The Parent Statement Should Probably Mention the Vacuum

In December 2013, on College Confidential, a first-time applicant parent described a different approach. Part of her statement, she wrote, was like moms chatting in the sandbox about their preschoolers. She told a story. At a year old, her son was obsessed with vacuum cleaners. If he saw one, he had to examine it, try to get someone to plug it in and turn it on, and take the attachments on and off.

That, she realized, led to a strong interest in taking things apart and putting them back together at home, which led to his passion for science. "It truly has been there since he learned to walk, which is not a realization I came too until attempting these essays."

Every parent statement starts with "curious and engaged learner." The good ones end with a vacuum cleaner.

In 2015, another parent on the same forum described a short statement, two or three paragraphs, trying to minimize fawning and spare the admissions officers boredom. The parent picked a couple of traits and illustrated each with a story someone else had told. The son, the parent wrote, was a non-complainer. At twelve, on a ten-day group hike through the Tetons, the leaders had mistakenly given him a pack twenty pounds over. They did not find out until the hike was nearly over.

Not "my son is resilient." Just a twelve-year-old carrying an extra twenty pounds for ten days without mentioning it. You do not need the adjective after that.

In the fall of 2014 I wrote a parent statement for the eldest's kindergarten applications. She was four. My first draft described her as "a curious and engaged learner." My wife read it and asked if I had met our daughter.

So I wrote about the doorstop instead. At two, she had discovered the spring doorstop in the hall, the kind that goes "boing," and spent most of a winter testing it: with a finger, with a spoon, with the dog's tail, which the dog did not appreciate, with her own foot. Every time, she laughed as if it were the first time.

I do not know if it helped. I do know the doorstop is still there, and that last week, at sixteen, walking past it with a college brochure in her hand, she flicked it. Boing.