My Daughter's Personal Secretary

This last year was spent entirely on getting my daughter into college.  Certainly I take no credit for her acceptance to nine top-notch U.S. universities, for it was her 4.7 GPA, excellent ACT test scores, AP coursework, Girl Scout Gold Award, chamber orchestra viola playing, and ballet dancing talent that made that happen.  She did it all on her own.  But the indecent hours she spent on studying and activities in high school left zero time for scholarship applications, financial aid forms, letters of recommendation requests, résumé revisions, transcript and test score releases, merit award appeals, email correspondence, or tracking deadlines.  For that, today's high school seniors need a personal secretary.

It is no exaggeration when I estimate I spent about 10 or more hours a week from October through June as my daughter's executive assistant.  Truly, I am baffled by how colleges expect these kids to keep up the grades and intensive extracurriculars required for acceptance while simultaneously meeting all the universities's administrative preconditions for admission!  The Common App didn't really make things much easier, as many schools don't accept it, and even when they do there is still a unique essay to write for each application.

I tell you, planning a summer trip to Europe was on the back burner all year.  I wasn't even sure I wanted to go. On the one hand, I treasured the idea of spending weeks of quality time with my kids, especially my daughter maybe for the last time, but on the other hand, what if she didn't have enough time to prepare to go off to college?  What if I didn't have enough time to emotionally prepare for her to go off to college?  In the end, we left the decision up to her, and she didn't hesitate to say yes, she wanted to go back to Germany.  I'm proud of my young Europhile.