In an age of involvement, college parents must ask . . .
How much is too much?
By
Marjorie Savage
When the phone rings in a college admissions office these days, it’s a safe bet that the caller
is not a high school student asking for an application. More likely, the person on the line is a parent.
It’s much the same in the offices responsible for financial aid, residence life, or even health
and counseling services: Parents are making the calls, asking the questions, and trying to solve whatever
problems their students might be having.
Older alumni cannot imagine why parents would be asking about registration dates, complaining about
noise in the residence halls, or conferring with an academic counselor, and even many relatively recent
graduates are puzzled by the connection between the parents and children of “millennial families” — those
with children who have graduated from high school within the past five years.
Yet such involvement amounts to a natural progression for many of today’s college parents, who
have heard since their children were toddlers that it is a crucial component of success. They have
been told to visit schools, meet teachers, and know the friends of their children. Elementary, junior
high, and high schools have mailed parent newsletters, sent email updates, and posted assignments and
grade reports online so that parents can track a student’s progress on a daily basis. And that
involvement has worked. The students attending competitive colleges such as Reed are successful at
least in part because of their parents’ interest and support.
With escalating costs, parents are more likely to monitor what they see as a major financial stake
in their children’s education. The price of an undergraduate degree can easily exceed the family
house- and car-payments combined, and even those spared the full cost know its value. Such instant
and constant forms of communication as email, cell phones, and text messaging add to the parental role.
Students quick-dial their parents as they hand in a difficult quiz, the moment they open the bank notice
saying they have overdrawn their checking account, or as the door slams to punctuate a spat with a
roommate. There is no cool-down period between the latest campus crisis and the report to mom or dad.
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Sujata
Gamage helps her daughter, Anu Samarajiva ’09, move in.
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President
Colin Diver greets every new member of the freshman class at the orientation picnic.
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