Then when a 16 year old decided he doesn't like how a school represented itself and would prefer to look at one of the other thousand schools available to him you say dad should step in. Sit him down, order him to rethink etc. guidance is always good for our kids.
In other words, turn your 16 yo loose and ask him nicely to report back when he gets finished with some minor details of where he is attending on how it is getting paid for. Maybe have an interesting talk by the fire his junior year about how he whittled down his thousands of choices to this one and sit back, warm your feet by the fire and congratulate him on a job well done.
I must have a defective child cause that would not work in our household. Kind of like when he burns popcorn in the microwave. Directions say heat on high for 3-5 minutes - depending on wattage. Kid sticks in in for 5 minutes and seems baffled as to why its burnt. I'm not going to start cooking his popcorn, but I'll take this opportunity to explain the directions and let him know he's dealing with some higher wattages. Better that than him going around the rest of his life saying that microwave burnt everything he put in it.
On a serous note, no kid realistically starts out with 1,000 college options. For various reasons - excluding baseball - that number is probably no bigger than 100 max. Throw in some baseball and the number maybe drops to 10 once things get serious. Would hate to cross off one of those possible 10 on day one cause some guy is wearing too much jewelry. If you don't think that is a reasonable piece of guidance to offer your son, then by all means let him decide. I would think it would be a valuable piece of guidance.
If you read again I think you will find that my point was tongue in cheek because ao many of us have been told so many times to backmoutmof our kids decisions. I very clearly state that parental advice is a good thing. However you are ignoring the fact that maybe the parents agree! And it's not for any of us to say where this kid should feel comfortable! And I simply 100% disagree that your choices are as limited as you think. True I suppose if you were the absolute lowest of the low ability wise and you insist on playing baseball somewhere. And I don't know how much more clear I can be on this but YES if he is down to 10 and he feels uncomfortable with one he should be down to 9! I don't know why you would want me to say something different!
You 100% disagree? I'll give you that technically a kid may have 1,000+ options, so I guess you are technically correct. However, if you want to have a more realistic conversation, I would say 100 "choices" early on is probably too high of a number. Besides, are you really supposed to get a solid handle on the true environment of over 100 schools? If you make snap judgments - say, based on an initial information card - then I suppose you could technically say you could vet 1,000+ schools (maybe strike them from the list if they use the Common Application - that would be efficient).
As for the parents possibly agreeing, the dad says in his post that he wishes the kid would at least take a campus visit, I suppose so the kid can actually get a true feel for the school. While people can be uncomfortable with schools for various reasons, I would argue that your comfort level should be based on material issues. You continue to argue that you should have the choice to decide. I have never argued against that, just pointed out that not every 16 yo is equipped to make their own life altering decision.
As for the number of choices when it includes baseball, again if your are Power 5 material, then technically I guess you could play at most JUCO, D2 and D3 programs, and therefore would have far more than 10 options - assuming you don't have any strong preference between Vanderbilt and LOCO JUCO when it comes to their baseball programs. I tried to be somewhat precise and qualify that number with saying around 10 options when serious offers are considered. If this kid ended up with 10 options - and the one he visited with is one of the 10 - who's to say that school may not actually be the best fit - if only the dad would tell the kid to grow up and do some real investigation. You see to argue that deciding on a whim - or some arbitrary visit at the high school - represents sound, mature judgement. I do disagree with that.
Trying to get back to real life issues and give my opinion as to how folks need to make decisions after rational thought.
wow I never woulda thought I'd read Childish Gambino's name on this site...as I listened to 3005 this morning...