Some families find it absurd to suggest that the college admissions process can actually be taken too seriously. They wonder how anything could be more important than their children’s education. I don’t actually disagree with their priorities, just with their approach. Our children’s education is important. Coupled with the rising cost of college, it’s hard to fault any family for treating this time and these decisions with anything but the care and attention they deserve.
But taking the college process seriously and actually enjoying it are not mutually exclusive experiences. You can expect your student to work hard but ultimately praise their efforts over their outcomes. You can appreciate how much they love—and learn from—productive activities they actually enjoy whether or not they earn the honors and accolades that prestigious colleges seem to treat like prerequisites. And you can gather information, seek advice, and make informed choices without treating one grade, test score, or admissions decision like a permanent life-marring event.
In fact, I’ve noticed that families who find this balance, who encourage their kids to take ownership of the process, who want their kids to attend the right colleges—prestigious or not–and who resolve to enjoy this period for the exciting time that it is, have actually found the closest thing to a magic college admissions formula.
Families who strike the balance between informed planning and reasonable perspective have college applicants who take more ownership of the process. Kids who feel empowered to find schools that fit are more engaged in the search and end up with much better answers to the “Why this college?” questions on applications and in interviews. Students are more likely to talk—and listen to—their parents about college when they know those discussions rarely lead to escalating conflict. They’re able to appreciate and enjoy not just the exciting college future that’s to come, but also the relatively short remaining time they have together under the same roof and at the same dinner table.
And those kids almost always have more admissions success, including at prestigious colleges.
The college admissions process isn’t designed to be all fun, all the time. But there’s no reason it needs to be a terrible rite of passage a family just needs to grit their teeth through and survive. You’ll find more enjoyment—and more success—when you work to strike the balance.