Let me apologize in advance. I am going to use “I” in this blog post, breaking one of the first rules of Blog Club.
But my heart is absolutely breaking this spring as students across the country are either rejected by their Dream schools, or, even worse, being accepted to their Dream school and suddenly realizing that the school is far beyond the financial reach of their families. It is so sad to see crushed parents struggle with what to do as they watch their students go relatively catatonic at a time they should be enjoying and savoring the final days of high school with their friends, making memories that will last a lifetime.
I can’t help but think how easily all of this could have been avoided if parents had asked themselves three questions before their students even stepped foot in high school.
(I will also add that a “Dream” school can be a lot of things, but for the purposes of this post I’m focusing on highly ranked “elite” schools, such as the Ivies or schools like Duke, Berkeley, etc. I also think it applies to large, public schools like the University of Florida or Michigan, where they have gotten tremendously selective.)
Question 1: Are we ready to support our child through the next four years of struggle and stress in a way that will preserve their mental health and allow them to become a well-rounded, happy person?
To get into one of the elite schools where acceptance rates can be as low as 3-4%, students will often need weighted GPAs above 4.0, and they will need test scores north of 1500 on the SAT and/or 33 on the ACT.
For most students to accomplish these numbers, it will require very intense focus and hard work over four years, and most importantly, through all the ups and downs that come with being a teen. An innocuous B in a class that your child struggles with suddenly takes on enormous weight.
This pressure can take an enormous toll and can fray even the strongest family relationships if there is not a careful plan to support them through this gauntlet. To parent your teen through this takes a high level of empathy, patience, and communication and should only be undertaken after careful planning that includes a plan to monitor progress and to make changes as necessary. This article by Forbes has some great tips.
And don’t forget the money! It is a giant mistake to assume there will be merit aid available or that they will win scholarships. All of that is a huge gamble, and unless you already have the money set aside to cover the cost of attendance, you will need to develop a financial plan that can make the dream a reality. We go deeper into that topic here.
Question 2: Are we ready to support our child if they are rejected by their dream school, or even worse, if they are accepted but we are ultimately unable to pay for them to attend?
Let’s say that you decide to pursue the dream school route, and your whole family invests four years of sweat and stress into building the strongest possible resume to get in. Grades are exemplary, test scores are through the roof, extracurriculars are inspiring, and recommendations are top notch. You are feeling great, and everyone is optimistic as decisions are due to be announced. The party is planned, so to speak.
And your child doesn’t get in.
Highly selective schools are very unpredictable and it can be baffling to see your child get told “no” after doing everything right.
How will they react? How will you react? Will they be able to pivot to Plan B seamlessly, or will they be completely devastated? So much of how this rejection goes will be determined by how your child is prepared by you to deal with it.
Again, this is an area where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The ups and downs of building the impressive resume can provide a plethora of chances to practice dealing with rejection, and this blog lays out five things you can do intentionally to help along the way.
Hopefully this would never happen to you, but if the financial plan is not in place, and you can’t afford the Dream school they have been accepted to, the effects could be devastating to your child and to your relationship with them. If you’ve laid the necessary groundwork with them, you should be fine, but if not…
In this difficult situation, they might want to push you away due to anger and disappointment, but it is super important that you work to be even closer as you help them develop a Plan B that will help them feel excited about their future. We all know there are great college experiences to be had at almost any school if you put in the work, but they will have a hard time seeing that without your help. This could even be a great time to pull in a consultant/coach that specializes in helping families sort through a myriad of options on a tight timeline, such as (shameless plug alert) Future Finders.
Question 3: Is this really their dream school, or is it yours?
This is a tough one to wrestle with as a parent. We all want what’s best for our kids, but we have to be careful to balance that desire with allowing them to find their own way. I won’t elaborate too much on this point since it is highly personal and intimate, but I will tell a quick story to highlight the point.
One of my good friends growing up was a guy named Loren. Loren and Warren. We became friends over teachers confusing our names all throughout school, but I digress…
Loren’s parents were both college grads, very well-to-do, and pushed him throughout school to get into an Ivy League school (we grew up in an Ivy town). My parents didn’t graduate from college, were very blue collar, and were frankly too busy to push me too hard, but they were very supportive of what I wanted to do.
As our senior years progressed, Loren was accepted to an Ivy League school, and I was accepted to the University of Florida, where my father’s family was from and before UF’s climb up the school rankings. Loren’s mother was mortified by this, and told my mother so one day when they bumped into each other. She was worried that I was going to a school “like that”.
My mom and I found this quite humorous, and when I told Loren about it, he found it pretty funny, as well. He knew that I was happy to be going somewhere warm and affordable and he was happy for me, and a bit embarrassed by his mom acting that way.
Though we have drifted apart, I know that Loren is doing great things with his life, and I couldn’t be happier. I am also a very happy, lucky guy, and I am very grateful for the path I’ve taken. I would hope in retrospect that Loren’s mom would now appreciate more that there are lots of ways to live a fulfilling and happy life, not just one.
As you can see, the road to a Dream school can be treacherous at best, and fraught with landmines at worst. Hopefully, after reading this, you will carefully weigh whether a Dream school plan is the right one for your family, and if you do so, you will carefully plan for how to make it happen while preserving your child’s mental health and your relationship with them by asking the three questions I laid out above.
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