^ thrilled parents
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Last weekend, I enrolled my oldest daughter at a college.
Although she didn't say it directly, she was very nervous about the whole
affair. She threw up before we left for the campus to enroll and attend
all the seminars and tours. Yes, it could have been some bad sushi from
the night before, but as her dad, I don't think so. She was miserable:
I was thrilled and so was my wife and we didn't care how she felt at this
point in the process.
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Ironically, one of my oldest friends [I'm actually a couple months older, chronologically]
who had to enroll his daughter the year before and is more involved in the college
admissions process than I'll ever be, said, "yes, it's a very gastronomic
experience to go through." After a couple of peptos, things settled into
normalcy during the campus visit and my wife and I felt as light as the cottony
clouds that were dancing overhead that day. Okay, back to normal prose...
The point here is that colleges are missing out on documenting
the THRILL that parents experience when they finally enroll their kid in college.
College websites across the nation should have their homepages filled with teaser
testimonials on how the parents who recently enrolled at their institution feel
about their child's choice, their views of the process and how they are looking
forward to sending their child off in the fall. You'll find that on ANY campus
that has an open visitors day for admitted students, parents will line up to
testify, have their picture taken and be put on the college website, they are
so THRILLED. The only thing that would make this process dangerous is an open
bar.
But does that happen? Heck, no.
-Tim Corwin
April 2009
