College planning can be a lot more enjoyable if you just find things to look forward to.
Picking your school from a list of acceptances, moving into a dorm, meeting new friends, geeking out over engineering projects, taking road trips, discovering your talents, cheering at football games, talking poetry with other English majors, running for campus office—whatever it is that excites you about college, that’s what's waiting for you once you get there. And most of what you’re looking forward to isn’t limited to just a few prestigious schools.
Whenever you feel the stress of college planning getting to you and you need a little boost of happiness, remind yourself of all you have to look forward to. This is what the families who actually enjoy the process do. They find reasons to be excited by anticipating what’s waiting, not by relentlessly attaching themselves to one particular admissions outcome.
The list of things to look forward to in college is long. If you can’t find something, you’re just not looking hard enough.