Is it any wonder that kids
and parents get so torqued up about the college admissions process when they
read statements like these in the press (all of which I've seen recently)?
“A lousy essay can sink a
student with perfect grades and test scores.”“This one mistake can kill
your application.”“Getting a jump on your college prep is a key way to grab the advantage in a field that's more competitive than
ever.”
Fear,
anxiety, and brutal competition make for sexy news headlines, but that’s just
not the reality of college admissions.
You’ve got
about 40 colleges that are absurdly difficult to get into. If you insist that the only acceptable payoff
for your hard work is to attend one of those schools, then yes, the competition is brutal. All but about 100 of the remaining 2,000 schools
take pretty much everybody who applies.
Don’t
subscribe to the bad news. There is a
college out there for you where you can go and spend four years learning,
growing and having fun. And what you get out of college will have much more to
do with your efforts than it will with the name of the school.