“Don’t you put that comma there.”

The sound of heavy breathing comes from over your shoulder and you soon realize that the whole time you’ve been seated in front of your computer writing your college essay, your parental unit has been standing behind you. More like hovering impatiently.

Does this sound familiar? If it does, you aren’t alone. The truth is that during the tedious college application process that most of us seniors are slowly growing to despise with a passion, there tends to be one of two extremes when it comes to parent involvement. What’s scary is you never really know what kind of parent you’re dealing with unless an older sibling has already gone through the process.

You’re either going to have the super-involved-nit-picky-pressurized-about-to-explode-like-soda-pop parent, or the “I’m-too-busy-with-my-own-work/other children/life” parent that leaves you on your own to figure it all out.

For those of us that are presented with Parent Option No.1, doesn’t it seem a little odd that our parents are more stressed out than we are about this whole deal? Do they not realize that we are the ones who actually have to get in to college? Sure, they have to pay for it, but that is not nearly as freaky as having to survive high school, maintain a full head of hair, while still managing to get a college to accept you.

Right when you leave the house to go to school, it starts. Just as you are about the close the front door and skedaddle on out of there, your parent catches up to you and says something along the lines of, “I want a draft of your essay by the time I come home tonight or you’re dead meat.” If you don’t get some kind of essay slapped together for them, then you have to deal with that look. It’s the look of disappointment. It’s almost as bad as them flat out yelling at you.

But is it better to have a totally uninvolved parent? Then everything is on you: all the deadlines, all the different essays you have to write. That’s a lot to keep track of on top all the other crap you have to do for classes. That ends up being a situation where you find yourself burnt out and screaming at the top of your lungs in frustration. Not the ideal situation either.

It’s not like we have a choice which kind of parent we end up with. It would be nice if we could just put them up for adoption and request new guardians until we finish high school. Really, all we can do is just deal with what we’ve got and get over it. In a few years time, we’ll be counting down the days to when we get to come back and visit.