Over ten years ago, I worked with a really high-achieving student who was so terrified of doing something that colleges would not reward him for, every college admissions question he asked began with:

Is it bad to…

Will it hurt my chances if…

Would they like it more if I…

If the scenarios he had been posing were about totally disengaging from school, or getting caught cheating, or embezzling money from the fundraiser he ran, then my answers would have been some version of, “Yes—it’s all bad.”

But instead, he was worried that colleges might not like it if he raised funds for multiple organizations instead of focusing on one. He was worried that taking a class over the summer at a community college (one that he really wanted to take) would send a message that he wasn’t four-year-college material. He was worried that colleges would think he was a dumb jock because he loved playing baseball.

I reminded him that he had a 4.6 GPA. He worked incredibly hard. He’d committed himself to things he really enjoyed. He was polite, likeable and nice to both kids and teachers. It was time for him to stop being so paranoid and just trust himself enough to know that he was going to be successful no matter which college he attended.

He didn’t get into his first-choice college. Or his second choice. Both were schools that admitted fewer than 10% of their applicants. But he got into plenty of schools, including a very selective one that he was excited about even though it wasn’t originally at the top of his list.

I Googled him today and learned that he’s an emergency room physician—exactly what he always said he wanted to do.

Work hard. Care about your future. Be nice to people. When you make it a habit, things eventually work out…whether or not you attend you first-choice college.