How Can I Help? The College Essay Predicament When Your Parent Is A Writer Some families know they’ll need outside help navigating the college essay, and seek it. Other families have help conveniently located at home-- which you might think is a perk, or wish was your situation. But it's not simple. Here’s one [longer form] revelation of what happens when mom-- writer Anne Anthony-- has the very skills her daughter--Samantha Hess-- needs when crafting her application essay, but their working dynamic becomes an emotional challenge. At the end, we invite you to share your (horror, triumph) stories of parent input. Sara: Thank you both for agreeing to reflect on the college essay experience. I thought it’d be interesting to hear from a mother and daughter who’ve gone through it and offer a perspective (and maybe advice or guidance) to those starting that journey. So, Anne, why don’t you give my readers some background. Anne: I’ve loved to write all my life and value a well-written sentence more than most mothers do. So, my daughter faced a harder critic in me than she would have with a different parent. I’d worked as a technical writer and analyst. Putting together words in the clearest and most effective way-- read, college essay gold!-- was something I did every day. I wonder how my daughter felt about my ‘help’ with her college essays. Too much? Too critical? Samantha: As the daughter of a writer, I always enjoyed reading and writing. English was my favorite subject in high school as it came naturally to me and I excelled at it. I took a lot of pride in my writing. Writing in general is also incredibly personal. Anne: She was good. Maybe that’s why I expected a lot from her. I wanted to make sure anything she submitted would be her best. Sometimes I felt like I pushed too hard, expected too much. Maybe the way we worked together didn’t help. She’d send me drafts by email. I’d mark up the draft with my edits which always appeared in red on the Continue Reading …
Parents
What can parents do?
Parents Influence As parents, it's hard to figure out the right balance of influence and distance when your kid is writing the college essay(s). And like everything else parenting related, the perfect balance differs. But it's important to establish healthy and helpful bottom lines in your role and relationship. This week, I read an(other) NYTimes article about how admissions officers (90% of them?) can tell if the essay is written in the student's voice and style, or that of some much older adult-- often the parent. It's not foolproof-- some kids have mastered adult-ese. Or they purposefully write in an even more sophisticated way in the essay (it's called trying too hard?) than is natural for them. An adultered style (no pun intended) is especially common if a lot is at stake (college acceptance, anyone?) and the students are trying to be impressive. (As I have said elsewhere, the best way to be impressive is to....be impressive. That doesn't happen in a one-off.) Their passion is the point There are all kinds of ethical issues with parents picking or heavily influencing the essay topic and its execution. But one of the biggest is: the raw passion isn't there. Spend 10 minutes with adolescents asking them about what they love, what moves or bothers them, what is really on their mind, and you are met with a slew of passionate speech. That same passion will not and cannot be there if their parents have fed them a topic about which they don't feel equally strong. Remember, your student might really really really want to please you, the parent, or at least not disappoint. BUT THE RESULTS WILL NOT HAVE THAT SPECIAL FEELING OF THE REAL KID. Yes, all writing is a produced self. But, no, not all writing is photoshopped to fit in well with the family portrait. Agendas are obstacles. You have one, I have one, students have one. Mostly-- you want your kid to be liked. To shine out as special, but not to take too big a risk that might cost Continue Reading …
The college essay that got me into Brown
I wanted Brown badly I wanted to go to Brown University because all my favorite people from high school went there, many of them writers; I wanted to go to Brown because I knew there students had autonomy over course selection and I was used to picking for myself. I wanted to go to Brown because...it felt like a natural fit. And because I drank the elitist cool-aid, sorta. I didn't exactly approach the process with an open mind, more like a targeted mind that was open to me getting what I wanted most... "I can see myself there!" I said. And so said everyone else. Sometimes, everyone else's predictions for you feel annoying. But it's most annoying-- and probably also most accurate-- to imagine that all of that conviction could be irrelevant. Continue Reading …
Sample Essay: What makes a dad?
“He Doesn’t Know Me”: What Makes a Dad? A Personal Essay I got out of the car so that he could find parking. The tension between us was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. My father and I had been at each other’s throats for weeks. I didn’t like the way he treated me and he was sick of hearing me talk about it. Looking at it now, it amuses me that he believed that a pair of sneakers and a trip to Chipotle would make it all better. A part of me wanted to believe that our relationship would improve. That he wouldn’t forget my birthday and that he wouldn’t forget the days that he was supposed to come and visit. But I knew that it wasn’t going to change. One lunch wasn’t going to fix anything. Even though I was 11, I already knew that the damage had become irreversible. We entered Chipotle and I immediately smelled the aroma of guacamole. It was particularly busy and there was almost nowhere to sit. There was a sense of joy in the room, something that didn’t exist between me and my father. I walked over to the only empty table, while he ordered our food. There was a small puddle of hot sauce left by the last customer who didn’t have the decency to clean it up. I took a brown napkin from the dispenser and wiped it away, restoring the table to its shiny, silver condition. He walked over with a blank expression on his face as he placed our food on the table. I said, “Thank you,” but there was no response. My father stared at me from across the circular metal table with his cold dark brown eyes. The light bounced off the middle of his sweaty, bald caramel-colored head. Part of his chest tattoo was visible through his white t-shirt. He scratched his stubble before beginning to unwrap his burrito. We ate in silence for about five minutes until he got bored and decided to stir the pot. “I don’t like your hair that way,” he said in a harsh tone. “Sorry, but it’s not your hair so why does it matter?” I asked. “You are my child and I don’t like your Continue Reading …
Face Your Inner Teenager
What's your Inner Teenager telling you? Even the most docile teenager, which I'd say I was (though my mom might put it otherwise), has a reactive streak, the impulse to reject or explode or "take things personally" that seems to come from nowhere. It's the reactivity of the teen that seems to get under the skin of their grown-ups. And the grown-up's inner teenager jumps into the ring. Especially when there is an important, high-stakes task to be completed (college essay, anyone?) for which the full-grown adult feels ultimately responsible and maybe overly-invested. Add to that the teen's fluctuation between grandiose self-importance (feeling the center of the universe-- because individuation sometimes requires laser focus) and tough plummets in self-esteem (feeling like the outcast of the universe--when someone's comment sent you headlong into self-loathing) and you have a cocktail for colossal arguments. The crux of the problem is with our own blind spots Turns out the crux of the problems might lie not with the teen, but in getting their full-grown adults (guardians, parents, care-givers) to embrace their inner teenager-- or rather, the inner truths that having a teenager around can force us to face. Some of the interpersonal conflict teens are blamed for might actually come from adults needing to be more introspective and honest about our feelings about our lives. In other words, you teens are smart, and onto something we full-grown adults just might need some of. Our discoveries could and should happen in tandem. Cutting-edge Neuroscience Says So! Luckily, smart neuroscientists and psychologists like Dr. Dan Siegel are doing some radical investigation of the teen brain. And what we're learning not only redeems (yup!) some of these behaviors, but let's us know that the reason for the adults getting so triggered lies as much with their own sense of self as with the teen's ___________ (fill in the blank-- insolence, mood swings, brashness, Continue Reading …