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Gail Hudson
How to Get Into College Without Really Trying

When my daughter was younger, I hated it when parents would say to me in an ominous tone, “Just wait until she becomes a teenager.” But today I heard myself using that exact same voice with an innocent mother of a middle-schooler. “Just wait until she starts applying to college.”

The general rule of advice for parents of high school seniors is this: let the students run this show; give them the responsibility to make it happen. Our role as parents is simply to be their support staff.

As far as I can tell, my daughter’s version of “running the show” means avoiding all discussion of college applications. “I’m too tired to talk about it now,” she tells me on her way upstairs for a shower. Or, “I’m too busy, can we do this later?” as she heads into a corner of the house to practice piano. The problem is she is tired, or busy, all of the time…

Excerpted from I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers
Copyright 2005 by Gail Hudson