There’s a whole cohort of people who start college (or finish college) later than the usual path. If you think about it, it’s kind of weird that the world is set up for you to do certain skills at certain times, as if all of us are made the same way. Like we were manufactured by a factory and all work like the same kind of machine. We are expected to be able to Add at age 6! Multiply by age 8! Read by age 4! And school is really really boring for most people, but some can pretend it’s not boring or they find it actually interesting enough. If we can’t do this, then we are labeled defective. Given a diagnosis. And given drugs to Keep Us On Track. If you decide to do this, it’s okay, but it hasn’t always been this way.
These ideas are relatively new, of the past maybe 20-25 years and was limited to the USA, and the idea is creeping into other cultures and countries now.
It seems to be part of the parental handbook that Under No Circumstances Should You Ever Tell Kids That School Is Boring! This is because it’s terrifying for parents to believe that kids MIGHT find it boring and then not “succeed” at it. For the most part, though schools try hard, most schools are pretty boring. And it’s no wonder that kids’ brains wander . . . . . especially kids with huge imaginations and creativity . . . . that used to be called daydreaming. Daydreaming was considered kind of good, something that smart kids did, and was given a pass by teachers and parents, largely, because the daydreamer would come into his or her own naturally. Now it’s labeled as ADHD/ADD and they give meds for it to keep kids On Track. You’ve discovered this for yourself and if Adderall helps you, then okay. You need that help now.
But also please be kind in how you’re interpreting your past performance. And please don’t be fearful of your future performance. The current zeitgeist treats a wandering mind, a huge imagination and creativity, and not being able to laser focus by age 4, as a bad thing. And maybe doing things one or two years later, is a disaster.
To my mind, this is all false.
So many highly successful people did TERRIBLY in high school. Many of the world’s most brilliant people were high school (or the equivalent) disasters. Expelled. Failed. You name it. And they went on to become the people who changed the world: Einstein, half of the people in my husband’s graduate-school program messed up high school, Roentgen Nobel prize winner of discovering of x-rays. We are not hooked to a timeline. Doing things a little later or getting off the track, can be wonderful. There’s a whole world out there waiting for you to discover.
Once you get out of high school, you will be allowed to do more things that interest you and won’t have to do quite as many things that don’t interest you, although there are always boring bits of life. Even the most exciting jobs have their boring sides. I have a feeling that you will find your path. Most people in your situation do.
So at any rate: Give yourself time. The prefrontal lobe of your brain will not fully engage before about age 25. It’s a gradual process and each year you will get more of that part of your brain more fully engaged. That means that over time your brain will be able to give you more executive functioning skills. Those are the skills that help you organize things and to override impulses to do one thing with the logic of doing something else. Your impulse might be to go out with your friends or to play video games instead of studying. At age 17, this is completely developmentally appropriate. You’re supposed to be feeling impulsive at your age! Later, your prefrontal cortext will come on board and say: You can still do these things, but not until you finish your homework. You get less impulsive as you age. The world knows this exists. Insurance companies determine rates by our age, in part, and car companies don’t like to rent to people under age 25. Because they tend to be impulsive and crash cars. But for some reason, schools and parents still act like this isn’t a thing. All Students Must Have Prefrontal Lobe Fully Engaged By Kindergarten. That’s how elementary middle and high schools act.
It’s unreasonable.
Fortunately, colleges don’t act that way. You can enter college in a variety of ways because colleges seem to recognize that people are made differently. We aren’t machines. We mature at different rates. Some have laser focus at Age 4, which is terrific. And some are hugely imaginative and creative and exciting and can do several things at once–which is also terrific! And some are all of the above. And that’s a good thing too.
The largest cohort of people will be on track to start college at age 18 and then many will graduate in 4 years and will be on their ways–and often not know what they really want to do because they’ve never been given a chance to actually figure that out. Many also will dissolve into party animals at college, now that parents aren’t keeping them on track, and graduate not in 4 years, but in 5 or 6 or 8 or never. And some start college later.
Starting college later allows 1) your brain to mature; 2) experimenting in the world so that you better know what you want to do; 3) doing all of this BEFORE YOU HAVE TO PAY BACK SCHOOL LOANS; 4) you won’t waste tuition dollars by getting off track in college.
Colleges tracks for older students include:
- Community college to raise grades then transfer to 4 year college is a great option
- Lower-tier four-year college to higher-tier four-year college
- Taking gap years, several of them maybe, is a great option and you can fill that time with all sorts of things a) get a job and earn money for college and get experience. Any job is great, from scooping ice cream to repairing bicycles to becoming a camp counselor to asking your mom for a gig at her law firm to asking dad to teach you his culinary skills, or whatever; b) volunteering on the side: shadow a doctor to find out if you like medicine; helping at a homeless shelter; tutoring kids; build habitats for humanity; c) interning for free at a publisher or law firm or in a laboratory; d) working for Student Conservation Association; coolworks.com; volunteer.gov; workaway.info; Americorps.
- Then apply as a non-traditional student. There are a variety of schools that welcome nontrads: if you’re female the top women’s colleges have nontrad paths (check ages for each and FA issues). Columbia and Penn have nontrad undergraduate colleges (check financial aid for those. it’s not the same as for the other groups). Reed, Grinnell and several other top schools welcome older students because they add to the culture of the campus; Tufts has a special program for nontrads. Your nontrad path may include direct entry into these schools and/or community college and transfer.
Take your time. Believe in yourself. There’s a huge world out there. It’s fun and interesting! And you, with your huge imagination and talents, are especially welcome in it.
