Articles of Interest

Getting Into College Doesn’t Mean Students Are Ready to Go by Lisa Damour

Last October I held a hastily scheduled psychotherapy session with a teenager facing a disastrous start to her college career.  When we met, she somberly shared that she was on her university’s radar for her uncontrolled drinking and had a coming court date for a disorderly conduct charge.  Her parents wanted her to withdraw right away, but she had just started to make some solid friendships at college and was reluctant to go home.  I saw her point, but understood where her parents were coming from: Given that she was clearly struggling, it was hard to imagine how she would handle the additional strain of trying to recover from her faltering start.

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Harvard, Schmarvard: Why Getting Your Kids Into College Should Be the Least of Your Concerns  By Michelle Gilman

It’s almost that time of year. I can feel it in the fall air and see it on the faces of parents and seniors everywhere. It’s almost college application time and the race begins, as parents and kids vie for the chance to get into their first choice colleges.

For some parents, college acceptance approaches the culmination of every single parenting choice ever made. It can seem the ultimate goal, the ROI of parenthood, the final gold award and the epitome of a parenting job well done. It feels like the end game for every AP class, honors class, volunteer opportunity, and sports involvement that you required of your child. This college acceptance looms as the justification for the hours upon hours of helping with homework, rewriting their essays, doing most of their science fair projects since sixth grade, hiring the most expensive college counselor, and pushing, pushing, pushing your kids to get the A at any cost. “My child got into his first choice university” will be worn proudly and loudly as a testament to how well you have done as mom and dad.

College Admissions Season: When the Answer Is No By Tracy Mayor

The envelope came on a Friday in March — the last day of the last week of a college acceptance season that had been dragging on since early admissions began in October.

It figured that my child picked as his top school one of the few universities to still send out acceptances — and rejections — via snail mail. From any other institution, an ordinary No. 9 business envelope would look like an automatic “no.” But I’d done my homework, so I knew Perfect U.’s acceptance letters are a mere two sheets of paper. Rejections are one.

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Searching for A ‘Perfect Fit’ College Can Be A Big Mistake by Kim Clark

 

College admissions officers tell applicants they are looking for students who “fit” on campus. High school counselors tell students that they need to find a college that “fits” their unique learning styles and interests. Publishers of college guides—including U.S.News & World Report—advertise tools and data designed to help high schoolers winnow through the thousands of colleges in the U.S. to find the handful that offer the “best fit.”

Now, a few counselors are starting to worry that the emphasis on college “fit” is giving too many high schoolers the romantic—and possibly harmfully inaccurate—notion that there is a “perfect match” college out there for them. In fact, these counselors argue, typically dozens, or even hundreds, of colleges out of America’s 4,300 accredited degree-granting institutions would serve a student well.

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The False Promise of ‘Holistic’ College Admissions by Phoebe Maltz Bovy

College applicants these days take the admissions process so personally. Not because today’s youth can’t face disappointment, but because the system for applying to selective colleges in the United States asks students to view the process as, well, personal.

This begins when students decide where to apply. As an applicant, you’re urged to find the school that’s most in line with your “personality.” Then comes the college admission essay. Even students not the least bit inclined to confessional writing are asked to spill to strangers (and to parents who may be reading the thing over). You’re invited to show your truest self by sharing a story you might normally reserve for close friends.

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In Mindfulness, a Method to Sharpen Focus and Open Minds by Alina Tugend

SOS for Stressed Out Teens by Kelly Wallace

The Documented Life By Sherry Turkle

LAST spring, I had the occasion to spend a day with the actor and comedian Aziz Ansari discussing our mutual interest in the psychology of texting. As we walked through Los Angeles, people approached him every few minutes not to ask for an autograph, but to demand a photograph. Mr. Ansari is gracious to his fans. He explained that instead of a photograph, he would offer a conversation. He inquired about their taste in music, what they liked about his performances, his stand-up, his sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” His fans were mollified but they were rarely happy. They had to walk away with nothing on their phones.

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Raising a Successful Child by Madeline Levine

PHRASES like “tiger mom” and “helicopter parent” have made their way into everyday language. But does overparenting hurt, or help? While parents who are clearly and embarrassingly inappropriate come in for ridicule, many of us find ourselves drawn to the idea that with just a bit more parental elbow grease, we might turn out children with great talents and assured futures. Is there really anything wrong with a kind of “overparenting lite”?

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My Son the Number by Dulcie Leimbach

I FELT so liberated, so washed of envy, that when a colleague recently cornered me in my cubicle to let me know that his son’s SAT scores had risen 80 points in the second go-round, I congratulated him without a bit of regret. Not that long ago, I would have cringed, invested as I was in my own son’s scores.

But Joe is done with the numbers. He’s happily installed in his second year at a great university, and I can take pleasure in looking back at the college-admission process with foggy recognition, remembering vaguely that his ACT, SAT and Advanced Placement scores had been part of our everyday conversations for far too long.  I was so obsessed with Joe’s grades — as he was, too — that he had become a number, actually a group of numbers, striving to meet the exalted levels that top colleges and Ivies demand.

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Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary by Alina Tugend

I’VE been thinking a lot about the ordinary and extraordinary lately. All year, my sons’ school newsletters were filled with stories about students winning prizes for university-level scientific research, stellar musical accomplishments and statewide athletic laurels.

I wonder if there is any room for the ordinary any more, for the child or teenager — or adult — who enjoys a pickup basketball game but is far from Olympic material, who will be a good citizen but won’t set the world on fire.

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The Dicey Parent-Teacher Duet By Sara Mosle

The teacher-parent relationship is a lot like an arranged marriage. Neither side gets a lot of say in the match. Both parties, however, share great responsibility for a child, which can lead to a deeply rewarding partnership or the kind of conflict found in some joint-custody arrangements.