Getting Your Kid Off to College

I made a lot of noise in Part I of this series about the difficulty in filling out college applications, but now that we're almost four more months in to this endeavor, I'd happily go back to the college application phase instead. Really, please, I'm begging you to send me back.

My friends have been asking me a lot lately why they don't hear from me anymore. My co-workers want to know why I bring my pillow to work and then crawl under my desk at break-time for an afternoon nap. Also, usually by this time of the year I'd have a nice starter tan, but I'm still pasty white because I never have a chance to venture out of the house for very long.

It started out as a simple To-Do list written on one of those refrigerator grocery list notepads, but now the list is so long that it has its own Table of Contents.

Item #1 on the To-Do list was to make a final choice as to where he wanted to go. He was lucky enough to be accepted at both colleges he applied to, so he was faced with a tough decision. Should he go to the university two hours away that's much, much cheaper? Or should he go to the local university that costs much more but Mom can still come pick up the laundry? To be fair, the local university seems to have a much stronger program for his major, so we were pleased with his eventual decision to stay closer to home. Either way he had planned to stay in a dorm, so from there the To-Do list just grew and grew.

Here's a small excerpt from the list:

1. Go through all the degree options and choose a program
2. Finalize the financial aid application
3. Figure out the estimated cost for tuition, books, room rent, and meal plan
4. Allow three weeks to recover from the shock after doing the above activity
5. Pay the enrollment confirmation fee
6. Go through all the dorm options and choose a building
7. Apply for university housing
8. Take the kid to the bank and get him to open a checking account
9. Go over the financial aid reward and officially accept it
10. Allow three weeks to recover from the shock of how little financial aid pays
11. Register for New Student Orientation and pay fee
12. Register for New Parent Orientation (make sure to request these two days off work)
13. Go through all the meal plan options and choose one
14. Reject the nagging thought that the kid can survive on Ramen and pb & j sandwiches to avoid paying for a meal plan
15. Special-order the dorm room bedding since regular sheets won't fit
16. Schedule doctor appointments for booster immunizations and get health forms signed
17. Schedule dental appointment for wisdom teeth removal (may as well get it over with before school starts)
18. Sign on to the student online portal to get familiar with the layout and check for email notifications
19. Communicate with assigned parent mentor via email
20. Buy a laptop that's good enough to get the job done, but not so good that it'll get stolen
21. Schedule placement exams for math and English
22. Once the roommate assignment comes in, do a FBI background-check on him (and look him up on Facebook/MySpace)

And the funny thing is, as exhaustive as that list is, the list is also just as long for getting the kid out of high school. When you're neck-deep in college planning, it's easy to forget that if they don't get out of high school all that planning will be a moot point. With only four weeks left of high school, there's still a ton of stuff to do.

So, don't forget the high school To-Do list:

1. Check the status of how the Senior Project is coming along, including the purchase of necessary binders and report covers, taking and printing necessary photos, and then coordinating the transportation to the evening presentation ceremony
2. Remind the child every other day about when and where to pick up the cap and gown, because you know he will forget
3. Iron said gown in time for the class photo session, but accept that you'll have to then iron it again because you know after the photo session the gown will be wound up into a ball and thrown into his backpack
4. Coordinate attendance at the Senior Awards Ceremony that he doesn't want to go to because he knows "he won't get anything"
5. Address and mail graduation announcements, even to the relatives you don't like (they may send him money, you never know)
6. Coordinate sleeping arrangements for out-of-town guests
7. Take the kid shopping and force him to get dress clothes and shoes that fit for the ceremony, despite the rolling of the eyes
8. Plan meals and activities for out-of-town guests (a visit to the local Cracker Barrel should suffice)
9. Clean the house
10. Plan a graduation party
11. Reject your idea of serving Ramen and pb & j sandwiches to party attendees
12. Coordinate transportation to and from ceremony for everybody
13. Bring lots of tissues because you just know you will cry
14. Submit the final official high school transcript to the university

As you can see, there is a lot to do and no time to do it. I didn't realize that I would need to take a leave of absence in order to get my kid out of high school and into college, nor did I realize that even if I had started a college fund before he was born that there wouldn't be enough money to pay for it all.

Excuse me now, I'm going to crawl back under my desk.