Pause To Celebrate The Moment: A Letter to High School Seniors and their Parents
High school seniors, put down your pens! Walk away from your laptops! Go outside! Go for a walk, connect with friends, laugh, binge your favorite show, or have a dance party! For today or the next few days, don’t think about college applications at all, if possible. Celebrate all the work you have just completed in order to submit your EA/ED applications. Even if it’s just for a moment.
Parents, congratulate your child on completing an EA/ED college application. Even completing one application takes a significant amount of introspection, research, time, and energy. To complete all of that work on top of sports, jobs, and school is a significant undertaking.
Seniors, let’s take stock of all that you have accomplished. Since last spring you have completed the tasks listed below:
You have engaged in a number of exercises to develop a greater sense of yourself, your interests, and your career goals.
You have studied for and taken a standardized test.
You have researched 15 or more schools to develop a balanced college list.
You have participated in virtual or in-person campus tours.
You have watched virtual information sessions of all kinds for each school in which you are interested.
You have scheduled and participated in one or more interview(s).
You have vetted a number of different Common Application Personal Essay topics, written a draft, changed your mind, chose another topic, and wrote another version.
You have revised the Common Application Personal Essay…..again.
You have managed all of the communication between your school’s registrar, your recommenders, your parents, and your school counselor on a myriad of application-related details to meet various deadlines.
You have also managed multiple online platforms that are intended to help you keep elements of your applications organized and submitted to the correct organizations, including the Common Application, Naviance, College Board, FAFSA, CSS Profile, school-based application programs for non-Common Application schools, and now, get ready to manage the various college student portal accounts for each school to which you apply.
You have deciphered what each school’s supplemental essay question(s) really were asking you to write about and then wrote all of those responses.
You have revised all of those supplemental essays- probably more than once.
You have completed the Common Application for each school to which you wanted to apply in this early round of application submissions.
Each of these tasks was completed while you were also taking 5-7 classes, working part-time or summer jobs, taking care of siblings, playing sports, and/or vacationing with your family. You have managed a significant amount of stress with grace and aplomb. It’s easy for those not involved in doing this work to easily dismiss the degree of work you have just completed. Or, for parents to equate your experiences with their own that took place under very different circumstances 20-30 years ago. Your process is not the same. It’s much more complex and stressful to manage the college process now. Please take this moment to celebrate all the work that you have completed.
It’s just a pause, but an important one. Next week or in just a few days, you will exhale while reaching for your laptop again. You will resume your college research for the next batch of applications as you turn your attention to your EDII or regular decision schools. Round two will be easier, but it will still require your conviction and commitment. So, take a celebratory moment now! Go ahead - enjoy! You deserve it. Congratulations!