Early Decision: Knowing and Not Knowing

Parent Cafe
1

<p>You wake up in the morning not knowing, and you know you’ll go to sleep knowing, and you wonder how different you’ll feel. Is it better to hope or to know? And when you know, what’s really changed? Nothing about your child has changed. He’s still who he is and he has the future that he’s had all along; everything you’ve been working toward all these years as his parent is still to be worked toward. And you know that this decision defines neither him nor you. What makes a person is his character, his energy, his thoughtfulness, his passion or his reticence, his humor or his seriousness, his wild side or his gentle side, his I’ll-conquer-the-world-ness or his low-key even keel. And: whether you’ve managed to teach him to be kind, or persistent, or generous, or charitable. Whether he gives people – including himself, and you – the benefit of the doubt. Whether he’s confident or humble or some other quality from the long list of things we seek that have nothing to do with college acceptances or test scores or grades. All of these things are still in formation, and will be at the end of today just as they are this morning.</p>

<p>But there’s no denying that you’ll know something else, too, by the end of this day, and not just whether he was accepted straight-up by his first-choice school. You’ll know whether you said the right thing when he found out – not whether you said what you’d planned to say, but whether that turned out to have been the right thing to say. If he’s accepted, did your happiness make him wonder whether that’s why you love him so? If he’s deferred or declined, did it hurt you more than him, or did your disappointment make things worse, or did your upbeat positivity seem false? Either way, did your emotion take the wind out of his? If you cried, or if you didn’t, was he nice about it? Did you expect him to be?</p>

<p>And the answer to these questions, like the answer from the college, will not define you or your relationship with your daughter or your son. That’s something you’ve been building for 17 years or so, and its character is something that you’ve known all along. </p>

<p>In that realm, today like any other day can feel your closeness or show your errors. It can be a day for a slight course correction, too. Unless something really awful happens, you still have many, many more days for getting it right or getting it wrong – and as from the day he was born, for knowing him and for not knowing.</p>

2

<p>Maybe today isn’t quite as crucial as you’re making it out to be.</p>

<p>A year ago today, my daughter got her ED decision (which happened to be an acceptance). But nobody paid much attention to this, and certainly nobody bothered trying to figure out the right reactions or what to say. The reason: I had broken my leg three days earlier and was still in the hospital, my husband was desperately trying to cover all of my family responsibilities as well as his own, and my daughter (who did not yet have a driver’s license) was constantly scrambling for rides to various activities. To say that all hell was breaking loose would be to understate the situation.</p>

<p>She survived just fine, and she is doing just fine at college.</p>

<p>Sometimes, you just don’t get the chance to handle things in the ideal way. But it mostly works out.</p>

3

<p>(Alleged) Humor: Did your son apply to Schrödinger University?</p>

<p>Parent: Here’s to the peace, contentment, and hearing the answer you want.</p>

4

<p>What will be, will be. D is so certain that she will be rejected by her ED school that she said that she is not going to open the mail. She wants to wait until the end of next week when winter break starts. I guess I will have to respect her wishes. She has already been accepted to a couple of schools whose scholarship competitions forced her to apply in October. That seemed to fall into the exception for this schools ED so we had her go ahead.</p>

<p>Push comes to shove, she would be happly going to the state school. Most of her friends are there.</p>

5

<p>You might get deferred, and can spend several more months not knowing! But hope it all works out for the best! (To all of you waiting.)</p>

6

<p>For most students (myself included), the parents’ reaction is just a perk. We’re so excited to be in (or sad to be rejected if we really wanted to go there) that we barely notice what an emotional wreck our parents are.</p>

<p>Personally, I got accepted on Wednesday to my 1st choice…my mom started crying almost immediately, whereas my dad’s only reply was to make a joke about how I’m really not going. But all I could do was immediately start texting my friends. </p>

<p>Don’t stress too much…most of your kids won’t even notice your reaction.</p>