Five suburban community colleges in a metropolitan area collaborated on a survey to parents of high school graduates of the class of 2002 who attended the colleges in fall 2002. The study was undertaken to learn more about parents' roles in their students' selection of community colleges, to give insights and information about this important community college constituency, and to assist community colleges to shape more effective ways to foster positive and supportive opinions among parents of potential students. Parents want the community college to provide students with credits and grade point averages enabling transfer, overestimate their students' academic skills as measured by course placement tests, engaged in a number of college-choice activities, and indicate that factors associated with lifestyle and money were major reasons for selecting the community college. Associations between parents' social capital and perceptions of their students' academic abilities were found for a number of dependent variables examined. The study also revealed important differences in how participating institutions record and calculate key measures such as credits earned and grade point averages.