Excuse me, can you tell me where Bendetson Hall is?" The man asking the question looked like countless others I'd seen that morning - approaching the tail end of middle age, wearing a fleece emblazoned with a company logo and showing enough shiny teeth to guarantee that he didn't need to speak to anyone in the financial aid office.
His daughter, in tow, looked like an exact replica of a common Tufts archetype. From her side-swept bangs to her Ugg boots, she could've slipped into any class on campus and avoided detection. Of course, this particular girl had braces and looked absolutely mortified that her father was talking to me.
"It's, um, right there," I said, trying to pretend like I also didn't notice that the building said "Bendetson" in huge letters across the side. "Just walk up those stairs and take a right."
The father thanked me as his daughter shot him a dirty look and followed him towards the admissions office, walking just enough steps behind to betray their relation.
I knew how that girl felt. Well, the part about parental embarrassment on a college campus, at least. When I was applying to schools, I felt as if my parents were an even bigger liability than my avoidance of high school sports.
For some reason, I felt that they had the power to say or do something that would permanently bar me from ever being accepted to any school, and I was absolutely certain that they would do so on a campus visit.
In my own case, I was nervous because my father has a tendency to blurt out ideas and questions that he thinks others will be as interested in as he is.
I've left many a restaurant in shame after being forced to endure my father's interrogation of waitresses about whether the owners treated the employees well and whether the wait staff shared their tips with the busboys.
I was certain that, if given the chance, my father would corner President Bacow and hand him a manila folder full of Boston Globe articles with "Tufts" in the headline. "Thought you might like to read these!" he'd say, jovially, as Bacow smiled politely and made a mental note of my face, ensuring I'd never get a taste of Aztec Rubbed Chicken.
Unexpectedly, my own embarrassment resulted from an accidental and rare unladylike performance by my usually polished and extremely polite mother. While exiting the Tisch Library, my mother opened an alarmed door, setting off enough buzzers to wake up even the hardest-studying psych major. I looked at her in horror, as if each door contained a fingerprint recognition device that would immediately alert then-Dean Cuttino of my mother's transgression, yet again sealing my fate. The alarm might as well have been squealing, "Reeee-ject! Reeee-ject!"
I'd like to publicly apologize to my mother for pretending not to know her while the alarm was being turned off. I think my fear stemmed from the fact that I was in a transitional time in my life: it was my first taste of making it on my own, and I wanted to look like I had all the answers.
I didn't mind having my parents around in other situations, but I was somehow convinced that in the college admissions process their unfamiliarity with Tufts would highlight my own and expose some sort of weakness that made me unfit to be here.
As much as I wanted to hear the answers to the questions they asked about the campus, at the same time I wanted to appear as collected and calm as possible. I was so ready for college that I didn't even have to ask questions. In fact, I felt like I didn't even need to ask for directions.
There were a few things I didn't realize at the time. First was that short of letting the air out of Sol Gittleman's tires, there isn't much you can do on a first visit to campus to get yourself noticed.
Second was that as long as I had student loans, Tufts didn't care about who my parents were nor would they ever be interested in meeting them.
The most important thing I realized, however, is that it's okay to be unprepared for something you have no way of preparing for. My parents hadn't been on campus tours since they were going off to college, so it was appropriate for them to ask questions and make mistakes.
I should've realized my own unfamiliarity at the time and asked the questions to which I wanted to know the answers rather than pretending that I knew it all.
Learning that lesson before freshman year certainly would've made meetings with advisors more worthwile.
If you're one of the many high school seniors who happens to stop by Bendetson this morning and have made it all the way to the end of this column, ask as much as you can.
Don't be afraid to be uncertain. Though there is such a thing as a stupid clich?©, there truly is no such thing as a stupid question - even if the answer is written on the side of a building.
