this slacker to apply to WashU…or Bard…or UC Davis.  Once these institutions are flooded with applications from low-decile kids, their admissions people will begin to appreciate receiving apps from qualified candidates and maybe, together, we can get Weisenheimer2u off that wait list.

Recharged: When 13 People – with 32 Devices – Vacation Together

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We have just returned from paradise – land of magical tide pools, golden sunsets, surreal pelicans and blended cocktails. A chance for three families, bonded since the kids sang ‘Wheels On the Bus’ together in minivans, to de-stress in a decadent beachfront dream villa.

For our group, unwinding meant curling up indoors several feet away from the infinity pool and crashing waves with iPads, iPhones and Airs in hand. All was calm, all was bright, except when the sea breezes messed with the wifi. Not exactly the vision of Arianna Huffington, who challenged her 97 million online readers to a digital detox.

pvblurred

One morning at 11:30, midway through the trip, I found ALL thirteen members of our vacation group inside, resisting the blazing sun. Most had chosen the more modern version of surfing, even though we had spent breakfast contemplating the provocative dystopia of Her, which we had screened together the night before. As the tide receded, our open living room looked like an Apple Store that had relocated to Margaritaville.

Was there any merit to our tropical device-fest? Could a communal group plug-in be somewhat therapeutic? And what exactly had captured everyone’s attention on their screens?

1) 20 year old male on MacBook Pro: This dude was multitasking and recovering from sea urchin stings while on www.bleacherreport.com and businessinder.com – simultaneously killing time on a sports site while also researching a biotech company to invest in. BENEFITS: Less dangerous than parasailing…and yes, the novice investor convinced his parents to use his summer earnings to buy stock in a hot industry. Three days later, it’s up 18%.

2) 25 year old female on MacBook Air: This innovator was seeking self improvement on www.thinkful.com, signing up for personalized coding tutoring so she could tweak her cool entrepreneurial website. BENEFITS: As life-affirming as yoga on the beach? Maybe not, but yoga is so 2013, and coding is the future.

3) 23 year old male on iPad: Online Friday NYT crossword while recharging his Nike Fuel Band. BENEFITS: All good. Just do it. Better than a fighting video game.

4) 22 year old male on iPad: This young music entrepreneur was enthusiastically playing Injustice: Gods Among Us. BENEFITS: Oh dear, this IS a fighting video game. But at least it includes classic DC comic characters.

5) 18 year old male on MacBook Air: This college freshman was choosing NYU classes after being shut out of all the good ones in the last registration window (still couldn’t find anything ‘dope’). BENEFITS: Seventh on the wait list for ‘Hip Hop: A Historical Perspective’

6) 25 year old female on iPhone 5S: This start-up administrator was multitasking on two devices, while providing advice and tech support to just about everyone else. When I caught up with her, she was deleting hundreds of photos to make room for more AND buying a cutting edge print by an emerging artist on www.tappancollective.com BENEFITS: No downside whatsoever to collecting art. Collecting shells can make your luggage sandy.

7) 21 year old male (Unplugging Advocate): This iconoclast was reading a hard copy of ‘The Billionaire’s Apprentice.’ BENEFITS: A real book with retro pages…but is an insider trading saga really the best way to reboot on a holiday?

And, the adults, at least at that moment in time, were less wired, not quite frolicking on the sand, but at least hanging onto their relics – print editions and rollerballs:

8) Grownup male: Reading ‘The Billionaire’s Apprentice’ on an iPad.

9) Grownup male and grownup female: Jointly doing a print Sunday New York Times crossroad puzzle, saved from 10/13/13.

10) Grownup male: Also reading ‘The Billionaire’s Apprentice,’ the real book. “I don’t do Kindles.” (And, to be fair, we ventured beyond business nonfiction: three vacationers collectively finished more than 120% of The Goldfinch.)

11) Grownup female: Reading Harper’s Bazaar, a real magazine, embarrassed…“Will your readers think I’m shallow?”

DISCLAIMER/CRITIQUE: “You’re harsh on our family,” says one of the young adults. “You’re making it seem as if we didn’t take a boat trip to a waterfall, or do a 1000-piece puzzle, or gather in the hot tub for the sunsets.” And he’s right: all of those experiences are preserved forever on Instagram.

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Happy New Year, all. Wishing you a kinder, less brutal year for college acceptances. May you, your family and your beloved operating systems find a balance of health, love, peace, quiet time together…and maybe some fun in the sun.

 

Last-Minute Gifts for the College Applicant

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Need something to balance out the negative effects of the Xbox One or the iPad you’re giving your high school student? Look no further than this definitive list:

1. The Edwin College Process Organizer –  www.theedwin.com - This product is by far the coolest way to get your high schoolers organized, whether they’re applying for colleges now, or a few years down the road. Created by a top college counselor (with collaboration from the grammar-obsessed folks at the Neurotic Parent Institute), it’s a stylish folder with pockets for keeping track of essays, test scores, letters of recommendation, awards, ideas for summer programs and the apps themselves. Each pocket has a go-to chart with invaluable ideas (start a club, get to know your teachers who will be writing recs, etc.) for each stage of the game. A college counselor in a folder.

edwinners

2. Tutor Ted SAT Prep Book – If you can’t hire Tutor Ted himself to prep your kids for the SATs (elder son CJ up 180 points) or the ACTs (younger son GC up 4 points), order one of Ted’s books on Amazon Prime. Tutor Ted is a genius, an exam whisperer and makes the tedium almost fun. Trust me. http://www.amazon.com/Tutor-Teds-Guide-Comprehensive-Future-Winning/dp/0983447101/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1387554883&sr=8-2&keywords=tutor+ted

3. SAT Shower Curtain – I love overstock.com. In fact, I just ordered a heavily discounted accent chair which a guest thought was a Jonathan Adler. So imagine my delight to find this clean display of essential vocab: http://www.overstock.com/search keywords=sat+shower+curtain&SearchType=Header Almost makes me wish my kids were high school juniors again…NOT!

SAT-Words-Prep-Shower-Curtain-P11566129

4. Knock Knock Pep Talk Notepad – Rather than nagging your kids about working on their applications, leave them upbeat little reminders (“Clean your room,” “Get to sleep by 3am,” “Proofread your Bowdoin Supplement”) from this retro look notepad from a cutting edge design studio in Venice. You’ll want everything else on the Knock Knock website as well – truly the best items for stocking stuffers and Yankee Swaps, some to keep for yourself. Order until 12/22 for Xmas delivery.

knockknockpeptalk

5. Etiquette Books – Alum interviews are coming up, so these are needed to make sure your child doesn’t chew his scone with his mouth open at Starbucks. I checked out all the manners books for young people, and most had ugly cartoons on the covers. So I’m recommending that you go with the classic Tiffany Guide to Table Manners (especially if they wanted a gift from Tiffany), and supplement it with this until something with better graphics is published.

6. A Pony – She’s moving out soon. This is your last chance.