If your household contains a college-bound senior, you may feel the ground shifting beneath you. Relations between high-school seniors and their parents can be tricky-here are some tips for surviving each other as you work together to plan the path to college: Tips For Students


Understand Your Parents' Emotions

Your parents mean well. They really do. They want the best for you. While your senior year is tough for you-with the stresses of college applications piled on top of academic pressure -it's tough for parents as well. Their baby is leaving. Part of them already misses you-part can't wait to shovel all of your possessions into the car. Part of them knows that many great colleges and universities await and that brand names don't matter-part wants a Princeton sticker on the car.

Take Responsibility

Don't just groan about your parents running the show. Exhibit gumption. Gather information from your college counseling office, from on-line virtual tours of colleges, from guidebooks and websites. Decide what kind of school you'd like to attend (large or small? public or private?), think about geographic location, and look at stats to see where you might realistically expect to get in. Include your parents in the process (they will likely have a stake, especially if they're chipping in some bucks), but take the initiative. Once you decide where you'll apply, look at the essay questions and see if you'll have to write one general personal statement or several essays. Research personal-essay writing at the Soartocollege.com website, where you can:

Discover the do's and don'ts of writing an application essay,
Read sample essays, and
Learn tips for improving your writing.
Find help in choosing and approaching your recommenders.

Speak For Yourself

Your essay can't be your parents' essay. In his book, On Writing the College Application Essay: Secrets of a Former Ivy League Admissions Officer, Harry Bauld points out the dangers of your parents acting as essay guide: "One warning about parents. They may want you to "sell yourself," an approach that is dead wrong.. Parents have their uses, but reading your college essay isn't usually one of them. They care too much, and often don't know quite enough." we at Soar are cautions against seeking input from too many editors. Trying to follow the advice of English teachers and college counselors, as well as friends and parents, can drive you crazy and lead to an essay that doesn't express who you are and what you want to say. Consider SOAR as your editor, an expert who can help you unearth your topic, establish your voice, write better and better drafts, and prune and polish your writing.

Prepare for Stormy Weather

I know a mother who drove her daughter from the middle of Pennsylvania to Providence, RI, to visit Brown University earlier this year. When they arrived, the daughter refused to get out of the car. "I don't like the look of Providence-get back on the highway," she said. Perhaps you've experienced similarly baffling behavior from your child. What's a parent to do? Your child is facing a sea change, and at times this prospect turns 18-year-olds back into two-year-olds, complete with tantrums. The prospect of independence exhilarates and frightens. Parents find that some of the same guidelines for dealing with pre-schoolers (for example, offering choices and setting clear limits) also apply to teenagers. Life is hard enough when they've got one foot out the door-add in the high-stakes, all-or-nothing aspect of the college admissions game, and you have lived in tumult.

Play a Supporting Role

While it may seem that you need to take charge of the college application process, it's really not your ballgame. In a USA Today article (1/5/03), MIT Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones observes how parents overly involved in the admissions process undermine their children's goals and growth. "Parents write their kids' essays and even attempt to attend their interviews. They make excuses for their child's bad grades and threaten to sue high school personnel who reveal any information perceived to be potentially harmful to their child's chances of admission." As hard as it is to let your child take the lead (and go in directions you don't agree with), it's the best route in the long run. MIT's Jones continues: "Ultimately, when parents dominate in any way through the admissions process, in attracting attention to themselves, they are detracting from the perception that their child is a young, mature adult ready to leave the nest. Parental over-involvement can also rob a child a chance to develop resilience and self-confidence, two key components for a happy life."

Recognize How Things Have Changed

The bad news: competition to get into college has stiffened. The good news: lots of schools can provide your son or daughter a top-notch education. If your impressions of colleges are based on what it was like when you applied, brace yourself. It's not uncommon today for students to apply to more than ten schools, and as applications rise, admission rates are dropping at many schools. In a March 2001 Wall Street Journal article entitled "Schools Once Considered Backups Become as Selective as Ivy League," Elizabeth Bernstein produced an index of the new American Ivies and safety schools. She reports that "parents are still in shock seeing their straight-A children rejected by Duke and fighting to get into Furman University." Many parents take rejection harder than their children-you will need to be careful about projecting your desires and disappointments if you want to help your child. Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner observes that the obsession with rankings is a sign of the middle- and upper-middle-class urban myth: "That life is a race, that the funnel narrows quickly, and that if you don't get into Harvard or Stanford, you won't have any life chances." The world of colleges and universities is full of the gems-your challenge is helping your child find her gem and supporting her choice.

Remember, you can have one-on-one, personalized assistance every step of the way.
Soar's complete package is designed to give you the guidance and direction necessary to draft a compelling story and the comprehensive editing needed to perfect it. Our seasoned editors will make sure that your essays display your skills at their best. The money you spend will save you time and ensure that you are writing your best. But don't take our word for it, read what our clients have said about soar.

Congratulations-you's seen your limits. You've realized that while you may know more than anybody about your college-bound child, you aren't the most objective adult to guide him in writing his personal statement. As Harry Bauld tells students in his book, On Writing the College Application Essay: Secrets of a Former Ivy League Admissions Officer, "Parents have their uses, but reading your college essay isn't usually one of them. They care too much, and often don't know quite enough."

Parents do have their uses in the college application process. Now that you've hired a professional editor to help your teen develop or polish his essay, however, you may be wondering about your role. Here's how a parent can help smooth the path:

Allow Your Son or Daughter To Be the Client
Recognize What Makes an Essay Topic Good
Determine How Billing Should Be Handled
Communicate Concerns Early and Openly

Allow Your Son or Daughter To Be the Client

Your daughter is a young adult, spreading her wings to fly off to college, but she's still under your roof, and you're the one footing the bill for her editor. So is she the client or are you? Well, both-but mostly it's your daughter. She should feel like the essay is her project, that she and her editor can develop a working relationship somewhat independent of you.

What works: Most often, a parent calls to discuss our service and provide her view of the situation and needs. After arranging payment, the parent then puts her child in contact with the editor to begin the process, only entering the picture again as concerns arise or to check progress. In one particularly effective situation, a mother and daughter spoke with me on the phone simultaneously about their expectations, concerns, and questions. Together we determined an approach, then the mother bowed out, leaving the responsibility to her daughter.

What doesn't work: Some parents ask to be sent a copy of every e-mail and draft that their child and I exchange, and while the request sounds reasonable, I have found that the applicant often feels cramped by the constant Parental Eye. I've worked with parents who communicate for their teen-sending me drafts, replying to questions I pose, returning calls; such intervention removes ownership from the applicant and can prevent a healthy dialogue from developing between writer and editor.

Discuss with your editor what will work best for your family, remembering that your child will need to take the lead.

Recognize What Makes an Essay Topic Good

Parents often ask: What do admissions people want to hear? It's an understandable but misguided question-admissions officers want to hear the applicant's voice telling about something that's important to him. Your Soar editor is trained to help your teen arrive at a topic that is meaningful to him, to flesh out the topic, and to write about it in a clear and thoughtful way. If you have concerns about the appropriateness of the topic, express them to your editor early, but understand that the essay is your child's to write-he has to feel passionate about the topic to write the essay well. It can't be your topic. You may worry that your teen has chosen a controversial topic - if it's what defines him and what he feels he must write about, let him write.

Keep in mind, too, the adage "less is more." Understandably, parents want the world to know everything wonderful about their child. In general, the essay must focus on one topic. If your child and her editor have discussed essay options and determined that the essay should explore her summer work on the iguana farm, resist the temptation to suggest "just sticking in" a paragraph about the week you traveled as a family through Mongolia. That's another essay. The application as a whole presents different facets of the applicant-the essay need not show it all.

Determine How Billing Should Be Handled

Some parents want to make their children aware of what their editor costs; other families want to shield them from the financial aspect of the project. Let us know what you prefer. Soar sends billing information by e-mail to the address provided on the registration form, so if you'd like billing information sent only to your e-mail address, and not your child's, please inform your editor and/or the Soar's office staff.

If your child is just beginning the process of writing a personal statement, the package approach is usually the most advisable. It allows him to work with his editor for as long as necessary to get it right, without worrying about hourly charges.

Communicate Concerns Early and Openly

I once worked with an applicant whose parents watched the essay development process by monitoring all e-mails and drafts. Over the course of a month, the student writer and I spent hours on the phone brainstorming topics, determining the best one, and working out an outline. The applicant used the outline to write the first draft, and we worked through several more drafts. All the while, the parents remained silent. Then when we were putting the finishing touches on the essay shortly before the deadline, the father contacted me to say he had concerns about the topic, but he was reluctant to talk to his daughter about it. Would I guide her in another direction? I couldn't act as his mouthpiece when I didn't agree with him; furthermore, I felt that he needed to talk to his daughter directly, not through me.

Parents can help by raising concerns with both editor and the child as soon as they arise. Three-way communication can be tough, but talking openly helps establish and sustain trust. Regular communication can also help ensure that the writer stays on schedule, allotting enough time to write, revise, and polish an essay that provides a vivid snapshot of the student's life and values.

 Parents' Role in Working with Soar

Surviving Each Other During the Senior Year