Dear Prudence,
My father is obsessed with the college application process. My senior year of high school included multiple early morning wake ups when he had decided that I should apply to another school and enormous fights as he railed about how I could enhance my chances of admission. I note that his efforts did not include the common sense help that an involved parent might ordinarily provide, like advice on course selection in high school or proofreading essays. I ultimately chose the same extremely prestigious college he had attended, which made him happy. I had a decidedly mixed experience.
My wife went to an excellent but lesser known school. She had an outstanding experience and was subsequently admitted to every elite medical school in the country. My professional life has also shown me that people coming from various schools and backgrounds achieve personal and financial success. Suffice to say that my view of how and why one should choose a school is different from my father’s. As my daughter entered high school, I began to see signs that he would seek an even higher level of involvement in her college process than he had in mine. In addition to repeatedly trying to discuss details of her (then years in the future) college process with me, he drafted several well-researched memoranda about how and to where she should apply. They merged into crazy territory, including insistence that she should apply binding early decision to a particular school that he had selected based on the statistical likelihood of her being admitted, rather than the extent to which the school matched her preferences (which he didn’t bother to ask about).
I recognized this behavior as emotionally, and likely practically, harmful and asked him to stop. We ultimately agreed that I would hire a private college counselor, which I consider unnecessary because my daughter’s private school provides excellent college guidance, and he would thereafter stay out of the process. I hired them and went silent on all information related to college. The memos, however, have kept coming. They do nothing other than increase my anxiety and damage his relationship with me, my wife, our daughter, and our younger son. As our daughter enters her senior year, I have repeatedly reminded him of our deal and told him that I do not want his input, but it makes no difference. What can I say or do?
—Trying to Keep Things In Perspective