Wow - great responses. I was hesitant to post this question, as it’s fairly personal, but am so glad I did. Thanks everyone.
Great responses here already, so I won’t repeat the things that definitely resonated for us.
I’ll add one more thing, though: be prepared for the periodic SPLAT. It will happen at midterms or finals, probably, but maybe at a different time. It means you will get a middle-of-the-night, the-sky-is-falling call or series of texts. She will be convinced that everything is terrible and she can’t handle it and everyone hates her and you will wonder how on earth to help.
If you know a splat is basically inevitable, it makes it easier to stay calm and keep perspective. Your job at splat time is to listen and reassure and be her rock. When my kid had her first splat, I didn’t sleep for several nights, I was SO worried she was truly in an inescapable crisis. We live close enough that she was able to come home for a weekend and regroup, and although I floated the idea of her withdrawing from school, with some time and distance she realized she was okay and wanted to keep going. When she went splat the next semester, sobbing to me on the phone about how she was DEFINITELY going to fail her midterm and blah blah blah… it was a lot easier to say, “Okay, so first of all, if you fail it, so what? You’ll live. Second of all, you don’t want to fail it? Get off the phone and go study!” Spoiler: she lived (and did fine on the test).
I mean, professional help when needed is always good, but anxiety will ebb and flow through the semester and you both just need to get comfortable with that. She will need you to be ready with “Okay, let’s say you’re right and everything is terrible. What’s the worst that could happen now? Huh, ok, I think you’ll live through that.”
Good luck to both of you. 
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one more babbling from me.
life can be a lonely place sometimes. you can have lots of “friends” and be lonely. college can make it worse, going away from home and starting a new is awesome, but can easily put a person pre disposed to anxiety into an “alerted” state. having a difficult roommate or a bad relationship and school work are definitely triggers. (I have never had a bad relationship, always stress free…just kidding) I have a brother smarter than smart …he is probably always the smartest person in the room. and he got into working out to control anxiety. he told me he would have a panic attack when he walked into the gym because everyone was staring at him. he said that is ridiculous and he knew that (one part of his brain is telling him the place came to a stop just to stare at him, his thinking brain based in reality knows that probably not one person knows he came in and why would they care) it was a big issue for him that feed into angst for him. he said I am panicking and at the same time I know it is “ridiculous” but I could not shut it off. what I have learned from him is that you can not just shut it off, grow up, soldier on, toughen up. it is real to that part of your brain. I guess my point is that people around do not need to enable but they must not cause more stress with comments like grow up or toughen up etc…encourage the person to get counseling and if needed psychiatric care too.
my two boys were anxious. We made sure they attended admitted students day and facilitated conversations with people they knew from their hs that were attending the schools. honestly, I think it took a year before they were both comfortable.
I also, think it’s important to think about how you’re going to deal with your child heading off to college. It was not easy for me, I kept expecting to see them around the house.
See if there is a pre-orientation trip offered. D1 school had variety from service, to adventure to historical. Gave her a chance it meet a few people at a time. It was a small school anyway so these people popped up in her classes, sorority recruitment, religious group, etc. Helps to find one friendly face when you walk into those classes your first week.
The school was also proactive about encouraging students to come by counseling center even if they didn’t think there was a big issue, just needed a adult ear to confide in, even if just one time.
Lots of great advice already. One thing I want to add is I’d advise you to as much as possible to let your child practice adulting now so it isn’t so overwhelming when she is away from home. This includes things like being completely responsible for her own laundry, no wake up calls or reminders on getting homework done, making her own appointments for dentist, doctor, etc. If possible let her take a road trip alone to visit a friend or family member and/or go away for a weekend and leave her either alone or in charge of younger siblings.
I made the mistake of over-coddling my anxious high achieving high schooler. When she got stressed I picked up the slack for her… In retrospect this helped mask some clinical anxiety issues that blossomed at college. She is now taking a semester off. Chances are your daughter will be fine like most anxious students but doing the above might help.
I have a bright, disorganized, happy-smiley HS senior for whom I have picked up the slack this year. I recently told her that she will have to understand that almost everything in her life is about to change, and “thinking” that she understands that she will have to do more will not prepare her for actually being able to do more.
I worry about her transition simply because I am going to. She is a kid for whom the sun is always shining, though, and I worry about the times when that may not be true and I am far from her. I worry she may not tell me she is worried. I have been doing an awful lot of reading about the stresses on kids in college, their reactions to the stress, and their feelings of needing to assure (they think) everyone around them that they are ‘A-Okay.’
I like all of the advice here, especially the advice to be a sounding board, ask what she may want, and the practicing of some adult things now. Great thread.
My DD has anxiety …It is vital that you get it under control in HS…College is a giant bowl of anxiety. Everything is new…your friends, where you live, what you eat, where you go to school. Up until now usually only one of those things would change at a time.
My DD has anxiety…she had always been more “clingy” but we didn’t really know until HS when she was doing things out side of her comfort zone. I could see instances where she just couldn’t join the choir when they were singing in front of he entire school (she loves singing, and could do the concert for the parents) or go to a football game and meet someone…she had to stay in the car until she could see them and then she could go. She got to a tipping point and then saw a psychiatrist and was put on meds. The next year she was voluntarily singing by herself over the intercom to the entire school.
One thing we did when choosing schools is to take anxiety into account…
When looking for a school, she limited herself to schools within two hours of home. She ended up an hour a way which is perfect…far enough to feel freedom, but near enough that we could help out or she could come home if necessary.
We also looked at the orientation program…the one she picked had a Welcome Week where you did activities with people on your floor so you could meet people, had a Community Advisor so you had a peer mentor if you need it, had a service that delivered prescriptions to the campus.
I would suggest that when you go to visit colleges or go to orientation that you find out where the Counselling center is and walk her over there so she is familiar with it.
This past semester my DD was having trouble with Chemistry so I kept telling her to get a tutor…it wasn’t until someone walked over with her to the tutoring office that she got one.
She has problems calling people…it helps her if I give her a script to use.
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