Tours and Tips
Having most recently toured Gettysburg College in 2003, I was pleased last week to spend some time on campus. I chatted with content students who spoke of committed, passionate professors and classes with only a handful of kids. If you have to translate Latin poetry in front of your classmates, nine other students rather than 90 is certainly my preference a Classics major pointed out. As always, I enjoyed checking out the student union, dorms, athletic facilities, and labs. Gettysburg has students from 40 states and 60 countries, all students live on campus, 24 division III sports teams, and support for students with learning differences or executive functioning issues. In short, a great place to live and learn for four years.
But my essay this week isn’t about Gettysburg College specifically—awesome!--or the value of a liberal arts education in general—extraordinary! I’m just mentioning that visiting an average of one campus each month for 40 years totals hundreds of tours. I have been pleased to connect with colleagues, attend information sessions, chat with students and spend time on campuses over the decades. I have also attended upwards of 40 conferences in which admissions personnel from every college you can name discussed essay topics. My favorite sound bite is from Harry Bauld who taught me that “there are no bad topics--although there are bad essays.” But I also loved “I do not want to read 500 words about your first kiss” from the admissions director of a competitive school—and the father or five girls.
So, given my hard-won insight into college admissions, how should I handle the following statement from a client, a senior in high school? “I know you’ve met with a lot of admissions people about essays, but a friend of mine spoke to a first-year student at Northwestern, and she said I should write about my activities rather than just telling a story.”
In my professional judgment, writing about your activities is a bad plan. There’s an entire section on the Common Application in which students can describe their activities, their positions of leadership, even the number of hours involved. There’s no reason to put into prose that which is listed elsewhere.
But my point this week is not about admissions essays. I want to address the fact that my client gives more credence to a random 19-year-old than she does to me.
My feelings aren’t hurt. I’m just concerned. Because what if the topic weren’t admissions essays but drinking and driving or unprotected physical intimacy, or whether to try methamphetamine?
Your kids have to trust you more; your kids have to value your opinion more; your kids have to believe in you and believe you more than they consider the (inept, harmful, vacuous) judgments of their ill-informed peers.
How do we allow our children to grow up with respect for us and our values?
One plan is “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” The kids will do as I say if they want to continue living indoors. As it happens, forcing kids to eat their vegetables and do their math homework typically works until just about the age they toddle off to college. “Independence and individuation” I think the psychologists call it. A less pleasant explanation of this method might be: We were teaching the horse not to need food. We fed the horse less and less each day. Just as the horse learned not to eat at all, the animal died of starvation.
The kids get tired of doing what you said, when you said it, because you said it, just when the consequences go from meh—organizing their backpacks—to critical—organizing their lives.
I recommend being on the same team with your kids. “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar” remains true even though I’m not sure what anybody wants with all those insects. If your kids know that you want what’s best for them for them rather than for you, they are more likely to continue making good decisions even when you can no longer force them to.
I would write more about how to increase the likelihood that your kids continue to value your opinions, but I have to plan more campus visits. After I figure out how to inspire my client write an essay about a topic other than her participation in a bake sale--based on a rumor she heard from another kid she barely knows.
