Campus Voices
Upper School
The frequent newspaper articles, multiple morning news show stories, and nervous seniors that roam the halls of American high schools serve as yearly reminders of the arrival of the college season. “It’s the most competitive year ever!” can be heard ringing from the mountaintops and frantic parents can be found roaming the soccer sidelines seeking the wisdom of those who have gone before.
Here in the BB&N College Office—the front lines of the college process—students and families pour out their woes, express their fears, and celebrate their triumphs every day. As another fall season comes to a close, we want to take an opportunity to speak to parents about the college process.
Current seniors were recently asked for pearls of wisdom from the trenches—what would they say to future seniors and their families about the college process if they had the chance. Their answers were revealing:
• The college process is something that is rewarding for students to take ownership of, so don’t take over, parents!
• Help me only when I ask for it.
• If you can learn to trust your child and his/her college counselor, s/he will be so much happier. Let the student drive the process.
• Don’t take a laissez-faire approach when helping with college applications, but don’t be overbearing either. There’s a fine balance between the two that is hard to attain, but when achieved allows for great calmness within all parties.
• Don’t worry about it…you’ll get through it…it’s not really a big deal.
• Please proofread my essay, but then I need some space.
What these reflections speak to is the developmental part of the college process and the emerging adults that these students are becoming. They are nervous, yet ready to take on this challenge. The first-rate education they have received at BB&N has prepared them for college and they are ready to spread their wings. They want to know that their parents are there, as a safety net, but they really want to try to branch out on their own.
You, as parents, play an important role in making this experience more comfortable and productive for your children. Offer your children support as they go through this time of exploration. Act as cheerleaders when a child’s confidence flags and when it is appropriate, urge him or her on to higher goals. At the same time, also help your children assess themselves and understand what they can realistically attain. Help them remember that college is a part of a larger educational picture. If they aren’t accepted at a particular school, assist them in dealing with the disappointment and in moving on.
Parents, then, feel a great deal of pressure as well. Some of you may look upon college choice as the “final exam” of parenting and judge whether you have passed or failed by your perception of the “value” of your child’s college admission. Try to maintain perspective! Resist the urge to think of the college selection process as merely a “numbers game.” Your child is not a 32 ACT, a 1030 SAT 1, or a 3.15 GPA. Similarly, a college’s quality cannot be summarized by a mathematical formula or a national magazine’s rankings. And admissions decisions, while they all use numbers as a starting point, are not always rational, obvious, or even defensible, as admission people will sometimes admit after the fact. Making these decisions is, in truth, more of an art than a science.
As parents, you should acknowledge and share your aspirations, but keep them in the context of all the other factors that are part of your child’s college search. You need to lend your support and your guidance to your child, but he or she should be the one to make the decisions and take the lead. Be there for your child, help assure that the right questions are asked, but let your child be the one who asks those questions.
For starters, you will probably be asking yourselves how to determine what makes a “good” college. Is it the percentage of applicants the institution accepts each year? Is it the school’s average SAT scores? Is it the rating a college receives in a national magazine’s report? These numbers, in our opinion, are a poor starting point at best, as they promise a quick fix, often leading families away from the hard work of finding a truly relevant definition of a “good” institution. In lieu of the quick fix, we would suggest that a college is “good” for an individual if it:
• is one where the students are truly engaged in their education and the members of the faculty are passionate about what they do—which, at the undergraduate level, should be mainly teaching.
• matches well a young person’s academic, extra-curricular, social, and personal needs and goals.
You, of course, will add your own criteria to the definition: quality of academic programs and athletic teams; size, location, and, yes, some numbers. Ideally, families should be able to enjoy the college search; it can be a time for parents and children to connect closely with each other. Think of this as a time of discovery for all of you. The College Counseling Office is here to guide you every step of the way.
Please CLICK HERE for more information about College Counseling at BB&N.
Calendar
