I'm having a hard time butting out of my son's business. He's about to start applying to PhD programs for comp sci.

I WANT TO DO IT FOR HIM!! Talk me out of it, or give me tips? I really wants tips, but I need you to tell me to leave him alone - I know this is his decision and process, but I'm his mom. I'm annoying by nature and his mom. Poor kid.

I am so conflicted.

I'm the only one in our extended family of about 200 to have gone to grad school, but it sure as shit wasn't comp sci. I know NOTHING about the GRE. I know about fee waivers (he's an independent student), and that's where it ends.

I know *nothing* about whether schools average your GRE scores or take the highest. I know *nothing* about ANYTHING comp sci. I don't even know about whether a PhD is worth it unless you want to teach. Crap.

Here's the rub - he should do it on his own, right? But I needed mentors to guide me through the law school application process. Rolling admissions, prep classes and all that. I was 32 when I applied. He's 24. I'm sure that I'm remembering the kid who procrastinated and didn't give a crap about high school rather than the one who is a math and English tutor with an awesome GPA and seems to have his ish together while having a sane GF.

This is probably more about me letting go and letting him be his own person than anything else.

BUT I'm his mom, blah blah blah, maybe controlling, blah blah blah, interfering, blah blah blah, and I remember the times that he didn't give a crap about much of anything.

Has he grown from the kid I knew who never wanted to go to high school? Yes! He is totally invested in college. He's doing well and having fun as well as working his way through.

I know that he wants to go to my grad school, and I'm conflicted about networking on his behalf. It's kind of a crap thing. They'll know he's a legacy based on a question on his application, but I am in touch with people I went to school with who could offer advice and help.

This is all insidery crap. I hate it. But now I want to use my connections to help him. My old classmates remember him fondly. He was this cute little kid that sometimes came to class with me. Some of my classmates offered to babysit or took him to the movies because they needed a kid beard for a kid movie.

Ack. Ack. Ack.

1. Do I work it to give him a leg up that he might not need but won't hurt?

2. Why do I want to try to skew his odds knowing that it's not fair?

3. Why can't I leave this to him? It's his choice. It's his future. It's his responsibility. HE HAS AN ADVISOR!!

4. What is wrong with me?

He's my only child. His father had been absent since the divorce except for the court-inforced child support. I've learned to respect certain boundaries that he has set, but I might be pushing him on this one. I'll ask him.

Help me butt out?

Help me get him in?

See? I'm a mess.

Application deadlines are in December. He knows this. Why can't I let him take care of it himself?

I'm ashamed of myself, but that doesn't mean that I won't do what other parents do. Does it make it right? No, but having seen it done, and *knowing* that people in his candidate pool will be doing it, should I not network?

Gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 04:22PM by Beth.

Don't be ashamed!!!!!!! You are a mom, we all worry and want to help and all that jazz.... but you've got to let him do it on his own, unless he asks for help. Then by all means go to town :) <3

I'm not going to go any further than ask friends if anyone would like to share their experiences in applying and their programs. The end.

He needs that information to make an informed decision. I know people who can help. He would like me to start the conversation with people he sees as strangers, because he is uncomfortable approaching them on his own.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:42PM by Beth.

That is a great idea! I am glad you are feeling better now! :)

down the road, every prospective employer will probably be a stranger. Perhaps it's better for him to hone his skills with your friends.

Wishing him the best,
Ms. Hurry

It all works out in the end, somehow or another...

Letting go is a process that should have started years ago.

If the young man is applying to grad schools, then we are going to assume he has been through his undergrad program and is at least 22 or so.

You should have reached this point in the process probably at the time when he started college.

My only suggestion is to go cold turkey now, as tough as that will be. Tell him if he wants any help or advice you are available, then stop. Don't ask about it for at least a month.

If he brings it up fine, but you are just going to have to stop. This is for his good, not yours.

I'm asking rather than telling and assuming. He will always be my child, but I'm doing my best to assist him as he desires and as I'm able when it comes to things we know nothing about.

He's doing swimmingly in the deep end, but this is a new pool.

Thank you again.

If it's not totally his, he won't be invested in it enough to do well in his program.

A parent's job is to teach kids skills so they can take care of themselves and function successfully in the world. On their own.

Step back. Let him handle it. He needs to know he can make it under his own steam. That's so important.

Good luck to both of you.

In some ways it's a team effort, because there's so much neither of us knows. He's cool with advice but not with pulling strings. So, there you go.

He wants advice that augments what he has received from his preceptor.

I would strongly encourage him to visit schools he is interested in and talk to a lot of current students. Once he has a strong feel for what they look for, he should then talk to and try to impress faculty.

It is the best way to get into a program that "fits." You can help by asking him about what he learns.

Edit: maybe I should add that PhD programs are quite a different thing from all other degrees. I think they are mainly useful if you want to teach at a research university. You learn to think in a very different way, which is good and bad. And it takes years to finish. It took both my brother and I (good grades at BYU, high test scores, solid related work experience) two rounds of applications to get into good programs. Each department might take only 1-2 applicants in a year, so figuring out who shares your research interests and would benefit from your background (work/culture/language...) is crucial. You can share your connections and talk to him as he works through it, but you can't you can't do the applications for him the way you might be able to for an MBA or law school. He needs to make his case to the right professors, in person if possible. It will immediately be obvious if it isn't his idea.

I think he should talk with PhD students/grads in those fields first though. We had no idea what we were signing up for. Remind him though that students and faculty are very close at that level - treat all conversations as if even the students have input on acceptance. Indirectly, they often do.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:37PM by vh65.

Once I was admitted, schools brought me out for tours. I don't know how it works for his school. I'll ask him what he wants to do, and he can work out the details on his own.

ETA: Yes about PhD programs. I wish I'd pursued demography rather than law. It would have taken longer, but I would have been happy. (I'm basing that on an assumption, but yeah. I enjoyed statistical analysis and sociology.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:38PM by Beth.

I went to visit the schools that accepted me - but first round they were all MA programs. I know several people who were rejected at every school the first year. Visits helped them actually get in year 2. In my case, I switched fields slightly and lucked into a place that wanted my skills. It is kind of different in that a law school will accept quite a few students each year - if you are really good, you are likely to get in. Doctoral programs usually take 1-2 so great grades and test scores are no guarantee.

Yeah, law school is tricky. Rolling admissions help if you apply early, like after Halloween. I think that's one of the things that helped me, because my school's acceptance rate is about 10%. I wonder how much money they make from application fees...

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Once I was admitted, schools brought me out for
> tours. I don't know how it works for his school.
> I'll ask him what he wants to do, and he can work
> out the details on his own.
>
> ETA: Yes about PhD programs. I wish I'd pursued
> demography rather than law. It would have taken
> longer, but I would have been happy. (I'm basing
> that on an assumption, but yeah. I enjoyed
> statistical analysis and sociology.)


I too, had my emphasis in sociology in demography. I loved it, to give real numbers to trends and then to interpret them was my idea of fun. Although I was in the advanced groups in school, in math I was never ahead of my age group. Once those numbers MEANT something to which I could relate, then math made sense. My mentor encouraged me to continue in demography but life got in the way (disastrous marriage, severe depression, and then just as I was recovering my mother was diagnosed with cancer and died when I was 35).

So few people even KNOW what demography is.

Eight years vs. three years.
Off-campus housing and the luck of the draw elementary school vs. on-campus housing and on-campus elementary school

I spent a summer at the Populations Study Center when Douglas Massey was there. Tough choice.

An RfMr is a demographer. But this person went to a rival school. Boo!

Beth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Eight years vs. three years.

Yeah, you have to have that PhD to go forward if you want to advance.

> Off-campus housing and the luck of the draw
> elementary school vs. on-campus housing and
> on-campus elementary school
>
> I spent a summer at the Populations Study Center
> when Douglas Massey was there. Tough choice.

Very cool! My mentor went to Stanford and got through in record time. She was brilliant. I am just smart. I know my limitations, although she was impressed in my ability to analyze data, which was a huge compliment from her.


> An RfMr is a demographer. But this person went to
> a rival school. Boo!

yeah, but there a so few RFM demographers to chose from, so you have overlook minor issues!

It's just envy on my part. Maybe. Okay, it is. :-D

Let your kid manage his own life. If he finished his BS in Comp Sci, he can mangage his career.

My advise, as a professional software engineer, is to skip grad school. The salary figures prove that an advanced degree in CS has a negative return on investment. Most people with a MS or PhD in CS do not make more money as a result. The only reason to get a PhD in CS is to find a career in academia or a handful of highy specialized professions.

The market for software engineers right now. Unless he knows that he wants to solve a specific academic problem in CS, he should get a job now while there is money to be made. I'd avise him to save money and go back to school when the job market is soft.

I'm going to direct him to this thread.

I don't know if it's about $ or status or both. He might not either.

Regarding the networking -- offer it to him and let him decide if he wants it or not.

My advice on the GRE -- it's been a while since I've taken it, but I did find the prep books helpful. The one I liked the best was the Princeton Review, but I used three of them and they all helped to some extent. On the reading (verbal reasoning) section, speed is critical. I remember that the questions were asked pretty much in order, so I looked at the question first and then looked for the answer in the text. With the new computerized tests, I don't know how that would work. Also, he will likely get a text full of scientific terminology with which he is not familiar. Tell him if he gets a text with a lot of long scientific words that he doesn't know, to assign alphabet letters to each of the words. That will help him to rip through the text much more quickly and to figure out the relationships between the concepts. For example, "A combines with B to produce C."

http://www.ets.org/gre/

He has a minor in philosophy that bloomed from his logic classes. I can't argue anything with him without the fallacy review. In that respect, he's the teacher, and I'm the student.

When he choose comp sci as his major, he realized that he was a few credits short of a math minor. Logic/philosophy led him to com sci, and comp sci led him to the math minor.

FWIW, we are very close and learning to navigate a parent-adult child relationship. Sometimes it sucks for both of us, but we're learning. It's taken a few years, but we're getting there.

If this is the only thing that you have to worry about your kid, you have it made, I envy you!

I'm kinda worry about my oldest son going off to college this fall...The kid does not want to go, he doesn't think he is ready. But my husband and I are making him go, so he is not looking forward to it:-(

So good luck to you and your son!!!

By the way, my husband is finally graduating in a few weeks for computer science degree after going off and on for 20+years in college!

He recently just retired from the air force, so family life had been very rough, especially for our sons...So little by little I can see the light getting a little brighter!

Now I work in the VBA, and I'm glad that Congress is taking us to task!

Yep. This is the biggest issue we're had. He went to college at 21 because he wasn't ready in the sense that he didn't want to go yet. It would be a waste of his time and a waste of my money. Essentially, there's no time frame or life trajectory - we mature at different times.

He told me that sometimes when he's walking across campus, he thinks about that fact that when I was his age, he was a toddler. It blows both of our minds.

He's at my undergrad, and when he showed up for orientation, people thought I was back for a visit. And then they looked at him, realized that he was a new student, and hugged him.

It's hard to explain. Sometimes it helps to have someone help you navigate the shape of the river without giving you an unfair advantage.

He has decided that he needs information, and he'll analyze it from there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:43PM by Beth.

I'll tell him, and thank you for your service as well.

Your son seems like a very mature young man. He have a bright future ahead of him. You did a great job raising him, and he is very lucky to have you:-)

One of the best gifts you can give your kids is to step back. You may know (or think you know) what's best for him. But part of growing up is learning to make decisions and act for yourself. It would be better for him to make a few mistakes than it would be for him to become dependent on you.

Another bonus is that if he makes his own choices, he has nobody to blame for the results but himself. ;-)

But seriously, my parents were way too involved with the decisions of their adult kids. And apparently, my parents didn't have nearly as much influence as they would have liked, because I heard all the time how my siblings were doing everything wrong. My parents created more problems than they solved, because many of their adult kids were dependent on them.

I think it's fine to offer to connect your son to people who might mentor him, and let THEM advise him on the value of his chosen degree. You said it yourself that you don't feel like an expert in this field. So let him talk to the experts himself. But I honestly think it's time to stop trying to shield him from making a mistake.

p.s. My father didn't think my chosen degree was worth doing, and encouraged me to do something else. I ignored him and have never regretted it, even though it's not in a field where you make a lot of money.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:09PM by imaworkinonit.

He wants to go full PhD, but that's subject to change, as all things are. He told me that some programs won't let you out with a masters. That's his thing to figure out.

He also knows that TA/RA lies in his future. I'm like, "Dude - you can go to grad school for free as long as it's not law, B or med school. Be smart, and don't swim in a sea of student loan debt."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 05:40PM by Beth.

I just spoke to him, and I started off with, "You know how I am..."

FWIW, he's a senior.

We spoke about "gaming the system," and the issues we both have with it. We also spoke about how he'll be going up against people who will be gaming the system without compunction.

He wants a doctorate because he wants to learn as much as he can, and he wants to be involved with research. Annnd, that's about it right there.

He said that he'd like me to put out a FB blast about the application process and people's experiences in grad school, because he wants as many opinions as possible. He'd like to make a decision based on something other than US News rankings (crap system, but it exists), and Princeton Review and Kaplan discussion boards.

So, that's what I'm going to do. I'll ask if anyone would like to talk to him about the process and their experiences. I'll tag him, and see what happens.

He takes it from there.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 06:04PM by Beth.

I would stay out of it unless he asks for help. I was overwhelmed with people's advice when I applied.

You could offer your help, but if he doesn't seem interested then you'll have to let it go.

IOW, he'd like an introduction.

My stepson went to Columbia. I have no clue what the process was though. He was married, I didn't think he needed me telling him what to do. He made it through just fine.

I'm not going to tell him what to do (I have no clue), but I've asked him what help (if any) I can offer. And I treaded lightly. Just because he's smart doesn't mean that he has the experience of applying to grad schools, because he's never applied to grad school.

I had four mentors. I credit them with helping me get into the school that was the best fit. Law, however, is not a good fit for me until I can go live in a hut and do non-profit work.

As a computer science PhD student myself, I think your son is on the right track, but he should definitely be asking questions and researching his career path.

Your son has the potential to earn about as much with a MS with a PhD. A PhD in computer science is basically a degree that shows that you can produce quality research. It is almost always required for working in academia, but there are also many research positions in industry. The large tech companies, such as Google and Microsoft, hire PhDs to lead their research teams. If your son is interested in doing research, the PhD is the way to go. If he'd rather design software or even mostly teach, a MS might be a better path.

The application process is fairly standard. Almost every school will require your transcript, personal statement, GRE scores, and three letters of recommendation from professors by December 15th. The letters of recommendation are the most important. Admissions teams are looking for evidence that your son will produce good research and be an excellent assistant to the current faculty. Amazing GRE scores will help him stand out, but he can still get in with good scores if he stands out in the rest of the application.

My advice for now is for him to decide if he wants to do research and seek out research opportunities as an undergrad. He also needs to decide on an area of focus within computer science. He should get to know the professors in this area at his current school and ask them about which schools have the best programs in that area. There is no single top school in all of computer science, and success in a PhD program is often measured by the quality of research the student produces and his relationship with his advisor, the faculty, and other grad students.

Good luck to both of you. :)

"Tell them that helped a lot and that I am thankful."

No problem! If your son has any questions, post them and I'll try my best to answer.

Mom. He is 24 years old. That is officially a grown man.

Let him do it without your input. If he screws it up, he either didn't want it enough to do it right or he will learn from his mistakes and do it right next time.

If you make the fall softer (or you catch him so he doesn't fall) he's never going to learn to appreciate anything he does on his own. There is nothing that kills initiative more than having someone butt in and co-opt your project and kill the sense of accomplishment because the buttinski did it for them.

If he does ask for help, I'd help him help himself but I would not take over his project.

and the experience. The analysis is up to him. The decision to apply is up to him.

He needs/wants help gathering information from people other than his professors. He would like my help reaching out to people I know that he doesn't. His circle of friends is his age. My circle of friends and contacts is a bit larger.

After my first post, I asked him if he would like additional information. He said he would as his access to people other than his professors is limited.

Sharing knowledge is important, and it's helpful. People shared knowledge with me. I see no reason for it to be different for him.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/28/2014 06:52PM by Beth.

The hardest part for me when I was applying to grad schools was the statement of purpose. I agonized for a long time over a SOP that didn't turn out to be all that good or persuasive.

I would say that you should at least try to get him some contacts to help him write that. At least offer it. I know I could have used some help with it.

I was a writing tutor like my son is (there's a Skills Center at the school), and I wrote my personal statement thinking it was the most awesome thing ever. Then I showed it to a fellow tutor who found a typo in the first sentence.

Yeahhhhh. Um. Yeah.

"The more I think about it, the more I realize that folks tend to ask me what I want to do with my education a whole lot. I think the question kind of misses the point in that I want the education for its own sake more than for the career's."

Thanks to your collective help, there's one question answered. Now that he has the why, he'll have to tackle the "what."

I know that he loves CS because he loves logic which extends to algorithms. Now it's up to him to narrow it down. I expect internship apps will be going out first, but we'll see.