Is it normal for DD to hide uni application info

[secretiveuniteen]

My DD is quite academic and has applied to oxbridge. She has some results back for exams but won't tell me them and says it's a secret and up to her and nothing to do with me & DH. She has an interview soon and I asked if she needed help. She says she's 18 and it's nothing to do with us and she's independent despite living at home with us supporting her.

I'm wondering if IABU and she's independent and I need to just accept it or if she's being unreasonable and other teens talk to their parents about uni applications. And to confirm she goes to a state school, me and DH went to university but not oxbridge and no pressure from us except for her to do what she wants to do and do her best - whatever that may be...,

When she starts uni, she won't need to tell you anything about her grades or if she's attending lectures, and you won't hear it from the university either (whether you're financially supporting her or not). So you may as well get used to it a year early OP! I can understand that you find it hurtful though.

This is an incredibly hectic time of year for Heads of Sixth, they might very well not welcome the idea of a meeting for something as low key as this. The general Y13 parents' evenings are usually the other side of Christmas. Offer holder days similarly.

I think it's more usual for DC to talk to their parent/s more openly but I also don't think OP should take it too badly personally. Lots of DC are incredibly anxious at this particular stage of an Oxbridge application. If I were OP I would brace myself for an uber tense Christmas with a lot of leeway being given to a clearly feeling-under-pressure DD (which could easily be self imposed not parentally imposed).

January isn't far away. Perhaps if an offer comes through OP can say she did feel a bit hurt and just that she's always there to talk when things seem tough. If there's no offer then that's best left alone - maybe focus on lifts to offer holder days instead.

DS was a little like this during the Oxbridge application process although not quite as extreme. With hindsight, he was absolutely feeling the pressure, hopefully not from us but definitely from himself, his school and even his friends who all had very high expectations of him.
He would talk about each step of the process once it was over and we just learned to back right off and let him come to us as and when he was ready.
Once he got an offer it was like a light switched on and he never stopped talking about everything University related!

Absolutely not. They reserve the right to privacy (even from younger than 18 to be honest).

I mean, sure, legally you can put all kinds of conditions in place, if you want to be pushed away in the future

I assume you're talking about TMUA/ESAT type exams that she needs for Oxbridge. If she's got an interview, it means her grades will have been at least ok. I know it's hurtful, but you probably don't actually need to know any more than that, what could you even do with the information?

This
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Hi, OP -

I know it is a hurtful situation but your posts are fascinating.

I do think your DD is trying to protect herself, but it is:difficult to know from what, exactly. Most obviously, not getting into Oxbridge (or another top choice). But also, perhaps: she is worried that she will get an offer and it won’t be the right place for her, but she will feel obliged to take it in order not to let you and perhaps her teachers dow. She could be worried that you, as a family, are not the Oxbridge type and going there would feel disloyal (I doubt she would admit to this). If you or DH enjoy discussing her achievements, however innocent you might think it, she could be sensitive to that and determined not to provide another talking point for the moment.

It could be anything, really. It probably isn’t easy for her.

i was struck by the fact that you were a mature student, hence genuinely independent. You seem sensitive to your DD and I would have said it sounds, insofar as one can guess from what you’ve written, like a good relationship. Now DD is throwing around the word ‘independent’ and it sounds a bit as though she wants to emulate you (without the hardship).

All in all I think she is stressed but I also think there is something rather refreshing in her attitude. I hope she isn’t being nasty to you, because that’s bot on. But she’s learning how to think things through and handle stress for herself. I wish more university students could do this. Best wishes to her

She’s told you why: she feels pressured.

An application to Oxbridge undoubtedly feels like pressure. High stakes, high chance of ‘failure’.

Stop your martyred listing of every you have paid for / done for her. That’s your job. No wonder she feels pressured, and you taking it personally and seeing her as s secretive, badly behaved ungrateful teen.

She told you how vulnerable she feels: too pressured to share.

None of mine shared everything with us
For example we didn't see/ check their applications or personal statements
I was okay with that
They all said they wanted to go away from home which we supported and fully funded,without strings

Does she feel smothered?

My DD2 is like this. She just likes to have everything sorted in her own head before she reveals plans and grades etc. It's her way of asserting some control over her life. I've learned that bide my time and I know when she is ready to reveal something or if she needs help she will let me know. DD1 is a complete oversharer so DD2s reservation was quite hard to cope with at first.

I am going to assume of she has an Oxbridge interview (and I assume you use this term to be less outing rather than not knowing which) that the recent test results are her aptitude tests so must be good enough to have earned the interview.

What did your DH need a week off to support her with/for? Did she want him to? It seems such an odd thing to do and I can't think of anything a YP would be doing that needs such support. Perhaps she feels this type of thing is exactly why she needs to keep secrets -to prevent "support " she hadn't asked for or required.

Just let her be. My DD applied to university and we had no involvement in the process at all. We didn’t even know she’d applied until after the application had gone in.

Although I'm 40 years older than the OP's daughter, I can totally understand this. Yes, she may be feeling the pressure or just feel that (rightly or wrongly) her parents are "too much". Of course, the financial reality will kick in at some point. But I think it's good that the daughter is trying to distance herself and have some independence - far better than those kids who expect parents to do everything for them, and can't do any of this stuff without mummy and daddy holding their hand. She will be fine.

We didn't see either of our children's uni applications.

To be honest we were seriously encouraging independence at that stage and would not have asked.

Both of us did our own uni applications independently (first in family to go to uni) and our parents would not have been helpful. My ExH travelled to and visited all his open days himself,

It'll be because of the Oxbridge thing - she knows it's competitive, and she's worried she won't get in (which statistically she may well not of course) and doesn't want to make it a big deal. Just give her time.

If she's planning on attending university (regardless where it may be) and fully funding herself, then let her get on with it. However, once she's been accepted into a university, will she suddenly want financial help from you?!!! I'm guessing the latter, in which case she needs to be transparent with you. She may be applying to a university, where rents are very expensive, for example. How will she afford to fund this?! You may not be in a position to help her as much!

It’s true that for many students there are financial constraints, particularly around London, or other specific constraints. I was assuming that if this was an issue OP would have mentioned it.

Like a number of PPs, I always feel very uncomfortable when parents bring up financial support in the context of wanting information, progress updates etc from their adult or near-adult children. There was a recent thread where a mother wanted her child's university to give her updates on progress and rightly got short shrift, but there were some alarming posts - one of them said something like 'you're paying, you have a right to know how your investment is performing' - that's not verbatim but the word 'investment' and the sentiment were definitely in there. I do think, OP, that there are the beginnings of this attitude (of which the above is an extreme example that you're obviously nowhere near) in how you're thinking about this. It's a slippery slope, and dangerous for your relationship, to work on a transactional basis on these things. I've a 19yo who did very well indeed at school and had a very prestigious route open to him that he chose not to take. He's doing something else that appears to be a vocation for him. Our conversations around that as he was making the decision were salutary for me in terms of reflecting on my own assumptions (vry good thoughts from poetryandwine above in that context, btw) and also on the actual meaning of independence and of near or new adults taking possession of their own lives. In my case, what I could say was 'here are the advantages of X route and there might be disadvatnages to Y route' (there aren't really in his case) but no more than that. Bringing any of our own feelings or expectations into that would have been wrong. I think this is a similar boundary that your daughter is setting. You can say 'we'd love to support you through this and we're here if you decide to share or need practical help'. What you can't do is exert pressure.

Just bear with her. When she needs you, she’ll ask.

And don’t you remember the desire for some real privacy when you were a late teen? It can be a really difficult time: you’re still dependent on parents for so much, but you want to have your own life.

I had a mother who thought she knew what I think. It could be suffocating. I understand it was difficult for her - her first child growing away from her, but it’s a necessary process.

And I endorse everything that @TheLittleOldWomanWhoShrinks

Please just watch and wait. Maybe your DD feels the pressure of applying for Oxford and finds constant questioning intrusive.

You don’t mean to be, but that might be the way she experiences your loving interest and concern.

I was like this as a teenager and I couldn't really tell you why except that I felt very intensely that it was my business and no-one else's. I didn't discuss my uni application with my parents, and I remember also that I was away on holiday when the GCSE results were sent out, and I arranged for them to go to my friend's house as I didn't want my parents to see them before I did! I've been diagnosed with ASD as an adult, and I also think I have a touch of PDA, certainly with my relationship with my parents. It wasn't really to do with them, I think it probably was a control thing. Luckily they didn't push too much, though I know that my actions did hurt their feelings.

I wouldn’t worry, you don’t get an interview unless you have passed the entrance exams. She likely doesn’t want to have a conversation about her entrance exam(s) scores, and a post mortem on what she could have done better. It’s not even necessary, they are literally Pass or Fail. You fail, no interview. You pass, you move on to the interview stage. I’d congratulate her for jumping the exam hurdle and getting an interview.

It’s a really good transition to independence for them to start wholly managing their academics. Ofc they still need you, but this is something it is time to let go of as a parent.

So many of these responses are people acting as though OP deserves to know the results if they're going to be supporting her financially. And that's why young adults flee the nest as soon as possible and would rather be skint alone than rely on parents who have ulterior motives!

OP, leave her to it. You don't need to know numbers to be able to support her.

I agree that she may well be worried a bit about the possibly of rejection? Often, for kids who of a standard to apply to Oxbridge, then university applications is often the first real chance of “failure” - inverted commas doing lots of heavy lifting there as obviously not getting every university place you apply for is quite normal indeed.

And I do also think that some parents are really over-involved in their DC’s UCAS process. Not saying that you are or would be, but maybe she’s worried about this having seen friends’ experiences. My DC has friends whose parents pretty much chose their choices for them, having done the open days together. We weren’t involved in the UCAS process at all, other than to say that unfortunately we can’t afford to pay London rents for her.

Just let her know that you're there as a sounding board for making choices or post interview debriefs or whatever support she needs. When the time comes you could offer to drive her to offer holder days, spending time in the city but meeting her afterwards. That worked well for my DC1 with open days - she went by herself but enjoyed sharing her thoughts with me on the drive home.