This week’s “Parental Guidance” column is a little bit different since Olivier Knox is away, and I’m not actually a parent. But I do have parents, and I went through the college application process just five years ago. I want parents to know what it’s like for students as they find out where they’ve been accepted – and how to help them figure out what comes next.
College decision season was so intense, I remember it like it was yesterday. Because I applied in the 2020-21 school year, I was home all day learning online when the decisions were due, which made it ever so tempting to constantly refresh my email and college admissions portals in hopes of seeing an update. I even checked the real mailbox every day obsessively, anticipating an encouraging piece of snail mail from my top choice schools (or at least some free merch).
It’s easy to get caught up in the social pressure and anxiety of the college application process, especially when it’s your family’s first time around. (I’m the oldest, so my parents were learning the ropes alongside me.) But in time, your child will realize the only thing that matters is how they feel about their decision.
First, though, expect your child to be bombarded with celebratory social media posts announcing their friends’ college destinations. This can intensify feelings of rejection and make it seem like everyone got into their “dream school.” But for every college merch-filled “bed party” (if you don’t know what that is, ask your kids), there’s another student who didn’t get into their top choice or doesn’t feel thrilled about their decision.
A strategy I used was thinking about how much all the college decision craze would matter to me a few months later, after I had graduated from high school, or even a year later when I was finishing my first year of college. I always came to the conclusion that none of this – the number of schools I got in to, their acceptance rates, their name recognition – would matter at all.
Indeed, my college admissions process taught me there’s no such thing as a “dream school” or the “perfect fit.” No university, no matter how “prestigious” (another illusion), is worth idolizing. Students can thrive at many schools. And acceptance rates do not tell the whole story. We are led to associate lower acceptance rates with higher quality education. The truth is, there are excellent professors in many different schools.
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After getting waitlisted at what I thought was my dream school, I ended up taking myself off the waitlist and committing to Connecticut College, becoming a proud member of the Camel herd. It hadn’t been at the top of my list because I was so fixated on the “prestige” of my reach schools. But after getting accepted and visiting the campus again, Conn became my top choice, and I realized it was the perfect combination of qualities I was looking for in a college.
These are the kinds of questions my parents helped me think about while making my choice:
- Can you picture yourself living here happily for the next four years?
- Consider what you know about the campus, residential options, location, distance from home and social scene.
- Are there academic programs and courses that sound interesting to you?
- Do some research to make sure the school actually offers what you’re looking for, or at least allows room for exploration.
- Does this school have the clubs/activities/teams that you want to join?
- Extracurriculars aren’t always dealbreakers, but they’re still an important consideration.
- Will you find likeminded students or people you can relate to at this school?
- Look for affinity groups, check out the vibe of the campus and talk to current students.
When I thought about Conn, the answer to every one of these questions was a confident “yes.”
I also communicated with some current students and staff before and after making my decision. For instance, I knew I wanted to join the student newspaper, so I found the editor on social media and reached out. She ended up being a great mentor for me as I started college. Jewish life was important to me, too, so I emailed the head of Conn Hillel, who then connected me with more students who could answer my questions. The newspaper and Hillel became my two homes throughout college.
With my parents’ help, I reframed my thinking to view rejection as a chance for redirection. I came to not even care about getting waitlisted by two of my “reach” schools and rejected by another. In retrospect, that might have been the best thing to happen in my college process, because it led me to a wonderful four years in Camel Land.
