Frank Bruni’s recent NY Times Op-ed had everyone at Collegewise cheering. If you’re a parent whose child is going through the college admissions process (especially a senior awaiting decisions), this should be a required read. The part I’m sharing here isn’t even the most powerful in the article (read all the way to the end of the piece–one of the best things you could do for your student is to write him or her a letter like the one the parents in the article penned for their senior).

“But for too many parents and their children, acceptance by an elite institution isn’t just another challenge, just another goal. A yes or no from Amherst or the University of Virginia or the University of Chicago is seen as the conclusive measure of a young person’s worth, an uncontestable harbinger of the accomplishments or disappointments to come. Winner or loser: This is when the judgment is made. This is the great, brutal culling. What madness. And what nonsense.”