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Volume 30 · Number 3 · Spring 2013

Parents

College Choices

Searching for the perfect college? Dream on...

By Robin DeRieux

High school seniors raise vital questions when considering where to go to college, such as:

• Does this school match my interests?
• Is my academic record good enough to be admitted?
• Would this college choice really cheese off my parents?

Parents of high school seniors who are applying to colleges have questions of their own:

• How much will it cost?
• How much will it cost?
• How much will it cost?

The whole onerous college admissions process, which begins way back in the fall — of kindergarten — has become fraught with anxiety for fragile high school seniors and their parents. (High school senior: “What if I don’t get into Stanford?!”) (Parents of high school senior: “What if he does get into Stanford, and we have to pay for it?!”)

Back in the old days, all you had to do to apply to college was: a) ship off to a foreign war, b) get shot at, and c) return home to enroll in the institution of your choice, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the GI Bill. Nowadays it’s a lot more dramatic. In the spring, when the acceptances and rejections start rolling in, thousands of tiny little egos are buoyed or bruised by the results. And it’s not just the parents. High school seniors are convinced that attending their first-choice school is a guarantee of success, while accepting admission to a safety school destines them to a lifetime of mediocrity.

Oh, for goodness sake! The perfect college is just a myth, like alligators in city sewers. Mediocrity can be attained at any hotshot school. Success, on the other hand, requires persistence in the face of setbacks. Tell your high school seniors that. Also tell them that getting rejected by a college is just one disappointment of many in a lifetime that will build their character and challenge their adaptability — and they’ve-stopped-listening-by-now-so-no-need-to-bother-finishing-the-sentence.

This is America, the land of opportunity! We have more than 2,500 accredited four-year colleges and universities. Maybe it’s just because I’m going through the college admissions process for the third and final time with our youngest, but I see plenty of terrific colleges out there so stop me if I’m starting to sound like my mother, but I can find something wrong with every single one of them.

For example: Divine religious colleges that aren’t your religion. Renowned public colleges with dorm rooms like Harry Potter’s cupboard-under-the-stairs. Cerebral Midwestern powerhouses that flood students with glossy mailers, begging them to apply, just to turn them down. Historic out-of-state public universities that cost as much as a private school. City colleges with alligators in the sewers.

Fortunately, the ultimate decision of where to attend college is up to our high school seniors, not us. Their choices:

 

Humor writer Robin DeRieux can be reached at rdderieux@yahoo.com.

| Last updated: March 26, 2013

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