"May 1st: The Superbowl of Admissions. Good luck to all my colleagues today - may you enroll a class full of high-achieving, low-maintenance orphans."

Admissions Professional, The University of Georgia

As gleaned from Dave Goldberg's Facebook news feed, May 1, 2013

As your senior graduates and moves out into campus life, you will want to stay connected to both your child and the university. Here are some in-state university sites you may wish to visit to create an account: 

• UofA Parents & Family Association
• ASU Parents Association
• NAU Parent and Family Services 

From a cursory glance at their web pages, much of the benefit is found in newsletters and other communiqués and dispatches from various departments on campus. Some of the activities are fund raising; some of the events are planning for Family Weekend; some of the stuff involves discounts on shirts and mouse pads. It's a hodge-podge of Welcome Wagon-esque programming.

Be aware that any parents association does have the ear of the administration and wields some power. But the first awkward awakening for most parents will be that parents pretty much get a short shrift in the college deal. Administrators grit their teeth and smile when they see parents coming because they know they are about to get called out. They also know that whatever decision was made that infuriated a particular parent was vetted and discussed ad infinitum before being rolled out, and now, having to quote institutional academic research will result in further miscommunication and damnation because the decision at the college level has finality. In a world where everyone is special, no one is.

The conversation may go something like this: "I have a bone to pick with this school. My child's schedule is horrible. It was changed without notice and now my child has an 8 a.m. class on Wednesday and then has to come back to school for a 7 p.m. class and neither is taught by a full professor!"

The administrator responds, "Them's the breaks. Due to institutional funding issues and the hiring of qualified faculty, we had to make some tough decisions. We have eight classifications of professorship and all are great. Your child got caught up in the whirlwind and now has to endure and learn from this experience ... move on, so to speak."

University administrators are overly fond of telling students that they must learn from the institution's bureaucratic malfeasance. Admin's will tell students that they are learning from being given the bum's rush, that the administrative hassle is as much a part of the "college experience" as curriculum. Be ready for the air of arrogance that you may experience but don't get too peeved. Instead, be prepared and, as written here before, don't be late in the game, ever. Think of your newly minted college student as an antelope on the African veldt. Don't let your child exhibit a limp.

To clarify, throughout your child's college career, your parental involvement is important to your child's collegiate experience and growth. If there is wisdom in many counselors and you possess that wisdom, why hide it at the expense of your child's welfare? However, sadly, to some extent your parental involvement is viewed as mostly a transactional relationship as opposed to transformational. You pretty much aren't going to tell a university anything.

So, you will hear grumblings of helicopter parenting at some point in the next three months and beyond. Educational administrators, orientation leaders, residential life personnel and financial aid folk at the administrative level don't tolerate it. It's all your child's responsibility from here on out, they might insist. If you confront this, resist the temptation to become apoplectic.

Of course, it's not all your child's responsibility but that is what you might be told any time you call out a university potentate. Also, resist the urge to tell administration that you are paying the bills so it's okay if you question the great oracle. That fun event is a bit like questioning the traffic cop who's ticketing you and telling that officer you pay his or her salary. That will always win you points-points on your driver's license.

A better bet is to remember it is a collaborative effort between student, university, and parents.

Join the Parent's Association at your respective school. Be part of the experience and participate in Parents Weekend. Simultaneously, try to get chummy with a few power players in Res. Life, Student Life and Admissions, and especially the campus Ombudsperson when you get a chance. You can get more mileage from a well-placed administrator than your organization chapter. Parents Associations are likely to be more interested in orchids than addressing an academic problem that's bothering junior.