Manners in the College Application Process

Seniors: Sound Bites for the Notification Noise

As you receive news from the colleges to which you've applied, there can be a lot of noise -- and interference. Inquiring minds want to know if you’ve heard from the colleges, what you heard from the colleges, where you will be going to college. Oh, and how about your friends, the class president, the quarterback, and the kid down the street? Some of this is genuine interest in you and some of it is nosiness and the rest is thinly veiled status competition.

When we wrote our book, we asked Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes— the inspiration for the hit movie Mean Girls— and an expert on teens and parenting, for her advice about talking the talk during this step in the college admission process. Here's here advice -- including some very useful sound bites: