Just Dreading this Cycle Again

Parents Forum
1

Parents out there who have gone through the college admissions cycle more than once, how did you do it? And to define what I mean by admissions cycle, I mean, most of high school really. My daughter got through it, but it was so hard to watch her go through it. The endless studying, pressing in extra curriculars, night after night up until 2 AM or later finishing one of her many AP homework assignments. The endless pressure of getting that ACT/SAT polished, Subject Tests, PSAT, and AP tests. I swear she was studying or taking practice tests every weekend for 4 years.

She has stated multiple times that high school was miserable and she missed out on so much. She reached her goal, but now she’s forever damaged by it and will probably spend a lot of her adult life trying to overcome that hurt.

Her brother is coming up right behind her and in many ways he’s as talented as she and maybe even more so in some ways. Yet he’s more gentle, kind and soft spoken. He’s the kind of person who surprises you to find out he’s top of the class. He’s unassuming and laid back.

Yet he’s watched all his sister’s success and wants that too. He’s lived in her shadow and yet she’s also mentored him, tutors him at times, and is arguably his best friend.

He sees the financial limitations our family has and knows that ironically, the most affordable colleges are the most elite and therefore, to contribute to the family, he wants to follow in his sister’s footsteps and get into one of those schools.

So here we are, at it again. He’s doing, I don’t know, 10-15 hours of interest-specific volunteering per week, plus a heavy class load. Like his sister he’s doing very well in school. It’s all lining up again.

Yet, I can’t help but feel serious fear. I don’t want him to curse this experience. I don’t want him scarred up by this. He’s just not like his sister. There’s no golden choice for him. Really, he’s not even chosen his path. Yet, he’s jumped into the deep end and I’m dreading it.

What you can’t fully illustrate in a college app is the countless hours of studying for standardized tests. My god, it must have been hundreds and hundreds of hours. In all the essays, scholarship applications, common app, there wasn’t one place to add that.

It’s what she spent the most time on. It dragged her life down the furthest and yet it was the silent contributor.

He hasn’t fully hit that yet. We at least learned to stick to the ACT. She studied for both before we figured out that our school system prepared them better for ACT. However, it’s not just about studying to take these exams, but it’s about over and over again until it’s perfected to the student’s satisfaction. At least that’s how she handled it. We’ll have to wait for him to decide what’s his goal.

I can say that I’m not putting pressure on him. I actually have tried multiple times to have him pull back a bit. He’s enjoying it so far, but he’s only a sophomore. He has no idea what’s to come. It’s different when it’s you doing all the silent studying.

Maybe this was a rant. Maybe I just needed to say this because I’m so upset inside how all this unfolded for my daughter. Don’t get me wrong, she’s loving college. She’s ok and will flourish from the opportunities, I just don’t ever want to see that again.

Can you guys relate?

2

Yes, I can relate…sort of. But these are your fears, and probably not your son’s.

I admit to being way too involved with my daughter when she applied to college. It was a stressful time. I made an effort not to do that with my son and it was soooo much easier and less stressful. Our kids are different humans. We shouldn’t treat them as though they are the same and we shouldn’t assume that things will affect them in the same way. We should also give them a lot more credit for knowing what they want.

If your son wants to volunteer that many hours, let him. If he doesn’t want to, that’s good. You said he’s enjoying it. If he stops enjoying it, that’s when he can change what he’s doing.

You can mitigate these fears by letting him guide the process. I am going to guess that you were overly involved in your daughter’s admissions process. Step back and let him do more of it. It will be better for all of you.

3

Hugs. I think perspective is in order for both of you.

Is it really so terrible if your son ends up at X instead of Y? (I have no idea what he’s targeting- or why your D had to do so much test prep… but seriously- is CMU vs. Dartmouth, or whatever the target vs. reach school- such a terrible outcome?)

It really doesn’t have to be like this. And so much is under a parent’s control. I have neighbors- Kid A- delightful kid, good student, parents were SO ambitious. Ended up at a well regarded state flagship (not our own). So parents were determined not to “screw it up again”. Kid B-- really a sad case. Good student, not a natural genius- got the full on prep. Private college counselor, tutoring out the wazoo because “she’s really smart but not a good test taker”, a slate of EC’s well chosen for maximum impact- and you know where this is going- ended up state flagship (our own). Kid goes off to college already a basket case. Anxiety, so much pressure to keep up… took a year off, finally finished.

Lucky kid C- parents were exhausted and out of money for tutors. Did everything on his own, ended up at the public U Kid A attended and is doing really well, loves it, but none of the angst and the joy went back into watching your kid leave home.

If there’s anxiety in the process- you can take a leading role in dialing it down. You can redirect so that there are fewer ways to compare the kids. You can intervene- say “11 pm is bedtime on a school night” and refuse to pay for private tutors. Kid wants ACT prep? Lend him $25 to buy the book on Amazon.

Really, there would be no rat race if we- the rats- refused to run. I honestly don’t know kids who were “scarred” by ending up at their safety school, or traumatized by not following in a siblings footsteps. But I can show you a list of kids with eating disorders, other psychiatric/social adjustment issues, substance issues, etc. who left for college already feeling as though they’d lost life’s golden ring and were “settling” because they were going to Elite U B but not Elite U A.

You can do this for your kid. The lesson from your D’s experience is NOT to work harder and run faster!!! Her schedule sounds insane to me. I was too cheap to pay for test prep and somehow it all worked out. Get your son off the wheel!

4

Could not agree with Blossom more!

Step off the rat race!! It is highly likely that schools (even 2 years from now) will be deemphasizing standardized tests. Be strategic! Really think about whether or not an activity is something that matters. For example, taking AP exams doesn’t matter for admissions. Consider skipping them. Your son should only do activities that he loves, don’t do resume padding. There is more than one way to get into college, this exhausting overwhelming method is not the only way.

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As the teachers are saying in this horrible pandemic year, give yourself (and everyone in your family) some grace. Let your son lead on this, and just make certain that he finds some good safeties for himself in case he tires of pushing for the top or his application cycle doesn’t yield the results he had hoped for. And do encourage your daughter to take advantage of the mental health team at her college/university. She has a lot to unpack, but I expect that they have worked with many students who have similar issues and so will have useful ideas for her.

Wishing you all the best!

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Another tip (which saved me with one of mine- the more competitive kid… ) Maintain “family standards”. That means no skipping out on Grandma’s 80th birthday party because you have to study. That means keeping up with your side of the chore wheel (OK to switch off during a stressful week, but NOT OK to completely ignore the maintenance and upkeep on the household). I know families where the parents basically decide that the kids “job” is to get into the right college during HS. And what do you end up with? A kid who is always too stressed to fold laundry, too busy to cut a cucumber for a salad, a kid who is sobbing hysterically at Grandma’s funeral because he’s the only one of the cousins who missed the last 3 family events and isn’t in the final group photo?

Maintain some semblance of family life. No, your kid doesn’t need to be vacuuming behind the fridge at night. But basic chores, common values, some evidence of normalcy. Helps give the message “we love you for who you are, not what you accomplish” when you can thank a kid for a job well done that has nothing to do with college admissions.

Kids need friends, pastimes that don’t go on their resume, interests that won’t contribute to a college essay but that make them human. You can set the tone here… and if your D feels like she missed the rituals piece of being in HS, you can fix this for your son…

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I’m actually looking forward to going through it a second time, now more educated. My oldest is a Senior in college and my youngest is a Junior in high school. Younger D has a slightly different major - CS vs. MechE - but many of the schools are the same so it’s familiar territory.

I do have the advantage that she’s a very high achiever with a positive outlook, which makes a big difference.

The only part that concerns me is decision time. Older D stuck with solid matches and safeties, not wanting to squeeze in at the lower end of the class. So she was accepted at 6 of 7 and waitlisted at the other, which was her last choice, applied only because it was free.

Younger D’s list starts with MIT, Stanford, and Caltech and goes “down” to Michigan/GA Tech. I’ve injected some reality to the list, in terms of adding a few safer schools, but she’s not used to not succeeding. It will be interesting.

8

All excellent advice. Thanks for the hugs and well wishes. This is exactly what I needed to hear. Everyone please have a happy and blessed day.

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Hugs to you and yours. I am not clear on how or why your daughter spent so much time and energy studying for standardized tests? Was she having trouble getting the scores she thought she needed? Did her scores go up significantly?

I would start right there - have your son do some prep but focus on his classes and ECs not on the test prep. Most kids tend to do as well as they are going to do with some, but not excessive prep.

No matter what, HS can be stressful, especially for kids that want to go to excellent colleges or even their state flagship. For parents, it can often mean trying to de-stress the Type A kid that is pushing his/herself really hard or trying to nudge the kid that has potential but doesn’t really care about his/her grades (often his!). It is easy to say let them relax, but grades do matter especially for kids that want scholarship money. It is challenging to balance striving to do one’s best with reducing stress.

Good luck!

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Already good advice but I want to add that there are full rides for a high stats kid outside the most Uber competitive. And there is no reason a kid can’t be one and done for testing.

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I honestly can’t relate. S17 never took an honors or AP class; no endless hour studying. Endless hours playing his sports? Yes, but he picked the sports, never focused exclusively on one, and did it because he loved it and being with this friends. He’s at a state directional and has loved it. No clue what he really wants to do for his career, but neither did his parents (or grandparents for that matter), and we’re all fine.

D21 does take honors and AP, a few ECs, but I guess we’re just too laid back as parents to have raise type A kids. She puts a lot of pressure on herself to do well, but I’ve always believed if you have to stay up until 4am to get it all done, it’s too much. She has 2 acceptances so far, one at a LAC college with their max merit, so she’ll be fine too.

Sometimes I look at CC posts and think I should have pushed harder, but to what end? My kids are both well adjusted, happy kids. They will find their way.

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I just want to say that I do get it. I think the “fashion” on CC is to be super laid back and not worry. That just isn’t me and I hear you and empathize. It is hard when you have a high achieving kid not to get caught up in the rat race, no matter what everyone here says. Mine isn’t even in college yet but I am dreading the second one who will be harder because he wants more specific things.

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This. I saw my kids’ friends have weekly test prep tutoring all the way through HS. My kids spent a couple of weeks (maybe 10-20 hours total) self-studying with Khan academy with 2-3 online practice tests and were both one and done with more than adequate scores. We did these sorts of tests cold 30 years ago. Don’t get obsessed over what in the end is only likely to be a marginal difference in score.

Do I worry about my youngest, who doesn’t care about much other than video games? Yes of course. But I’m not going to force him to do things he hates for the sake of a college application.

14

I’m going off topic, but this might give perspective to the OP.

My eldest took one SAT, not including subject tests… My youngest took one SAT and one ACT and no subject tests. Both kids scored the equivalent of 34 on the ACT. My daughter hardly prepped. My son, as a dyslexic kid who struggles with punctuation and reads slowly, prepped more. Probably about ten hours total.

I’m a test prep tutor and I always try to encourage kids to consider taking one test, but for many kids, there is some kind of “badge of honor” in taking tests repeatedly, as if it’s some mandatory endurance test that’s a rite of passage.

Parents also seem to have expectations that a kid must test repeatedly. Often these kids are aiming high. When I point out that they may have to submit all scores, bad and good, they often change their tune. In my opinion, it’s best to prepare well and take the test once. Why invest all that time and money more than necessary? Never take the test officially just for practice.

These tests matter less and less. My hope, as a test prep tutor, is that I am out of a job soon, haha. Seriously, I think the tests are not worth one minute of anxiety.

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I do get it. After older S went through the process, I was glad that younger S had 3 years before it was his turn. That being said, studying for standardized tests doesn’t happen in my area. I don’t think tutoring exists. I think mine prepped more than most. I bought them a Barron’s book and they said they leafed through it a bit before taking the tests. So, we didn’t have that to worry about.

Both kids were in a combo of AP/DE classes. Older S took several of the AP exams. He wasn’t one to study much and is the kind of kid who did well anyway. What was stressful was all of the applications essays and scholarships. He applied to dozens of national scholarships. What a waste of time and such a disappointment. He fared much better with the local ones. Edit - the race for valedictorian/class rank was VERY stressful for his grade. Oh the stories I could tell about what went on behind the scenes.

As a parent, it was stressful watching the results come in. He was waitlisted to the Ivies. HIs GF (who was more like a D at the time) was a combo of rejection/waitlist. So hard to watch the disappointment - not to mention the rejection of all those scholarships. Ugh. Ultimately, they wound up at schools that I believe were perfect for them. All’s well that ends well, but what a rollercoaster. Not for me! I like boring stability.

Watching his brother/GF go through the process was beneficial to younger S. He saw how hard it was for them and he buckled down and became much more serious about school. Ultimately though, the process was much easier for him. Whereas older S was striving for the best school for the best price, younger S was targeting large public schools. And mostly likely in-state ones, as his DE classes would automatically transfer. He said he didn’t want to take any AP tests and I said fine. It saved me $$$, saved him stress, and he really didn’t need the credit anyway. He had 50+ from the DE classes. And we didn’t waste any time on national scholarships. He concentrated on the local ones and did VERY well.

Best of luck to you all. We are now in the job/internship hunt cycle. I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

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Second time around for us was physically more demanding as D is a performing artist and all her schools were auditioned base so there was much to plan. I wasn’t being over involved, just appropriately so as there was no way for her to book airlines and hotels and check travel schedules with work, etc. There was a lot of that (like at least 10 trips - 6 or 7 straight weekends which was both fun and exhausting).

That said, it was less demanding regarding the staying on top of things. With our first we were all over him to get his essays done and LORs and speak to GC about sending stats, etc. Second time around we just let D handle it. Not that she was better at it, we were just less stressed.

I’ll actually miss the process a bit as it was fun helping them research programs and schools, and I loved visiting the schools. Made me want to go back to college and choose something along the lines of where my career took me vs. what I thought I would do.

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My first was high-achieving and athletic and I was stressed out of my gourd. He got admitted into some top schools, like Amherst and Wash U. After he fell ill with schizophrenia and had to drop out of college, my priorities changed and I didn’t get as stressed out with his younger siblings. They were both different from him and different from each other. At least my youngest ended up going to a school I had liked a lot during the first college search, so it wasn’t all a waste.

Yeah, then there’s the first job search, which the younger two kids are experiencing at the same time since the middle kid took two and a half gap years before going to college. Ack. I think it’s even more stressful than the college search, but the good thing is my kids are older and pretty much handling it on their own, except when they ask me for advice occasionally.

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" It is hard when you have a high achieving kid not to get caught up in the rat race, no matter what everyone here says. Mine isn’t even in college yet but I am dreading the second one who will be harder because he wants more specific things."

A couple of things I’ve learned over the years–

1- Your kid loves MIT, introduce him/her to CMU, Case, RPI, WPI, Missouri M&T. I cannot think of a college- no matter how august- that does not have a version which is easier to get admitted to. Same goes for the rest of the top 25 list. I’ve heard parents bemoan the fact that “Susie doesn’t have a safety-- Swarthmore is so special, if she doesn’t get in there she might as well give up on college”. Hogwash. Swarthmore IS special. But so is Rhodes and Earlham and Franklin and Marshall and Lawrence and Beloit and Conn College. You think Swarthmore has a lock on intellectual 18 year olds? I have a bridge to sell you.

2- The trope “we don’t push her, that’s how she’s wired” is true to some extent (certainly if my own kids are any indication) but that doesn’t mean that you have to enable every pernicious stereotype that’s out there about what is “good enough” or “what does success look like” or “being a happy adult means going to an elite college”. This is on YOU mom and dad, if your kid shows signs of running on the hamster wheel. You have a religious leader in your town who graduated from some college nobody has ever heard of- but is the widely respected, much beloved friend, leader and confidante to everyone-- even the atheists? Show this to your kid. There’s a social worker at your local hospice who graduated from your state’s directional college who won the citizenship award this year and has given comfort to hundreds of dying people and their grieving families? Make your kids watch that ceremony or show up (if in person) or read the transcript of the speeches. Not everyone who is distinguished and makes a difference went to Harvard. Not everyone who leads a distinctive and honorary life has an ivy league diploma. You can bend this arc- all by yourself. Your kid can be ambitious without an unhealthy preoccupation with “elite or my life is over”. There is a children’s librarian in my town who should be canonized. Attended two defunct colleges- both for BA and then MLS. An absolute genius.

3- Jackie Kennedy once said that nothing you do in life will matter at all if you mess up raising your kids (paraphrasing). Your kid wants “more specific things”- it’s on you to broaden that definition. Your kid has the temperament to compete, work hard, not let it rattle his cage? Great. Your kid gets anxious and depressed if he isn’t number 1, or gets a 90 on a test, or a B on a paper- fix that- now. You think going to Elite College is going to make his self-esteem or anxiety issues better?

19

We chose not to run, as @blossom would say.

While the elite schools may be the only schools guaranteeing that all need is met, many other schools meet full need for some students. If you’re talking about elite school level stats, you may very well find plenty of schools that are affordable.

Both kids did as much as they wanted in hs. They quit activities. They didn’t take all the APs or “self-study” for any of them. Both went to schools never mentioned on CC (but have similar stats to many that are–what you get for living in flyover country) and graduated without debt. One just finished a master’s and is working in a position where she can use it. The other, without all the engineering hand wringing that seems to go on here, is an engineer with a FAANG company on the west coast. Not saying there weren’t “moments” in hs or that it was a stress-free La Dee Da experience, but it doesn’t have to be the sheer hell of hours of studying, ECs, volunteering, and absolutely no time for oneself. Just choose not to run.

20

My kid worked hard, but nothing like what you’re describing. One of the biggest things that helped him was being able to read critically and digest info quickly. That’s something that can be worked on even as a young child. Just read. Alot!

Another thing that kept him sane is simply not buying in to the rat race. He had 2 friends who went to U Chicago and another who went to Vandy. Great for them, they earned it! But that wasn’t him. He found what fit him outside of anyone’s expectations.

The one thing he did was take the ACTs alot. He couldn’t fit in private tutors or test prep w/ his athletic schedule so he sat the first test as a Frosh, and then a few more times after that.

Of course HS wasn’t completely stress free, but that had more to do w/ his athletic schedule and being gay in a place decidedly anti-LGBTQIA+.

In the end he’s where he is meant to be and is doing very well.