<p>snapdragonfly - If it helps at all, I’m right there with you. Here’s a cyber-handhold from me for the next few weeks!</p>
<p>I know there will still be worries for the next few years, but there will have to be some comfort knowing the kids are in school, following their dreams. It will be a relief to be off of this particular razor’s edge!</p>
<p>I have always been a person to plan ahead by months, so right now, the not knowing where DD will be in September is really bothering me! If she is close by, I won’t need to worry about planning a visit, which requires taking time off work, booking a hotel, etc. If she is nearby, I don’t have to look into doctors on our insurance, etc! I know she will go somewhere, and I know we will figure out a way for everything to work financially, but it’s just the general unpredictability of it all that has my Type A personality very frustrated right now!</p>
<p>I’m stressed and also anticipating how very much I will miss my baby girl. I guess it’s good that many children become more lovable and companionable as they near adulthood, but it’s hard when these great people who have grown up with us leave the house.</p>
<p>Trust your plan. Time passes. The answers fall into place. Though not always predictable, the end result works out for the best far more often than not. Put aside all the second guessing on anything that’s done and over at this stage - no point in it.<br>
More than anything, find some healthy distractions with your kids during this time. Create some great memories. If you are like me, you will really want to have those once they move on with their lives in the Fall.</p>
<p>Emmybet, Snapdragonfly, et al: I’m right there with you as well. I’ve been kicking myself for weeks that we got our son’s hopes up about attending a small LAC, when our budget is likely more state school. I refuse to let him (or us) acquire all that loan debt in these difficult times. If only I could turn back the clock to start this process over. It’s been a difficult few weeks, but I’m grateful that I found CC.
I ask those questions everyday, too: “Anything new?” “Did you check your portals?” and so on. And I’m driving my son crazy.
But our family is excited to visit some of these “new” possible schools over spring break, and I’m happy to know that he has options. We can give him a good start in life – just not the start that we had expected. It’s our new reality.</p>
<p>Yes, this too will pass. </p>
<p>I well remember the stresses of last year, and I truly do feel for the 2011 parents. Try hard to not let these stresses distract you from that fact that this is your time to be enjoying your great kid. He/she is probably driving ya nuts now (it’s part of the rite of passage), especially if “overbooked”… but next year you will be missing that darned kid. If schedules permit, find a way to do a ski day, or a trip to the museum, or an old fashioned game night at home.</p>
<p>Teachandmom has a good point. Part of this stress is that, for many of us, this is the first time since kindergarten that we have zero idea where our children will be and what they will be doing come the fall. The unknown always drives us crazy. We don’t know what state even, let alone what school. This is a big adjustment in our focus. We have had 13 years minimum of being largely involved in our children’s schooling and now we have to not be…it’s hard to change and I think our kids fail to give us enough credit for how hard it is for us. </p>
<p>Momma birds get very fluttery as the fledglings leave the nest! But we have to let go and these last months of h.s. are good practice. Let’s all promise we’ll back off a little – I confess I did ask my D again today about one rec that had vanished between the teacher’s desk and the AO’s. She’d already handled it. She wasn’t angry that I asked but I should not have done so.</p>
<p>Portals!!!</p>
<p>i wish i was your son haha my parents are not giving or helping me with anything. so you are doing fine.</p>
<p>Thanks emmybet and nicekidsmom and everyone. We are all in this together but I wish the “this” that we were in was something easier…</p>
<p>Well add me to the list, and my d isn’t even waiting on acceptances! She has two good choices, about the same cost, and absolutely no idea what to do. Why is it driving me crazy? I don’t know because at some point, my job is just to write checks (and both schools will have about the same OOP cost).</p>
<p>But, here’s the crazy part, I’m starting to freak out about hs freshman D! How the heck am I going to pay for that! Deep breaths. Deep breaths.</p>
<p>Count me in – very stressed. Waiting to hear, and it’s another month at least, and I am rushing to get 2010 returns done for fin aid but don’t think they’ll be done til April so I’m worried I’m going to miss out on aid. D asks periodically “what if I don’t get in ANYwhere?” and I reassure her she will (her list had some places where I’m pretty sure she’ll get in) but I feel like our whole life is in limbo. For this and other reasons, this has been the worst 6 months of my life (other reasons include, but are not limited to: H with recurring scary health issue; S with behavioral problems and academic; work environment getting worse and worse). </p>
<p>The only thing that saves me? Taking a writing class 1x/week. Yes, I’m home at 11 but it’s the only time I feel alive. And it’s all. for. me.</p>
<p>Not stressed out, but definitely stressed for two reasons. First, I don’t think I did enough to help D identify schools that she would want to go to (on her safety/match list). She was never going to do the research as she had her heart set on her first choice, for which she was turned down ED. She relates better to schools that are somewhat challenging (e.g. very good reaction to Hampshire and ok to Siena Honors) but not HYP or even Williams/Amherst league. I was so confused as to how her program/grades were going to be treated and could not determine matches, that we had her apply to schools that were just not good ideas and “wasted” her energy/attention and a number of campus visits. Second, I am concerned that D is going to settle for a good enough school because of $, instead of choosing where she is going to actually be happy for 4 years. She wants this school because of a 5 year program that will then, she hopes, allow her to achieve her end goal- archival program at University College of Dublin. I want her to think about forgoing the US master’s for the state school and just do 4 years undergrad and then to the international program. She is trying to be “smart” financially and thinks that somehow having that master’s will allow her to work while at the UCD program- but not sure that is true without an EC passport. So stressed a bit- one thing I can affect but the other is water under the bridge. I had a so, so college experience (USC, many years ago) and want her to have a good one like my H.</p>
<p>Seems to me I’ve always got some major stressor on my plate. The “main course” changes, but the stress remains the same…</p>
<p>Totally stressed - I’m waking up early every morning in a cold sweat (or sometimes a hot flash). Here are my top 10 college admission anxieties:</p>
<ol>
<li> She wont get in anywhere.</li>
<li> She will get in to all 12 of the schools she applied. Or even 10 of 12. Dont think she has thought this through. How many revisit days can one girl attend?</li>
<li> She isnt really ready for college.<br></li>
<li> She is ready for college and will do just fine without me.</li>
<li> She will decide to go to the one school that is on the opposite coast.</li>
<li> People out there are judging my precious child (and me by proxy). </li>
<li> Wouda/couda/shoulda done more to help her along the way. More music lessons? More unstructured time? Taken her to more nursing homes? Sent her to a different preschool?</li>
<li> We may need to come up with the equivalent cost of a fully loaded BMW every year for the next four years.</li>
<li> Likely Letters exist. Just learned about them from other threads of this forum. I thought we could relax until March 30th. Now Ill be watching the mail every day and stressing if there is nothing there. Ignorance would have been bliss here, but now Im hooked.</li>
<li>She will hate her choices and want to go through this all again next year.</li>
</ol>
<p>LOL mema32.</p>
<p>For us worrywarts, the anxiety doesn’t stop when the decision is over and they go off to college. Parents like us merely switch over to threads like the one about students having a tough transition to college, or ones about which majors will lead to a good job in 4 years. While some of you are probably worrying needlessly, the college application process is complicated and it’s super tough to plan for / think about everything all at once. You probably did make mistakes and you probably did overlook something important. But believe me when I tell you that 99.95 of the time it will still work out just fine! And for the very few times when it doesn’t, we have andyson’s story and others on here on CC as models for emergency plan B’s.</p>
<p>Now, can someone please help me with my second-guessing problem? D is a college freshman and very happy, but I still worry for many reasons that this school was not the right decision. DH just tells me it’s over and done with and I have to let it go, but I can’t seem to. I still feel stressed about the things we know now but didn’t know when we made the decision.</p>
<p>^re: 2nd guessing – how does your D feel about the school? Sounds like she’s happy there. We all worry so much about our kids and try to help them make the <em>perfect</em> choice, but in reality, there is no perfect choice – even HPY (sacrilege!). To really know a school, you would have to spend 6 months there before applying.</p>
<p>You’re right. No place would be perfect and even if the alternatives D turned down would be better in the current school’s problem areas, they would likely be worse in other ways. It’s just that we had several deal-breakering criteria that we used to eliminate quite a few very good schools. The current school survived the cut. But lo and behold now that the chips have fallen in place, D is in exactly the situation she wanted to avoid when she established those deal-breaking criteria. We put the information we carefully gathered, into a flawed framework of understanding that we didn’t know then was flawed. So while I think we did everything we knew to do and gathered the data we thought were important, we still messed up.</p>
<p>D is happy, though. That should be enough for me, but it isn’t. I feel guilty and stupid.</p>
<p>If it is not one stress, it is another. </p>
<p>I can relate to the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Will DS2 survive the college workload; After all, he’s coasting on easy street now; is he really ready for college?</li>
<li>How are we going to get thru this economic crunch; no savings these years, emergency cash reduced to the minimium;</li>
<li>Does DS2 really want the EA school that he’s seemed to love so much; now, he wonders if he’s as academically talented as the rest of the admits. He constantly says “Mom, these people are SOO smart.” - Should I send him off to struggle?</li>
<li>Wait, DS2 actually looked at the release dates for his lottery schools. Does that mean he’s unsure of his choice?</li>
</ol>
<p>I am convinced that we worry a great deal now because it is part of the process of letting them leave the nest. More worry now, less later? I sure hope so.</p>
<p>Answer to #3 – ‘So are you, honey.’</p>