Friday, April 08, 2011

College Visit

The air is aromatic, the trees are budding, and spring bulbs prepare for extravaganza; that means it’s time for many parents of high school juniors to take their young people off to visit colleges, where ancient rituals are enacted: articulate undergraduate tour guides walk backwards the length and width of a great campus, maintaining eye contact and telling the high school prospects and their families the wonders of this particular college or university. Memorized facts tumble out of the mouths of these guides, and they are often true; enthusiasms abound for food and faculty and study abroad; a multi-layered sales pitch is enacted before wide young eyes, and its central message is that this beautiful billion-dollar campus, and all the smart, fun, stylish people on it, can be yours, and we’ll throw in a first rate education at no extra cost.  Where do I sign?

Sadly, I’m not the high school junior who gets to choose next year. I’m just helping our academically-inclined young person head in the direction of college. But even this clear-cut parental duty comes with doubts and anxieties. We hear rumors of families making many more campus visits than we are making. We tote up the costs of these schools and wonder what we can afford. We ask ourselves whether we have done all we should have done to prepare our young person for independence. But then we lurch back to reality: it’s not about us, it’s about the student. Families make these visits to let their young person see what it feels like to walk across a distant campus and see what the other students look like and sound like and start to imagine themselves as one of them heading off to class or to the coffee shop.

Mysteries abound for both parents and child. Big university? Small college? Liberal arts or a more clear-cut vocational track? The chances for being accepted? The likelihood of a job at the end? I suspect that a fortune teller could make a good living setting up shop across the street from any campus welcome center.

Parents trade stories about campus visits. One father told me that within a half hour his son didn’t like the feel of a certain campus and dropped it from his list. Another parent said that a particular Ivy League school offended a daughter with the crassness of its list of lifelong benefits granted to those fortunate enough to spend four years there. Often, I guess, the student sees something that seems daring enough and safe enough; in other words, just right.

Once you start making campus visits, you think about the stages that follow. Applications, weeks of waiting for acceptance or rejection, the student’s own decision, and finally the departure of your child out into the world. One fellow told me about dropping off his brand new freshman at one of America’s military colleges, and hearing later that the anxious young man had gone upstairs to his dorm room and cried. Later, when the cadets knew each other better and were willing to share a secret, the student discovered that most of the other freshmen had done the same. And all those parents who dropped off their young men and women, in all those cars heading to the four points of the compass? The emotional state of mind of the parents in those emptier than usual cars has not been recorded.

Broadcast by Ken Smith on April 08, 2011 • WVPE's Audio Archive
Customs & Rituals • Education • Family & Friends • Travel • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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