I had 4 tickets to a concert and needed to sell 2. I put them on Craig’s List and a guy contacted me about buying them. After a few email exchanges and voice mails, I realized this guy was a very highly placed figure in the Reagan administration.
So I googled him (of course) and found that he was Front Row to almost every important geo-political event in the 80’s. I don’t want to give away his identity, but trust me he was a big deal.
I decided to play it cool and not mention that I had figured out who he was, but I did treat him with more trust than I would a regular CL buyer. I dropped the tickets off at his hotel’s concierge the day of the show and told him to just pay me when he came to his seat.
We had a nice conversation once they arrived. We met each other’s wives and we all chatted. My son (who is 9) is crazy about a certain university here. This guy happens to be a Phd. grad and very influential (from what I gather) in the university. Of course I already knew this from Google and Wikipedia. He mentions that he lives in the college town surrounding the U and I mention that my son loves the school and hopes to go there.
So the show started and he hooted and hollered and basically acted like a regular guy.
At the end of the show he shook my hand and said, “I have season tickets to football and basketball, bring your son up and I will show him around you can take him to a game”.
I told him I may just do that and we said goodbye. I never let on that I was star struck or realized who he was.
So, what do I do next? I don’t want to seem like a creeper but this is a great contact for my son and I don’t want to miss out on it. We really are regular shmoes with zero contacts and this university is über competitive to get into.
Football and basketball season are a long way off. I want to remain in this guy’s radar in some fashion until then. Should I send him an email or text? Saying what…thanks for buying my tickets? That’s just weird.
Wait, your son is nine? Contacts are nice and everything, but it’s going to be eight years before your son even starts thinking about applying to university. Nine-year-olds are not usually known for their great forethought. I certainly wouldn’t stake too much on it.
Why not just drop the dude an email saying “Great time at the game last night, would you and your wife like to come to a BBQ at our house this summer?” like you would with any random dude whom you wanted to stay in touch with.
You think I am going to start thinking about him entering this University when he is 17?
The school has a youth summer program that is very competitive to get into and requires references. He will need impressive extra curricular activities as well. So long as my son has his heart set on going to this school, I think it wis wise to start thinking about it now.
This gentleman obviously is too intelligent to intentionally put himself in an obligation he has no desire to fulfill. This would be a good experience for your son regardless of whether the man remains an influential resource for you so I’d do it based on that alone. And then, if the friendship continues or he makes an additional gesture, it’s good again. Take him up on it while leaving him with an easy out… and good luck!
Hate to break it to you, but there is a distinct segment of American society where 9 year olds are already far into creating their “life portfolios” for meeting the admission standards into the school of their (parents’) choice. Between legacies and naked ambition, there are families undertaking strenuous social maneuvers in order to get their PRESCHOOLERS into the “right schools” to feed into the university they are aiming for.
It aint pretty (and I don’t think it’s necessary) but it is what it is. 9 is plenty old enough in that sort of environment to have made a decision about what school he wants, and if he does change his mind later, a competetive social/scholastic history and an influential family contact won’t do him any harm if he applies elsewhere when the time comes.
If you spend the next nine years pursuing this plan to enter this particular school what is he going to do if for any reason he doesn’t get in? What if he gets in and doesn’t like it or fails? Nine year old shouldn’t be thinking about college, they should be thinking about playing baseball or video games or whatever kids do today. This all sounds like your goals and desires and nothing about his, which should be the things nine year olds care about, which isn’t college.
That’s just my HO, but you’re his parent and I don’t mean to say I know better than you how to raise your child.
I agree with this. Forget getting your son into college, but use this guy now for good seats at the games.
Kids are way different at 9 then they are at 15. I have one who achieved a lot more than I would have expected seeing her at 9, and one that has (so far) achieved a lot less. This VIP you’ve met would be an interesting person for you and your son to get to know, and would probably have good connections to help him in a variety of ways besides admission to this particular institution. And, as I said, good football seats.
If it were me, I’d pursue the friendship as a regular friendship (if this guy is that influential, I’m guessing he’ll know if he’s being latched onto to be used), have my kid concentrate on schoolwork and those extra curricular activities (if he wants to do them), and see how it goes. And I wouldn’t encourage my kid to focus exclusively on getting into this particular college or on getting into college at all right now. He’s only nine, after all. Life is stressful enough.
(If your son has periodic, casual contact with this guy, and he proves himself over time to be, well, worthy of going to this school, if this guy wants to help him, I’m guessing he will. Maybe at some point it won’t be horribly inappropriate to ask him for help, but I don’t think you’re there right now. I feel pushing it would be a mistake.)
YMMV, and in the interest of full disclosure, I have no kids, no influential contacts, and never went to college. (Well, I took a few classes at a community college. But you know what I mean.)
You seem to be making up lots of things you don’t know to reach these conclusions.
Who said I am going to single minded of pursue entering this school over the next 9 years? My wife works for another university where our kids get 6 free credits per semester so all things equal this school he likes is it my first choice. It’s his. And he is free to change his mind as the years go by. What makes you think it isn’t?
We live close to the school in question and go to events there, so he likes the sports teams. HE is the one who wants to go there.
What if he wants to go somewhere else? Fine with me. What makes you think it isn’t? What if he fails? I guess we will handle that the same way web would handle any kid doing poorly in school.
I met a man who h some influence and I am interested in possibly cultivating a relationship that could help my son, should he choose to pursue a path that leads him through this university. I am not locking him into anything.
This nine year old isn’t thinking about getting in to college. Why would you assume he isn’t involved in sports or video games or whatever kids do today? How do you get from me meeting a guy who could potentially help my sin some day to assuming my kid isn’t involved informal kid stuff?
This is why I rarely come on the dope any more. And when I do, I often leave frustrated. Instead of discussing how I could cultivate this relationship with this influential person, you dug through the facts and sifted out (nay crafted yourself) something which you could find fault with. Where the facts weren’t there, you made assumptions.
I apologize for sounding that way. I was trying to give you something to think about. I’m over-reactive by nature. You sound like a concerned caring parent, I’m sure you’ll make wonderful decisions, and I hope all the best for your son.
It’s called cultivating contacts and it is often the way things get done. I wouldn’t expect my son to get in based solely on this man’s influence. But should my son be qualified and this man’s influence could be helpful, what is the harm?
actually you are presuming much here. I find him a fascinating figure who undoubtedly has intriguing stories to tell. I would love to have the opportunity to chat with him over coffee of a beer.
As someone who works with admissions for a competitive university, this type of influence is greatly overrated by the general public. I have been in meetings where we had to decide if we would admit the actual children of people like this, and sometimes the decision is not to admit. There would be a very close-to-zero impact on the decision process for the child-of-a-friend.
A more typical response would be to make the admissions decision about kid without any consideration of the person of influence (a blind decision), and then after the decision is made, let the influential person know maybe a day in advance of the official notification date. That way, if the kid is admitted, the influential person can have the fun of delivering the news, and implying it was due to his/her influence … or if the kid is rejected, the influential person can break the news gently. In my experience, people love the first option, but often decline to get involved with the second option.
Plus, we also get a lot of calls from such influential people who come right out and say “I told the parents I would call, so I am calling … but beyond the literal fact that I am holding a telephone and speaking with you, I have no investment in what happens after we hang up.”
He sounds like a decent guy, and maybe would be a fun person to know. If you decide to get to know him, it should be based on that.
To be fair, your OP could give the impression you were less interested in a beer or coffee and more interested in, oh I don’t know, using a very influential person to help get your kid into a competitive university.