Helping Your Child Through The College Application and Acceptance Process

The first inkling I had as to what we were dealing within came in the spring of ninth grade when our child came home from school chastising her father and me for not signing her up for the Biology SAT II test. "All the other parents care about where their kids are going to go to college, and you don't!"

I immediately got on the phone and found out that not only was she right, but the kids were also already working with tutors for the SAT's as well as an outside 'advisor' who was advising on the course load, etc.

Thus was our entry into the Kentucky Derby of college races - with the finish line April 1. (The cruelty of the date is not lost on me, but I assure you there wasn't one April Fool's joke in regard to college acceptances.)

The actual day of reckoning is drama filled, with emotions higher than I thought possible; crying, screaming, phoning, emailing and instant messaging the order of the day after they all log into admission's sections of the coveted schools at the appointed minute. Our daughter (and this touches my soul) took the acceptances that came early in the week before her first choice arrived and put them on the chair where the mail is dropped sure the positive Feng Shui would be good for the envelope she wanted.

I had a lot of time to think about college acceptances and what they actually mean. A friend told me that if he'd gone to Princeton or Yale his life would have been different. The connections from having attended those fine institutions would have meant success through whom you knew.

Then there is the odd duck who says that he or she chose a lesser known institution because it had well rounded people and they have had a happier life.

Then there are the editorials that abound saying that no one asks where you went to college after college and that it doesn't matter.

Well, it does matter. It doesn't matter for any of the reasons listed above, but rather because it is the first outside measuring stick that says who you are and how you can feel about yourself. It is the first real evaluation by the outside world as to your worth. The valuation is shouted from the rafters into your beloved teen's peer group, your friends and your family.