College kids-parents experiences....

[Victor E. Bell]

Didn't want to hijack the missing student thread with this story, but I read a post there about kids granting access to their parents for purposes of seeing grades...

A good friend of mine had a daughter who decided on a small private college in western NY, I don't even know the name of it anymore. My buddy and his wife drive the daughter up there for freshman orientation. Somebody at the college is seated behind a desk with the three of them before her, and she's telling them that the daughter needs to sign a release to allow her parents to see her grades. The woman hands the kid this form and shows her where to sign. She's hesitant, and carefully scrutinizes this paper and she's clearly not on board with signing this thing.

My buddy sees what's happening and says "Jamie, let me tell you something. I'd like you to think of it this way. I want you to imagine yourself as an emerging, third-world country. I'd like you then to think of your mother and I as a benevolent superpower, like the United States. If you wish to continue to receive support from this superpower, I suggest you sign that document because if you don't, we will cut off all aid, and declare war on you."

 

[psuguy04]

Didn't want to hijack the missing student thread with this story, but I read a post there about kids granting access to their parents for purposes of seeing grades...

A good friend of mine had a daughter who decided on a small private college in western NY, I don't even know the name of it anymore. My buddy and his wife drive the daughter up there for freshman orientation. Somebody at the college is seated behind a desk with the three of them before her, and she's telling them that the daughter needs to sign a release to allow her parents to see her grades. The woman hands the kid this form and shows her where to sign. She's hesitant, and carefully scrutinizes this paper and she's clearly not on board with signing this thing.

My buddy sees what's happening and says "Jamie, let me tell you something. I'd like you to think of it this way. I want you to imagine yourself as an emerging, third-world country. I'd like you then to think of your mother and I as a benevolent superpower, like the United States. If you wish to continue to receive support from this superpower, I suggest you sign that document because if you don't, we will cut off all aid, and declare war on you."

I get the intent of what your buddy is doing. But, what that college is doing is very "borderline" as to the FERPA law. Parents & students should have an open, thoughtful discussion about this type of thing before you get in front of an administrator at a desk.

I'm not saying your buddy is one, but I see helicopter parents all the time and get calls from them on a regular basis. Far more often than not, it's parents trying to make excuses for Johnny or Jill and not allowing them to have the kind of academic life they want. In a lot of cases, it's parents vicariously living out their college years through their children.

 

[Victor E. Bell]

Never thought about it that way, but I'm certain it's true. The guy was more leaning on the kid that if she was going to go up there and screw off and not get grades, he wanted to know about it and she'd be coming home since they were footing the bill.

That said I have neighbors who are PSU profs and I do hear about what you're talking about from them.

 

[CF LION]

At my daughter's orientation at Duquesne, the Director of Student Life (a priest) was giving a talk to the parents and this topic came up. He said all the things about FERPA -- that your son or daughter could choose to not give us access to their records, but also said not to worry, that Duquesne sends out mid-semester and semester-end reports addressed to the student at their home. In a very veiled way, he told us that we might want to open our kid's mail from Duquesne that was sent home.

 

[psuguy04]

At my daughter's orientation at Duquesne, the Director of Student Life (a priest) was giving a talk to the parents and this topic came up. He said all the things about FERPA -- that your son or daughter could choose to not give us access to their records, but also said not to worry, that Duquesne sends out mid-semester and semester-end reports addressed to the student at their home. In a very veiled way, he told us that we might want to open our kid's mail from Duquesne that was sent home.

I'm not surprised to hear that. Some universities take FERPA a lot more serious than others.

Hell, at PSU, some departments/staffers take it a lot more seriously than others.

 

[CF LION]

I get the intent of what your buddy is doing. But, what that college is doing is very "borderline" as to the FERPA law. Parents & students should have an open, thoughtful discussion about this type of thing before you get in front of an administrator at a desk.

I'm not saying your buddy is one, but I see helicopter parents all the time and get calls from them on a regular basis. Far more often than not, it's parents trying to make excuses for Johnny or Jill and not allowing them to have the kind of academic life they want. In a lot of cases, it's parents vicariously living out their college years through their children.

It might be borderline, but the college admins I've talked to know this particular part of FERPA is a crock of sh*&$t. If the parents are shelling out $40K a year, there should be no discussion. You want to keep your records private, find a way to pay for school.

 

[psuguy04]

It might be borderline, but the college admins I've talked to know this particular part of FERPA is a crock of sh*&$t. If the parents are shelling out $40K a year, there should be no discussion. You want to keep your records private, find a way to pay for school.

Not disagreeing, but where does it stop?

What about class scheduling? What if Johnny Engineer takes a theater class and decides he wants to major in theater and get an MFA? There are many parents who don't take too kindly to things like this, and make their kids take certain classes/majors. What often happens is that the kid is miserable in their career, or they flunk out/do poorly and mommy/daddy call to try to get professors/administrators to bend policies to fit their student.

 

[CF LION]

Not disagreeing, but where does it stop?

What about class scheduling? What if Johnny Engineer takes a theater class and decides he wants to major in theater and get an MFA? There are many parents who don't take too kindly to things like this, and make their kids take certain classes/majors. What often happens is that the kid is miserable in their career, or they flunk out/do poorly and mommy/daddy call to try to get professors/administrators to bend policies to fit their student.

Yeah, I get that, but I'm not sure how or why the feds think that it is fine and dandy that the one footing the bill can be shut out of this process. If the gov't wants to make rules such as these, the gov't should find a way to pay for the education.

 

[lyndj]

Didn't want to hijack the missing student thread with this story, but I read a post there about kids granting access to their parents for purposes of seeing grades...

A good friend of mine had a daughter who decided on a small private college in western NY, I don't even know the name of it anymore. My buddy and his wife drive the daughter up there for freshman orientation. Somebody at the college is seated behind a desk with the three of them before her, and she's telling them that the daughter needs to sign a release to allow her parents to see her grades. The woman hands the kid this form and shows her where to sign. She's hesitant, and carefully scrutinizes this paper and she's clearly not on board with signing this thing.

My buddy sees what's happening and says "Jamie, let me tell you something. I'd like you to think of it this way. I want you to imagine yourself as an emerging, third-world country. I'd like you then to think of your mother and I as a benevolent superpower, like the United States. If you wish to continue to receive support from this superpower, I suggest you sign that document because if you don't, we will cut off all aid, and declare war on you."

I told my child I wanted access to grades during freshman year and, fortunately, received it willingly because that's the kind of relationship we have. I think, as a tuition-paying parent, you have every right to request access from your child. There are too many kids who do not understand the financial aspect of adding/dropping/failing classes. I know a parent with a kid at another school who basically told her, he wasn't going to pass his chemistry class but he's not worried because he can take it again in the summer. Her reaction was priceless.

I'm proud to say that my kid is officially a Penn State alum as of Saturday afternoon!!!

 

[smaturin]

Our kids (two in college now) talk generally with us about their grades. We do not try and pin them down. They generally do 3.0 - 4.0 work anyways so nothing too tough to talk about with us anyway. Their schools do not release grades to parents. They come on line.

Rather than grades -- what I would encourage parents of college kids to do is to take the time to sit down with your kid and look at long-term class scheduling specifics. My oldest is ending up doing an extra term mostly because he failed to know that Class B required semi-related Class A as a pre-req. and at his school Class A was only offered Fall term. Not the end of the world, because he will get a "minor" out of it and take a couple of masters classes, but still a pretty costly mistake.

After that fiasco, we made him sit down and actually chart out what remained to be done to graduate. I remembered doing that in undergrad, but it was easier as the business college at the time had one page sheets which basically said "If you want to get a finance degree you need to take: . . ." I am sure it is all on line now and my kid just missed or ignored it. But, having that sheet in hand when you were scheduling was nice.

Anyway, as a result of her older brother's "learning experience" we made our daughter start out charting her first couple of years (she just finished her sophomore year). She plays soccer and has access to "better" counseling, but honestly they do not know the kids so you get generic stuff from them. Since she had no real clue about a major until just recently she focused on getting the gen. ed stuff done, but she had a plan. Our input on classes was to strongly encourage her to take a couple of generic pre-reqs. (calc. and a bio-lab) so she could keep her options open about a major. That came with some grumbling but she ended up taking and liking both courses. .

Now that she has picked a major she can spend some time this summer charting out what classes to take for the next couple of years. Our input likely will be pretty limited now, but now we all have some fun sitting around talking about courses and what you can do with this or that major.