Fending off the Parents

Author(s):    Jenna Russell, Globe Staff Date: November 20, 2002 Page: A1 Section: Metro/Region

More students seeking acceptance to elite colleges are finding a surprising obstacle in their path - and it isn't low SAT scores or lackluster recommendations. It's their parents. Admissions officials at some prestigious universities say they are increasingly alarmed by aggressive tactics used by some parents who make repeated phone calls and sales pitches, refer to their child's application as "ours," and even issue threats. And after years of quietly enduring it, a few admissions officers are pushing back. When admissions professionals from around the country gathered recently in Washington, D.C., to identify emerging specialties within their field, they agreed that handling parents should be on the list.

"I was taken aback, but there was no dissent," said Barmak Nassarian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, which hosted the meeting. At MIT, the dean of admission has started meeting with groups of parents and advising them, politely, to back off. "I'm going to be frank with you," Marilee Jones told about 50 parents at the Park School in Brookline last Thursday night. "Parents of college students are out of control." Some parents point back at the colleges and their complex admissions procedures that they say breed anxiety and confusion. Jones, who has worked in college admissions for 20 years and is the mother of a ninth-grader, said too many baby boomers are living vicariously through their children and finding it hard to let go. Their controlling tendencies are made worse by anxiety, as applicant pools expand, and top colleges grow more selective.
"There are more kids, and fewer spaces," she said. "It's that fear, coupled with a sense of entitlement." Newton parent Jill Millis, whose daughter applied to colleges last fall, acknowledged that parents are over-invested in their children. But she also said the college admissions process, with its emphasis on early decision, has reached a level of competitive intensity difficult for a 17-year-old to handle alone. Millis said she served as an "organizational coach" when her daughter applied to colleges, keeping track of deadlines, lining up appointments, and heading off "meltdowns." "Kids are under such pressure," she said. "I felt I needed to step in and alleviate what I could." Marlyn McGrath Lewis, Harvard's director of undergraduate admissions, said that more parents are losing perspective, and that cases of "extreme parental dominance" have increased. "You worry about students who have been infantilized by parents, whose egos impair their ability to encourage their child's independence," she said. Parents can also hurt their child's chances of getting in, Jones cautioned. While MIT does "damage control" to ensure that applicants don't suffer by association, other schools may not be as attentive, she said.

Brad MacGowan, director of college counseling at Newton North High School, said most college counselors can point to cases where a parent's meddling backfired and contributed to a rejection. "If a parent's making phone calls, how can it look good, that the child can't dial 10 numbers and ask a question?" he said.

Among college admissions officers, theories abound to explain the behavior of parents: They weren't involved when their children were small, and this is their last chance. They've invested time and money in a child's resume. They want to brag to their friends, and bask in the glow of an Ivy League acceptance. "They're so afraid that some other squeaky wheel is going to outparent them," said Linda Shapiro, a Newton-based college adviser and president of the New England Association for College Admissions Counseling. But the parents get credit for caring. "Any good parent wants the best for their child," McGrath Lewis said.

At the meeting with parents last week, Jones projected a list of "don'ts" onto a screen in the auditorium: Don't fill out applications for children. Don't make phone calls to admissions offices. Don't refer to "our" application (a phrase she says she hears five or six times a week). And most important, never threaten anyone.

In April, after MIT's admissions decisions went out - accepting fewer than 2,000 of the more than 10,000 who applied - Jones took 100 calls from parents who wanted to know why their children did not get in. Five parents threatened to sue the university for unfairly rejecting their children.
Specialists said parents can find peace by letting go of the idea that an elite college is the only path to success. Jones encouraged parents not to overschedule their children, and to budget the unstructured "dream time." Five years from now, she expects widespread changes in admissions, with colleges focusing more on the goals and character of applicants and less on their first-place trophies. She has given her talk on parent etiquette about 40 times, inside and outside MIT, and says she doesn't mind if it's her title - and her power - that makes people listen. "It is sort of a mission, to help these kids, and to help people my age loosen up," she said.