Parents Speak: Advice for Parents of Rising Seniors

Over the weekend, my kids asked me if they could watch Finding Nemo (again). My favorite character is still Crush. Everyone else is stressed, but not that dude.

My main challenge as a college counselor is that there are so many things I can't control -- the student's GPA, course selection, SAT / ACT scores, and letters of rec, to name a few. One thing I definitely do control, though, is how stressful the application process is.

Applying to college is often stressful because parents don't always know what to expect. As I was thinking about how to give parents some better info, I realized the answer was simple: just ask last year's parents. Below is a compilation of advice I received from my Class of 2015 parents.

Advice from Parent of USC Freshman

"The only tip that comes to my mind is for the students to start early in their summer of senior year. That gives them the leverage in case they need to change the essay all together. Also for the students to come up with a personal deadline for what they want to accomplish regarding different sections of the application and different schools' requirements and share that plan of action with their parents. If the students use a big calendar or white board, the visual aspect helps the student to check off as they go and parents can keep an eye on the progress. This way everyone will be on the same page and the parents do not have to constantly check in with their kids and indirectly stress them out. As far as keeping the peace at home, I truly meant it when I wrote to you that working with you made this process ever so smooth."

Advice from Parent of TCU Freshman

"I have a great tip for your future students and parents..it actually came from the National Charity League senior girls years ago. They said…do NOT go on college visits. It's a waste of time and money, especially if you don't get in. Instead, research the schools you are interested in. Apply to them. Once you get in, THEN, go look at the school.

Since we did college trips before [D] applied (we didn't have this info and didn't know better) and after [S] applied, I thought it was very good advice. [S] is going to TCU. He had seen many schools with [D] earlier, but he never made it down to Texas. After applying and getting in, we went and looked. Turns out it is the right school for him! It's a great place for [S]. I think he's going to be very happy.

I also think that there is a school for every kid. It may not be their first choice, but there is a school. Parents need to chill! Their kid will get into a college if they want to go."

Advice from Parent of USC Freshman

"My biggest word of advice is to hire a college counselor :) It really takes the stress off the student-parent relationship when some else oversees the application process. [D] sometimes called you a nag, but she meant it in a good way! She said you stayed on top of her apps and forced her to get things done. You were just what she needed, and she knew it. She was very grateful in the end.

Oh, and I liked your suggestion of a scheduled "appointment" to discuss the applications. I never realized that throwing out questions at [D] at any time of the day or night was adding more stress on her. Knowing that we would sit down and discuss things at a pre-determined day/time alleviated tension and kept things a little more sane. [D] also kept a college app. graph on Google drive that I could look at whenever I wanted to see updates. That was nice and helped to keep my questions at a minimum.

Gosh, I think I would say to start the college application process early, really early! Try to visit preferred colleges before senior year begins. And of course, the essays should be done too. Senior year is super busy. (I know [D] was busier than most, but it's the busy kids that are trying to get in the reach schools.)

The senior-year grades do count! Colleges want great 12th grade transcripts, and strong spring-semester GPA's. By the time the kids reach the end of the college search process, in December, they are burnt out! Alleviate some stress and get everything done sooner than later.

Most students did not end up where they originally thought, so encourage them to do applications far and near. So many kids thought they wanted to go far away, but ended up staying in California! I think tuition costs, travel expenses, and proximity to friends and family played a big part in those decisions.

Also, apply to reach and safety schools. Some kids underestimated themselves, and others surprisingly, had the grades and test scores, but did not get in where they expected. The acceptances and rejections did not always make sense, so cover all your bases."

Advice from Parent of Washington University in St. Louis Freshman

"[D] is really looking forward to join her peers at WashU. When we were looking to get help for [D], we were so uncertain about where to start.

1st- We did not know how much weight the standardized test has for the admission. 2nd - The effect of GPA 3rd- The school of interest vs. the school where [D] could be admitted. 4th- When is the best time to visit the school of interest. 5th- How much the parents should interfere in the decision where to apply, where to go. 6th- To apply early decision or early action. How to take advantage of it?

Our experience overall for the college application is the result is not really on based the performance of the students. A lot of other factors play the role on the acceptance.

I feel that [D] did pretty well being accepted for UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Cornell, and WashU. We appreciate your continuous help and support.

Jon

Final Thoughts

Here are some of these parents' observations I'd like to highlight:

1. Start early!
2. The results are unpredictable, even for good students.
3. Apply to a mix of reach, target, and safety schools.
4. Negotiate a method -- white board, spreadsheet, appointment -- to check in with your child so that you're not adding to the stress by constantly bothering her for updates.
5. Spending $$$ visiting out-of-state schools before you apply is not a requirement. I would add, though, that if you're applying to private schools within reasonable driving distance from where you live, you'll want to spend some time on the school website figuring out whether that school considers "demonstrated interest" (campus visit, seeking out information, attending presentation at high school, etc.) in the admissions process. Some do, and some don't.

OK, that's it for now!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Quick Guide: Am I Being Recruited?

Carli Lloyd's third goal yesterday was so epic that I had to include it in this post about athletes.

As I've mentioned in my How to Apply to Stanford post, and as I will continue to discuss ad absurdum, ad nauseam, and ad infinitum, you must know whether you have a hook. A hook can determine whether that school is a realistic possibility or just a dream.

One possible hook is being a recruited athlete. But how do you know, exactly, if you're being recruited? Yeah, if you're a super-awesome #1 athlete, you probably know. But what if you're on the bubble? What follows is a quick guide to help you assess where you really stand.

Stage 1: Assess Interest

1. Are you even interested in the school that might be recruiting you? Set aside for a second whether the coach at the school is interested in you. If you're not interested in the school, then the school's interest in you doesn't matter. If you don't like Snickers, then you don't really care if someone offers you a coupon for Snickers.
2. Are you "on the coach's list"? It's not surprising that coaches will make vaguely encouraging statements about how they'd love to have you play for them if you came. But actually being on the coach's list is one way to know you might be getting somewhere.
3. Will the coach "support" your application? Support means a coach is putting you on a list that goes to the admissions office. If you have support, then you really do have a hook.

Stage 2: Advocate

Let's say the answers to the 3 questions above all come back positive. Yes, you're interested in the school. Yes, you're on the coach's list. Yes, the coach will support your application. Now what? Here are 3 steps you'll want to take to follow up.

1. Ask your club or high school coach to talk to the college coach. When your coach talks to the college coach, your coach can explain your recent achievements, including participation in showcase and JO tournaments. Also, your coach can assess the college coach's level of interest to make sure it's as strong as you think it is.
2. Advocate for yourself. Set up an online profile. If you're not sure where, ask your coach which website previous recruits have used. Then remember to update your profile and to email the college coach directly about new achievements.
3. Register for the NCAA Clearinghouse. You're going to have to send in your transcript through junior year, along with your SAT or ACT score. Start now!

Stage 3: Build a Balanced List that Assumes You're Not Being Recruited

If you've been reading this blog, you know about the importance of a balanced list. If you need a quick refresher, then please check out my Where to Apply to College post.

When you're dealing with the uncertainty of whether or not you're being recruited, build your list so it's balanced even if you don't end up being recruited. What I mean is:

• No, DO NOT apply to 5 dream schools that would never accept you without the hook of being recruited.
• Yes, DO definitely apply to 2-3 of those dream schools!
• Yes, DO apply to 3 good safety schools where your chances have nothing to do with being recruited, schools where your chances look good by your numbers alone.
• Yes, DO apply to 4 target schools where your chances look good by your numbers alone.

In other words, your list has to stand on its own and be balanced even if you don't end up being recruited.

That's about it to get you started. This by no means a comprehensive guide. This is an "explain it to me in 60 seconds guide." For comprehensive, you have Google.

Jon

P.S. Thank you to Ellen Perkins, aka Mom, for helping me understand this process better. Also, as a bonus for the water polo players out there, even if you're not recruited, you can find plenty of great club options at the Collegiate Water Polo Association website.

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

What You Need to Know about Chocolate Milk

"I got to have chocolate milk at lunch today!" my son told me the other day when I picked him up from summer camp. There is a certain triumphant excitement in a child's voice when he has successfully circumvented the draconian rules of home. "But I don't have it every day, just some days," he continued. My son, the reasonable. Do I still know you? I often wonder.

Remembrances of Chocolate Milk

When I was little, my mom used to let me make chocolate milk once in a while as a special treat. Maybe one of the best parts of being a parent is getting to chance to create special moments, even small ones.

I remember being about ten, playing Lunada Bay Little League. All the other kids in the dugout were eating sunflower seeds, hot dogs, or, of course, Big League Chew. What's more appropriate for kids than gum shredded to resemble chewing tobacco? Answer me that. My dad had gotten off work early and was able to come see the game. But when I asked him if he could buy me a hot dog to eat in the dugout, he said, "No." Reasonable, but I was disappointed.

Then, the next inning as I stood in center field, the ball came off the bat with a plink. My body fully extended, I managed a diving catch. I stood up, grass stains on my uniform, and tossed the ball back to the infield. There I see my dad, sitting in the bleachers behind home plate. He leaps up, raises his arms, and turns to the parent next to him: "That's it, I'm going to buy him a hot dog!" That is the best hot dog I ever had. Being a parent is the chance to give those special moments.

I could never quite predict those special chocolate milk moments my mom would give me. How did my mom choose which days were chocolate milk days? Based on whether I was having a bad day? Based on whether she was having a bad day? Or just because? On those days, I was allowed to pour my milk into the glass, add a couple big squeezes of Hershey's chocolate syrup, mix it all up with a spoon, and enjoy possibility. Possibility that lurking among the ordinary, the routine, and the mandatory are moments of contentment.

Chocolate Milk and the College Application

As I help families through the Common Application or the UC application or whatever it is, I'm always asking myself, "What's my role?" It turns out that the answer has a lot to do with chocolate milk. I'm convinced a college application is like chocolate milk. A student's GPA, SAT scores, AP classes, and hook are like the nutrients of the milk, and a student's essays and recommendation letters are like the flavor of the chocolate. A good application has both milk and chocolate. To make these good applications happen, there are two questions I like to discuss with families.

Question #1: How Nutritious Is the Milk?

The first question is, "How nutritious is the milk?" In terms of college applications, the nutrients that count are GPA, SAT, ACT, the number of AP classes, and, just as importantly, the hook. [For more discussion of the hook, please see my post How to Apply to Stanford.] We must examine the nutritional label with clear eyes, with vision unclouded by optimism, hope, or love. When we are realistic about the nutrients on the label, then we can develop a college list that maximizes a student's choices.

If there's one tendency I've observed in parents, it's the tendency to over-estimate how good their student's numbers are. That over-estimation leads them to push for more reach schools than is prudent, say 5 instead of 2. If you want to save yourself the money of hiring a college consultant to help with the college list, I have one very simple piece of advice: find good target and safety schools. Everyone can name 10 reach or dream schools, but those are only 2-3 schools on the list. You still need 8-9 target and safety schools. Instead of saying, "I don't have to worry about that because I'm getting into my dream school," take time to find good target and safety schools.

Question #2: How Chocolatey Is the Milk?

The second question is, "How chocolatey is the milk?" Colleges want their nutrients, but they want flavor, too. We all know students are more than just numbers. They are, like, actual people with actual personalities, you know? Flavor comes through in an application in two big ways: the essays, which you control 100%, and the letters of recommendation, which you do not. Sure, you can create a "cheat sheet" for your letter writers to make sure they remember any memorable moments, if they really love you, then you won't have to!

You still control how the essays reveal your personality, though. Probably 90% of the time you spend on college applications will be on the essays. Yet, hard though it may be to accept, the effect the essays have on the final admission result often doesn't measure up to the amount of time you've spent on the essays. What I mean is that no amount of chocolate syrup can make up for a lack of nutrients. It's not as if a great essay will add 100 points to your SAT score. That said, the essay can be a tiebreaker or tip factor if it comes down to you and some other candidate with similar numbers. How often that happens is anyone's guess.

But really, the reason to do a good job on each college application, including the essay, is just because "how you do anything is how you do everything." You do them to the best of your ability because you're not the type of person who would accept any lesser approach.

Free Chocolate Milk

You don't have to pay for chocolate milk. Every year, millions of high school students apply to college without paying someone like me. Guess what? They're all doing just fine! If you're going to take on the challenge by yourself, here are some tips for the road:

1. Read my Where to Apply to College post to understand what a "balanced list" is.
2. Use the Essaywise College Map to find 8-9 target and safety schools.
3. Check out the Essaywise Story Tool and click "Shuffle" to get some quick essay topic ideas.

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Order the Pork

Last weekend, I met up with some of my old PenHi classmates for Korean barbecue. The debate was about whether to go to Shilla Restaurant or somewhere else. "Shilla Restaurant has gone downhill since the olden days," James said, and he pointed out the 3.5 star rating on Yelp. But Dave was not swayed, and he made the call that Shilla was the place to get pork barbecue. That's where we went. As it turns out, most of the reviews don't tell the whole story.

Order Pork at Shilla Restaurant

Shilla ended up being a great choice. Yes, I understand I'm not Korean or Korean-American and therefore not in a position to judge Korean restaurants, etc., etc., but most of my friends are, so if they're good with it, I'm good with it.

At the end of the meal, each of us got to draw a ping pong ball out of a jar to win a prize. One guy won two coffee mugs. Another won a bottle of flower-scented body wash, which was just delightful. Another won a box of 12 bowls of instant just-add-water Korean noodles. I won two bottles of Starbucks Frappuccino. Just another reminder that doing a little more than expected can make a lasting impression.

But -- the food. The food was perfect. We only ordered pork. Lots of it, and it was delicious. One of my friends insisted that the bigger pieces of meat tasted better than the smaller pieces of meat that had been cut with scissors. At first I argued that it's ridiculous to say that the pieces tasted different based on how they were cut. The bigger pieces were more meat, but not better. Then he told me, "More is better," which is an irrefutable argument when it comes to Korean barbecue. Aside from the various cuts of pork, also delicious was the fried rice made on the grill. That crispy-crunchy rice that absorbs all the pork flavor and sticks to the grill, the kind you have to scrape off to eat, was a perfect final dish.

At some point, I turned to Dave and asked him, "How did you know this place would be good for pork?"

"JP, look at the walls," Dave said. "There are pictures of pigs everywhere. There is even a drawing of the different parts of the pig. You're not going to order the seafood."

Of course, he's right. It's completely obvious. Order the specialty. If you're going to Shilla Restaurant, don't order the seafood. Order the pork.

Application Essay Advice for Students

When you're thinking about the Common Application essay or the UC application essay, I want you to remember Shilla Restaurant pork barbecue. You get to choose what part of you -- what quality or experience -- you serve up to your reader. Serve up your best.

There are lots of things you could write about. But the only thing you should write about in your long application essay is your special strength. The thing people like or admire most about you. Your superpower. For example, my superpower is that I don't need to prove to you I'm right. When I set aside proving my point, I'm more open to hearing yours. Understanding you is, to me, more important to me than showing you how clever I might be.

So you're thinking that my superpower is mundane, lame, or basic. That's fine. That's true. I want to take the pressure off to portray yourself as some super person who really isn't you. Just find some quality you're proud of and write about that. If you're not sure what your superpower is, ask someone who knows you: "I need to write an essay about my best quality. What do you think I should write about?" Done.

Application Essay Advice for Parents

If you're a parent who's worried your child isn't moving fast enough on the college applications yet - basically, if you're like every parent I've ever talked to - fret not. You can help. Just probably not the way you think.

What most parents do is offer technical advice. This comes in the form of "Why don't you write about...?" or "Why don't you say it this way...?" The problem with technical advice is that it virtually guarantees the perpetuation of the prod-resist-procrastinate cycle. Parent prods student to work faster. Students resist, saying "I got this." (In parents' defense, the student is nearly always wrong in this assessment, but proving you're right won't really advance your cause.) Friction between parent and student increases. Energy that should be focused on doing the actual work is lost on fighting. Students procrastinate. That is why technical advice doesn't work.

How to Inspire Confidence

I have the solution. Just kidding. I have part of the solution. Technical advice doesn't work. What works is reassurance.

As parents, sometimes we need to pause. We're always going to be thinking about where we want our children to go next. That's natural. We want our kids to achieve whatever the maximum they can in this life. But sometimes, we have to spend a few minutes appreciating how far they've come. Also, we need to think about where a 17-year-old is in life. She is at a crossroads. Independent, but not fully so. Confident, but not fully so. An adult, but not fully so.

When is the last time we stopped to remember what it was like to be 17? It takes some effort. I can't even remember what it was like to have to hold my daughter's hand while she climbed the stairs, and that was only 1 year ago. Forget about remembering when I was 17. I do remember meeting Christa when I was 17, though. I have to write that down or I will get in trouble later when she reads this (Hi, Dear!).

If you can bring yourself to pause for a moment to think about where your child is in life now and how she got here, then you're ready to write your child a letter. Write about why you're proud of the person she's become. If possible, make sure you and your spouse, or you and any other close relatives, all write letters. Be as specific as possible about the personal quality you admire most in your child. Write about times you've observed that quality in action. They might be random little moments, but those are the ones that count.

For example, I admire that my son's stubborn desire to be happy. Even though I tell him he doesn't have to be happy all the time, whenever I ask him if he's tired, angry, sad, or happy, he always tell me he's happy, even if that's clearly false. Yesterday, when he finished his day at summer camp (Rolling Hills Country Day summer camp = awesome!) with orange popsicle stains on his camp shirt and just enough strength to trudge across the hot asphalt parking lot to our car, he insisted he was happy but not tired. He believes his defiance can conjure happiness into existence.

You need to write about your child's superpower. Then, at a time when you and your child are both relaxed, bring your letter. Read it to your child aloud, and hand it to her. Then wait. Take a deep breath. Don't fill the silence with sound. See what happens. That's it. Done.

This is something I try to do at the end of the application process with my students, after I get to know them, after I've seen them struggle to express themselves in their writing. I tell them what their superpowers are, and I encourage them to hold onto that as they start college. But as a parent, you don't have to wait. You can write that letter and have that conversation now to boost your child's confidence. And going through the writing process yourself will boost your own empathy, too.

One More Tip for Making the Process Less Stressful

Of course, we must be practical about procrastination, too. It's not unreasonable for parents to request and receive regular progress updates from your child about her college applications. But it is unreasonable to ask for those updates all the time, any time, whenever you feel like it. Plus, that will just start the prod-resist-procrastinate cycle.

My simple suggestion is to pick a day of the week (or if your schedule is regular enough, a certain meal or time) when you will check in with your child about the Common Application, the UC application, or whatever other application your child is working on. The deal is that you don't get to hound your child at other times, but at the appointed time, your child must give an honest assessment of what is going well and what isn't.

I Trust You

Everyone has the same goal. You and your child both want her special trait to shine through in the application, the same way Shilla Restaurant uses drawings of pigs on the wall to make sure everyone knows pork is its specialty. The biggest contribution parents can make at the beginning of the application process is not technical, like "Write about this" or "Say it this way." It's relational: "I'm proud of you, and I trust you."

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

London Bridge Is Usually Terrible

I don't mean the London Bridge pictured above. I rather fancy that one. I mean the "London Bridge Is Falling Down" song.

My knowledge of YouTube "London Bridge Is Falling Down" music videos is both unrivaled and unfortunate. I have watched at least 25 versions a combined total of at least 1,000 times. I could blame my kids for choosing the same bedtime songs every night. Actually, I do blame them. They're the reason I can tell you which versions of London Bridge have goofy sound effects, which have nasal vocals, which have flying pigs, which have animation lacking any sense of proportion, which have pleasing instrumentation, and which have cars falling off the bridge (exciting! according to a four-year-old). In other words, I am uniquely qualified to tell you why most London Bridge videos are so terrible.

A Conversation with My Fair Lady

Here's the plot of most of these videos: "Uh, My Fair Lady?" "Yes?" [English accent, always.] "London Bridge is falling down." "Oh, is she now? Well run along and build her up again." [Building commences and ends.] "My Fair Lady?" "What now?" "I'm afraid it's falling down again." "Oh, bother."

But that's just it. It's not a bother to My Fair Lady at all. The bridge keeps falling down and getting built up, but My Fair Lady just doesn't care. She carries on. She's completely not bothered, or, in modern parlance, she is unbothered. She doesn't care about the bridge. That means I don't care about the bridge, either. I wonder, "Why are we so caught up in this bridge, anyway, if its falling down brings no consequences?" We shouldn't be caught up. We shouldn't be wasting our time.

London Bridge, Improved

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaivelO90qw

I have found exactly one "exciting" London Bridge video, and this is it. Oh, relax. I'm not rambling about this London Bridge video just because. If you understand what makes this London Bridge video work, then you'll know what makes a college application essay work, too.

This video features a robot girl named Springy as My Fair Lady. Springy is building a miniature version of the bridge. When the waves wash away her sand bridge, or the rain washes away her sticks and stones bridge, or the crab wrecks her bricks and mortar bridge, Springy isn't just like, "Whatever." She cries. She suffers. I don't know why she wants so badly to build this bridge, but I can see that not finishing it puts some part of her being at risk. Therefore, I am interested. Springy's London Bridge is a good story because we know she stands to lose something.

Take a Risk

I know what some of you are thinking. Some of you are thinking that you're blessed to have lived fairly smooth lives. You haven't overcome illness, poverty, disability, or prejudice. I count myself in this category. Smooth ride so far, counting my blessings, thanking my lucky stars, and invoking other cliches 24-7. But having a smooth life doesn't excuse dull writing. You think the admission officer reading your essay is going to be like, "Oh, that was really boring, but I guess it's totally fine because he's had a nice life, poor guy." I don't think so.

If you can't find the risk in your life, then maybe you're not zoomed in enough on your timeline. We can't just assess the years, the months, the weeks, the days. We have to zoom in on the hours, the minutes, the seconds. To show you what I mean, I will narrate thirty seconds of my life to you.

Thirty Seconds That Changed Me

One evening last December, I was home with my kids. I see my son, age 4, shove my daughter, age 2, to the ground. She is crying but holding her head. I pick up my daughter and ask my son to apologize. He yells, "No!" Then he runs off. I set my daughter down and chase my son to the pantry. Tough breaks for the younger sibling, always. My son stares at me with a look that says he would rather gouge out his own eyes than say he is sorry. I wonder where that comes from. I have a 5-second fuse, and we are past 5 seconds. I kneel down so we are eye to eye. "Say sorry!" I am raising my voice. "I am not going to say sorry!" He raises his voice. "You need to say you're sorry!" Our faces are are six inches apart. I am yelling. Later he will tell me that this scared him, which, well, really isn't that surprising to a calmer me. "No! No! No!" He is yelling. This isn't working. My patience gone, I reach out with my right hand and flick his left ear. Then it's a flash flood of tears. He looks at me as if I'm a stranger. I wish I could take it back. I say, "I'm sorry," and I gather him up in my arms until he stops sniffling. At this point, I don't really know what my daughter is doing. Again, tough breaks for the younger kid. I was sorry less for the physical pain I had caused than for the promise I had broken. Until a couple months earlier, I had flicked my son's ear whenever he shoved his little sister. But one day, after hearing him tell her, "If you don't listen, I'm going to flick your ear," I realized that perhaps this experiment wasn't yielding the results I intended. So I took him aside and told him, "I'm not going to flick your ear anymore. If you do something wrong, you'll have a timeout, or you'll lose privileges." Then, in a storm in the pantry, I cheapened those words with a flick of my finger. If the people I love can't trust what I say, then I've lost everything. I had put that trust at risk. And all this happened in thirty seconds.

My Thirty Seconds, Illustrated

Now, you can say what you will about this anecdote, but I want you to notice I didn't try to write about "my relationship with my son." I wrote about thirty seconds. Relationships were, at least in some small sense, at stake. There was risk. There was conflict my son and me. Also, between myself and myself -- which wins out, standing up for my daughter, or keeping my promise to my son? But obviously, in retrospect, there were other options. It was not either-or. In the moment, that insight eluded me.

I put together this sketch of my thirty seconds, just so you can see all the elements of the story laid out together:

• Topic: That decision cost me. Breaking a promise put my son's trust in me at risk.
• Setting: Home. Specifically, in the pantry.
• Emotion: Conflicted. I wanted to teach my son the right way, but I also wanted to keep my promise to him.
• Motive: Family. To me, how we as a family handle conflict says a lot about our character, whether good or bad.
• Time: When I least expected it. I was surprised. 99% of my time in the pantry is spent sneaking jelly beans or chips. When you have kids, you become a fugitive, flying to secret places to consume secret junk food you deny them.
• Opponent: Relative. My only son. Also, to some extent, myself. Maybe my daughter, too, in that not standing up for her would create conflict. Not Christa, who offered immediate reassurance.

Surely you have 30 seconds to write about?

Good luck writing!

Jon

I have a B.A. in English from Stanford and a J.D. from Harvard, and I've been helping students with their college applications since 2011. Let's take a risk. Write about something uncomfortable. Offer up real you, not perfect you.