The First Frost Falls
Oct 23–27, Amherst, MA USA
Seasonal Memoir Entry #34
First frost, yes!
When you spend considerable time out of the United States, you pick up on changes when you get back. Sometimes they are subtle, such as a few years back when there were so many pets (ahem, comfort animals) in stores — this fad seems to have passed. Sometimes the changes are not so subtle. I’ve noticed a lot of people running red lights in their cars. I mean, really blowing through the intersection when yellow is a distant memory. I asked my daughter about this, and she said, “yeah, it’s a thing”. Wow. This is scary! I hope it’s not yet another harbinger of civilization’s decline (or simply a shift).
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This week brought on some intense parenting, with “hats” ranging from drill sergeant to life coach to interpreter to copy editor to soothsayer to faux maven. Only the college admissions process could require so many roles, generating the gamut of emotions for both our son, and his parents!
It was certainly an exercise in patience. Zach is a strong student, but has a somewhat nontraditional background, in that he did not play the game. He did challenge himself with several Advanced Placement courses, but he did not take them in double digits, nor did he try to overschedule his activities or manufacture a sexy service experience. He took courses he was interested in, and worked hard to do well in those he was not. So compared to his ambitious classmates, his academic portfolio could be deemed somewhat light — though he did very well on his SATs and had perfect scores on his three APs.
Zach came alive during the pandemic. Perhaps as a comfort blanket of sorts, he liked to read Harry Potter over and over and over again. We were starting to wonder a bit about this, but at least he was reading, right? With loads more time on his hands because of blended learning, he started getting into history. Interestingly, social media was his way into the genre. He took on the persona of Harry S Truman in cyberspace. Why the 33rd president? Well, he was available.
Zach read McCollough’s epic biography, which got him interested in other presidents, like the Roosevelts and Lincoln. Then he became a scholar on all things presidents, creating a YouTube channel by that name.
The more he read, the more he wanted to tell these stories, so he wrote lengthy scripts, and recorded impressive narrated presentations, finding wonderful images of these historical figures. Tina and I just sat back and marveled, happily buying him books that very few people would consider buying these days — Remini’s trilogy on Jackson, Sanberg’s six volumes on Lincoln, Truman’s two-part journals — Zach devoured them all. This interest became part of his identity, which warmed us as parents, seeing him come alive and gain some intellectual confidence.
Zach’s most powerful exercise was taking on an independent study project where he interviewed his grandfather, Robert Watts Mansfield, about his three tours in Vietnam while a Green Beret. On four separate occasions, Zach interviewed his Grandpa Bob, in sessions that lasted well over four hours. Zach complemented the interviews by reading Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest and by watching Ken Burns’ documentary. Zach’s hope is to write a biography of his grandfather, and he has transcribed the interviews, has written a first draft of the introduction, and has produced a table of contents. We were proud just to see him make a connection with Bob, and the effects of that rich time together brought to both of them.
So… Zach didn’t play the college game, but he nevertheless is interested in highly selective universities (and to be fair, others that are not as competitive). This created a challenge. How could he get his true self across in the admission process? How could we make sure he didn’t lose his confidence during this brutal process (for which it’s easy to get jaded)? How could we avoid the overhype of the faux importance of getting the right undergraduate experience? Most importantly, how could we make this his process, and his decision, and not simply the whims of his parents (were we as parents striving?)? Daunting, to say the least.
The first thing you need to prepare yourself for as a parent is that your child will very likely ignore perfectly good advice. In this case, it was, “You should consider using the summer months to work on your Common App, before you get really busy with schoolwork in the Fall.” Did he do this? Not at all… deep breathing. Even the few college visits we took him on seemed to him more like something to do than actual research trips. This expectation, of course, was his parents’, and not fair to Zach.
We took away from the summer experience the fact that Zach wasn’t ready to engage in the admissions process, even though he may have been pondering it (was he?). September rolled around and Zach was busy with more homework than he was used to, with trying to make some new friends, and with varsity soccer. It wasn’t until mid-October, and a fruitful meeting with his college counselor (her caseload was the entire senior class of 200+), that Zach finally kicked into gear, somewhat begrudgingly deciding to put an application in to a single New England school for Early Decision. This is where we did give him some stern advice, which seemed to stick: apply ED to a school you’re excited about, and would be happy to attend if accepted. It was difficult to tell if Zach was ambivalent about early applications, or just a bit paralyzed by the process — it was likely a healthy dose of both.
Nevertheless, Zach kicked into gear, writing his essay and supplemental prompts, and all the other soul-laid-bare information sharing that goes along with the Common App. We were happy (and not a little relieved) when he pressed submit on October 30, and we collectively felt good that he represented his passion for history, his mixed ethnicity, and his experience growing up overseas. It heartened us that he used his best friend in Dubai as a sounding board (beyond his parents).
So the ED application is out there, and we have no idea how competitive Zach will be. It doesn’t matter, for we believe in who he is as a person, and what he’s capable of becoming as a learner and contributor. The college admissions process has reinforced these sentiments, and ultimately, brought everybody closer.
