I'm Going To College--Not You!

The Dean of Admissions at the local college where both Ron and I work, Jennifer Delahunty, is a smart and interesting woman who wrote an article on how difficult it can be for a girl to get into college a few years ago, and who recently made an impression on Eleanor because she remembered her name this fall after meeting her only once last spring at the college's Junior Visit Day. Delahunty has now collected and edited a collection of essays for parents like me, whose children are beginning the college search, and it's entitled "I'm Going to College--Not You!

When Delahunty gave a copy of the book to Ron last week, he brought it home and read it the same day, and then I read it the next day, and then Eleanor began to read some of it... but it unnerved her, so I recommended two of the essays I thought she would find most helpful: the one written by Jennifer Delahunty and her daughter Emma Britz--"Impersonating Wallpaper"--and the one by Anna Quindlen, "The Deep Pool."

She read "Impersonating Wallpaper" and then looked up.
"Did you like it?" I asked, "the way the mother would tell the story and then the daughter would tell what she was really thinking?"
"Yeah, it was all right," she said. "I think things like that when I go on college tours." She turned a few pages, looking for "The Deep Pool." When she looked up again, I said "well?"
"I really like that one," she said, "but now I'm afraid that I might pick the college close to home because it seems easier. Maybe I should pick the one farther away."
"Just think about it," Ron and I both said.

In addition to the helpful articles, I mentioned to Eleanor that "Personal Statement" by Wendy MacLeod is short and funny, and that Gail Hudson's "How to Get Into College Without Really Trying" sounds an awful lot like what she and I do already. Actually it was kind of spooky, we both agreed, to see a scenario like the ones we play out so often right there in Hudson's essay:

"'You have to choose an essay now. Use your own judgment. Then get in the car and drive to the post office.'
'All right, it's Beowulf,' she says, folding it into the envelope. 'But can you drive me to the nearest post office? I don't know how to get there.'
How will this girl ever survive on her own? I turn off the stove.
Driving downtown toward the post office, I do what any self-respecting parent would do in this moment. I shame her. 'This is really annoying. You should have taken care of all this earlier.'
She swivels her entire body toward me, voice escalating. 'When exactly would I have time to do this today? I was at school until four, and then I had a piano lesson.'
'I mean earlier, as in two months ago.'
She looks out the window. It's 5:55 P.M. And dark and raining.
We pull into the post office at 5:58. The sign says it closes at 6:30. We're half an hour early.
'See. We had plenty of time,' she tells me, huffing out of the car."

So I found plenty to like, despite not being squarely in the target audience for this collection (I didn't go out and get it because I was worried about Eleanor's college application process. I haven't asked her to do any SAT preparation or take the exam more than once. With the exception of my own alma mater, I haven't even asked her to consider applying to any particular colleges.) But rather than making me nervous in that maybe-I'm-not-doing-enough way, the essays were reassuring, telling me, collectively, that Eleanor will probably end up making the choices that are best for her, even if it's by omission and even if she can't articulate exactly why right now.

What parent of high-school-age children doesn't need that kind of reassurance?