It has been dubbed the “year of the thin envelope” but it could just as easily be called “the year of the fat Kleenex.”
Record numbers of talented, earnest, hard-working, college-bound seniors who have held a daily vigil at their mailboxes all year long–only to find out in April that it held bad news–are now convinced that their lives are essentially over.
Guidance counselors can’t recall a year when they’ve had a front-row seat to so much raw emotion. Parents–some of whom have been planning for this day since their child got into the “right” pre-schools–pound the desk, kick wastebaskets and demand explanations.
Kids–some of whom have had straight A averages, near-perfect SATs and all the “right” activities–just cry, sometimes for days.
“One kid I knew threw up. Another had blinding migraines. Another has an eating disorder,” said one North Shore high school senior, who received rejection letters from Harvard, Yale and Brown–all on the same day. “It’s like a trauma ward here.”
It’s the juxtaposition of pain and jubilation that makes it particularly tough. At Deerfield High School, for example, exultant students decorated their locker with college stickers and Ivy League colors, while others dressed in black as a sign of mourning.
“You feel like such a loser,” said one student, who was turned down by Princeton. “Everything is just so out of your control.”
It’s probably little consolation to the thwarted members of the class of 2000–and their parents–to know that they have just been through the most brutal college admissions season in history.
First, a record-number of students has applied to the same 20 top-tier schools. Second, more schools are filling coveted slots with binding early admissions applicants in the fall, leaving fewer vacancies in the spring. And because schools aren’t increasing the sizes of their freshman classes, thousands of deserving kids are left with their noses pressed against the glass.
It isn’t a question of talent. For example, when the admissions committee at Harvard sat down this year to scrutinize 18,190 applications for a meager 1,615 vacancies, more than 60 percent met the academic qualifications.
So, a process that already is more art than science has become even more arbitrary.
One straight A student may get the nod over another simply because the school needed a golfer over a swimmer, a pianist more than a flutist, a Westerner over a Midwesterner, a female rather than a male.
“Remember that there are 28,000 high schools out there, with 28,000 valedictorians, 28,000 salutatorians and National Merit Scholars,” said Marybeth Kravets, college counselor at Deerfield High School. “Sometimes, it’s just a numbers game.”
But that’s not something many parents want to hear, especially those who are upper-middle class, high-achieving professionals. Their kids have been on a success track since “Sesame Street” and anything short of the Ivy League is considered failure.
The anxiety comes from living in a world of global competition and diminished opportunities, parents say.
In such nervous times, the only sure thing is a brand-name degree–the kind of place that can open doors and lead to important contacts and be a pipeline to the big-league jobs.
The skyrocketing cost of education also has contributed to the heightened frenzy. No one wants to spend $30,000 a year so their child can ask, “Do you want fries with that?”
But employment concerns aside, many counselors are troubled by what they see as a preoccupation with status, also known as “bumper sticker-itis.”
Kravets recalled driving behind a car with a Dartmouth sticker. When she got closer, she saw the words “Also accepted at” followed by four more Ivy League stickers.
Parents insist they only want what’s best for their child. But one Hinsdale father shamelessly admitted that cachet mattered. “There are so few tangible proofs of your parenting,” he said. “This is about the only way to show that your home has been one of learning, of the arts, of culture. When your kid gets accepted to a top school, it says to the world, `See? I did a good job.’ “
With their considerable resources, many parents use any means to convey that message. They are able to erect an elaborate scaffolding of tutors, test preparation classes and college consultants in order to “package” their applicants in the most attractive way possible.
They have invested in lessons and exotic trips, the kind designed to grab the attention of the admissions committee.
When it comes to mapping a battle plan no detail can be left to chance.
“Parents are obsessed with the fact that there is some kind of algebraic formula for getting into a brand-name school,” said Charles Shields, a college counselor at Homewood-Flossmoor High School.
He related a story of an angry mother whose daughter was denied admission to Stanford, which received 16,000 applications for 1,600 spots. She stormed into the office and said, “You told me that community service would help, and it didn’t.”
That obsession has trickled down to the kids, Shields said. He recently had a freshman stop by to ask which clubs would enhance her chances of getting into medical school.
“It didn’t occur to her that it should be the clubs that interest her,” he said. “She was strategizing on how to build a resume at the age of 14. It’s a very cynical approach.”
Such calculations leave Christoph Guttentag, head of admissions at Duke University, shaking his head. He is baffled by this misguided notion that acceptance is tied to some code that requires inordinate sums of money to be cracked.
“Genuine insight into a typical experience will do an applicant far more good than a superficial treatment of an extraordinary experience,” Guttentag said. “We have had moving essays about physical labor and shallow essays about journeys to Africa.
“We don’t expect high school seniors to be polished, sophisticated adults. We expect them to be on their way, but we also understand that these are works in progress.”
Life stories are not written at 18. The fields of medicine, law, science and the arts are full of extraordinary people who started out in quite ordinary ways.
Harrison Ford attended Ripon College in Racine–instead of a prestigious drama school–and he still managed to become a box-office bonanza. Richard Nixon’s alma mater was Whittier College, and Ronald Reagan went to tiny Eureka College (enrollment: 550); both ended up in the White House.
While the numbers–grade points and test scores and class rank–are cut and dried, there is no way to measure “EQ” or emotional quotient, those intangible qualities of empathy, persistence and resiliency.
An Ivy League diploma is an asset, but it can’t teach a lackluster writer to turn out sparkling prose. Or a dull lawyer how to deliver a stirring closing argument. Or transform a cold clinician into a warm caregiver. It can’t instill whatever it is that makes some people turn major obstacles into temporary setbacks.
Better than teaching your children how to stack the admissions deck in their favor is teaching them how to survive a failed relationship or how to cope with being cut from a team or the possibility of being downsized out of a job.
Said Judith Garber, a counselor at Homewood-Flossmoor: “I worry about the kids who leave here without ever experiencing rejection . . . it’s as if we didn’t do our job.”
As the May 1 deadline notifying schools whether a student will attend nears, a good fit, not a good name, should be the first concern.
The children should know that this is the worst it gets; that the hyperawareness over who got in where will not last.
Aside from a flurry of interest at the 10-year reunion, the topic evaporates. Once in the working world, adults–with the possible exception of Notre Dame alums–are not fixated on Getting In. They’d rather know how to get out.
For kids, this is the time to get healthy. To catch up on sleep, on perspective, on laughs. This is senior year–not ground combat.
And, next fall, when it’s time to pack up the U-Haul and head off to their second, third or 10th choice, know that wonderful opportunities await.
Perhaps there is a steadfastly loyal roommate, a teacher who will see something in you that you didn’t even see in yourself, a friendship that will blossom into marriage.
How do I know? Because it happened to me.
