Is it normal to feel stressed about looking at colleges? Like my parents keep pushing me to put more time into creating a list or being more proactive about this college search…but to be honest I’m so horribly stressed and busy with my HS classes, AP testing, ACT prep and extracurriculars that a college list is the LAST THING ON MY MIND. So whenever my parents mention it I totally freak out, I get anxious because I feel behind in my college search. When I try to think about college or do some research I just like I can’t do it because I just get so panicked and stressed because I can’t find the “right” school. Some people get excited about looking at all these colleges…I really don’t. Is this normal? And my parents, they like a certain school that I don’t love, so they keep making subtle suggestions about it and it DRIVES ME CRAZY. All I want is just to focus on my classes, on testing and getting the hell out of junior year. Is that too much to ask?!
You’re normal, but it stresses us parents when our kids won’t start thinking about it. So, try to compromise so neither side stresses the other. You don’t need to find the right school till a year from now, but you could start discussing budget, and preferences like big/small, instate/oos, public/private, and how much freedom you will have to select your own school. Maybe do the college search on left side of the page and let your parents know you will get more serious about it in the summer or fall and explain to them that you can’t make a list without scores anyway. You need them to determine your safety/match/reach schools.
OK, so you’re a junior.
Your parents are pretty on target as far as a timeline goes; ideally at this point you would have already started to think about this stuff.
But that doesn’t mean it means to be taken care of today.
Again, in the spirit of a compromise: You probably have Spring Break coming up either this week or next. Why not take one evening, away from Xbox or whatever technology you’re in once you’re in for the night. Take a couple of college match quizzes online. Here’s the trick: they’re not binding. So input the answers you might think you want. Then change those answers to what else you might think you want and retake. And again.
You’ll end up with a monster list of schools.
Make a chart: name of school, location, tuition, 25th/75th percentile scores, room and board, distance, size, major, misc. And start to fill it in.
Let your parents know you have a very general list, even share it with them. And let them know that once APs are over-- just a bit more than a month away, you’ll be open to thinking about it. But if they want to play online with your list, you’ll welcome the help.
They may narrow down your list because of price or location or whatever-- that’s OK because you’re not really invested in the list at this point and the list will be too long at this point anyway.
But they’ll see that you DO care, you’re simply swamped at the moment.
I have always said that when you feel you are starting to sink in your own worries you need to concentrate on one thing you are facing, deal with that and THEN move on to the next. This will give you both the confidence you need to deal with it all and will allow you to focus on each task. Give yourself the time! If it feels like you are rushing through all you have in your list you probably are. I suggest you structure it, discuss your plan with your parents and start working on it - this will make them feel like part of the plan and will both allow them to help you keep on track and not push you for things that are not currently urgent. Good luck! You will manage - just keep it together - good planning will save the day 
Start small.
- Visit your State U if that is close to you or whatever reasonable school isn’t that far away. Get a feel for what you like and don’t like
- See if there are any college fairs coming up near you
- Ask your parents for help; Tell them your parameters.
Big/Medium/Small school?
Major?
Urban/Rural/Suburban/
Geographic area?
SAT/GPA - Ask how much they can afford each year for college. Have them run the Net Price Calculators for some likely colleges.
- Use tools like Naviance, the college search on CC, or the one on the COllege board for ideas.
Here’s the thing, we’ve visited schools. Like 9 different schools. So I have a vague idea of what I want but i don’t have enough time to look at other colleges besides the 9 I’ve seen. Not to mention, my dad really likes this college that I kind of like, by don’t LOVE…and with my scores and my gpa?! I COULD NEVER GET IN TO THAT SCHOOL. Yet my dad keeps doing more and more research into it and like I just need them to like chill out because their stress is making me stress.
Have a conversation with your parents. You already visited 9 schools, which is great. Hopefully they were a mix of schools so you are starting to get a feel for size/geography etc. Tell your parents that with this knowledge, you want to take the time over the summer to more carefully craft your list, but you just can’t do it now because you need to concentrate on your grades and ACT/SAT scores. And you can ask your dad to stop researching that school until you get your junior grades and standardized test scores back because you don’t want either yourself or them getting too invested in any school until you have a better idea of your chances. Also let them know that their talking about this so often is stressing you out and that you can’t afford to stress out. I’m sure your parents have no idea how much stress they are causing you. They’re probably just worried that you don’t have a plan and they want to make sure you are staying on track.
There are a few low stress things you can do to reassure your parents that you are indeed taking the college search and application process seriously and, more importantly, to help yourself to get organized by clarifying some of the criteria you should be looking into when considering schools.
You can start by creating a spreadsheet with columns for information about schools that you are investigating. Perhaps you can start with the 9 schools you’ve seen so far. You should include columns for admissions criteria (25th/75th percentile for ACT/SAT scores); Deadlines; Cost of Attendance; Merit Aid (if available) criteria for applying for it; school size and location; if there are any special programs of interest; majors offered that you are interested in; contact information (for local rep, if available); whether interviews are offered or required/recommended and how to request them; your overall impressions of the school after visiting.
Start by discussing your budget with your parents. There’s no sense in getting excited about schools that you can’t afford and/or have no chance of getting into.
If your parents are paying for your education, you need to consider their input. They are, at the very least, entitled to one or two “parent pick” schools that you should respect, whether or not you think that you’ll get in or even if you don’t necessarily think that they are perfect fits. You’ll have time later to eliminate schools that don’t make the cut. You’re parents are probably also filled with all kinds of emotions – they’re at any given moment, they can be feeling excited, anxious, hopeful, confident, nervous, etc.
In the meantime, just try to do well on your standardized testing, start thinking about some possible essay topics this summer, put together a list of your extracurricular activities, and work on developing good relationships with teachers.
Tell your parents you’ll consider colleges over the summer. You’ll probably have a better idea where you stand with GPA and test scores then anyway.
Both my sons dragged their feet throughout the process and complained when I pestered them about it. They didn’t actually finalize their lists until Sept senior year. There were schools we could have looked at if we had planned earlier, but it all worked out anyway. What helped them (and me), though, was narrowing down a major. If you have a general idea what you want to study (business, poli sci, literature…) that you can focus on places with strong programs in that area.
Re: your dad’s pick
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT. It is normal for a parent to have a “parent pick”. Go ahead and apply. Tell him “I will apply, but I think my scores make this a reach for me. If i get in, I will do more investigation. In the mean time, i will be looking for safeties and matches.”
turns out my kids both went to my “parent pick” but that is after listening to what they wanted in a school and looking for a good value that would match that.
Making a list can be fun and doesn’t have to be stressful. However it’s not a Christmas wish list. It’s work.
Build your list from the ground up. Tell your parents that’s what you’ve been advised to do (by college adviser/guidance office).
Look for safeties - places where you’re above the 25% threshold, like, and can afford. Right now you don’t have many desiderata so choose lots of safeties.
Run the NPC on them and use these as a tool to discuss budget.
All these colleges will be easy to get into for you and they’re probably not on your parents’radar (since they seem to focus on stressful-to-get-into colleges) so it should be lower stress for you. So, show them you’re not uninterested, you’re taking it very seriously.
Get a copy of the Fiske book. Maybe try to schedule an hour per weekend to flag some schools to look at more closely. Then check the stat ranges and NPCs on those.