<p>Hi everyone,
As our D gears up for her senior year, we've both noticed that she's fallen into a complete rut. She is usually a very motivated student and is ready to go back to school by the end of July, but now with only 3 days to go she's in a constant state of anxiety, sadness or irritation. </p>
<p>She has become very negative and cynical regarding the whole college process, making sarcastic comments of how, "Only rich kids and athletes get into the good schools." or "If I apply ED to my top choice, they're just going to rip you off for the money." When we asked her how her supplements and essays were coming along, she explained that she would often write entire essays and delete them because they "sound stupid" or "aren't good enough". </p>
<p>Her grades and scores are a non-issue (4.2/4.33 GPA, 2260 SAT), so we are at a loss to explain her sudden and rapid decline of mood. The only problem she's hinted at is that some of her very good friends are moving into college this year and she would much rather be in college right now than going back for her senior year. </p>
<p>We love her very much and believe she has a lot of potential. Has anyone else experienced this and/or has tips to help her before senior year starts foul?</p>
<p>I think the students see the essays and application paperwork as one huge insurmountable task; maybe that is part of your D’s suddenly negative viewpoint on the process? Maybe try breaking the application process down into smaller tasks, as in, “Pick just one college. Let’s focus on finishing that one application, before we start a second one.”</p>
<p>The fact that her friends are getting ready to move on should be a huge motivator for her to get cracking on those applications and essays. She probably needs to organize her process as much as she needs to work on the paperwork. </p>
<p>As Auspicious said, Making lists and defining steps will help make this daunting process more manageable.</p>
<p>Is she, by chance, one of the older students in her class? My son turned 18 a week after starting his senior year and he very much acted this way his entire senior year. I think developmentally he could have gone off to college senior year. Since his birthday missed the cutoff, he was one of the oldest in his class - it served him very well academically and in terms of maturity but we paid the price senior year. All he did was complain about how stupid high school had become. It’s not at all unusual for ‘senioritis’ to kick in at the beginning of senior year.</p>
<p>There’s also a tremendous of stress and uncertainty going on with them at this stage. They know they will be leaving home within a year but they don’t know where they will be going to college at this stage of the game. Will they get into the college of their choice? Will their parents be able to afford it? Will they end up going somewhere far from home? Will their existing friendships suffer? The list of possible worries is endless…</p>
<p>You might suggest to her that she save off those essays and start again instead of deleting… something that sounds silly now might not sound so bad as the deadline approaches. Or she might find a salvagable phrase or idea that she wants to weave into another essay. I just remember D1’s senior year as a long parade of essays for various colleges and scholarships. She did a lot of recycling of parts of different ones/themes that she tweaked as appropriate.</p>
<p>Sounds like maybe she’s just getting nervous about the whole process - nothing she writes seems good enough, and she probably won’t get in anyway. She’s trying to prepare herself for a letdown in self-defense. </p>
<p>Put yourself in her shoes - this is a major ordeal and decision in her life. I’d be anxious and irritable too! There’s so much pressure on these kids now - I feel sorry for them.</p>
<p>Imagine someone told you a year from now you would be living somewhere completely different, working at a different job, away from everything and everyone you have ever known and where you end up all depends on how you perform on your applications and interviews. Who won’t be feeling a tremendous amount of stress at this point?</p>
<p>I agree with megan and MomLive. Stress and self-defense are very active in this process. The one thing that helped my kids was doing just one easy part of the process and then getting it all done. Start very small, like filling out the basic common app questions (name, address, year, etc.). Once one part was done, my son began to feel like this was going to be alright. There’s a lot to do, and once she starts to get some done, she can tackle another part or add something. I suspect she feels like it all has to happen at once and that’s overwhelming.</p>
<p>Think of it as bike riding a huge mountain. You don’t only want to look at the tippy top that’s miles away. Sometimes you have to look to the side and enjoy the wildflowers along the side of the road too and appreciate each push.</p>
<p>As a student, that was exactly my first thought too. Not necessarily about transitioning to a new life yet, which will come much later in the year around April/May, but more about not getting into the college she’ll be happy with. </p>
<p>The pressure is higher for your D because people like parents and peers expect her grades and scores to be “a non-issue”, whereas on the other hand, she’s starting to hear rumors at this point in school and elsewhere (like CC ;), or the good friends who are a year ahead of her moving into college) how competitive and unpredictable college admission is, and how there’re factors that will supposedly put her at some disadvantage. Seems like she’s trying to prepare herself and you for a letdown. Growing awareness of the whole admissions process coupled with newly emerging doubts, apprehension, and high expectation for herself were possibly what contributed to her being cynical and anxious. </p>
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<p>Evidence that she’s been thinking about her senior year, researching college a fairly good bit. Those are not something typical high school kids would know. Unless you suggested to her these things, how did she get the ideas? Your D doesn’t sound unmotivated to me. </p>
<p>As for the essay, I was the same way too, really. At least your daughter had drafts: mine wasn’t written until days before the submission deadline because no topic sounded good enough. But when right time came, the thoughts long bottled up flowed across the paper and I got that essay that I was finally happy with. (From the admission officers’ comments, they loved it too.) Sometimes you just have to take a step back, relax a little bit, and trust that the inspiration will come when you least expect it.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat as your daughter :/. My close friend is at Yale (my dream school) and hearing about how amazing everyone there is and how great the school is is causing the feeling for me. I’m worried I won’t get in and I’m being very cynical towards my work. So I just want to hear the advice on this thread… Thanks :)</p>
<p>Thank you all for your helpful responses! She is our oldest so truly hearing the student’s perspective (above the usual GC remarks about stress and indecision) is eye-opening and will definitely affect what we say to her in the future. It must add a lot of pressure to have 2 conflicting worlds, with parents and friends supportive of her achievements yet the real-life acceptance/rejection stories showing her she might not be as competitive of a student she first thought.</p>
<p>@xrCalico23 - You pretty much hit the nail on the head. We have been very careful to never say derogative things to her or let her know we agree with the stereotypes she’s hearing, regardless of their validity. She has done a lot of research independently knowing that she is a first generation.</p>
<p>@Swimfreak001 - Good luck this year! While I’m glad to know her stress is not unheard of, its not great to hear how straining the process can be on so many students.</p>
<p>The combination of finally starting her fabled Senior Year, the reality of the really tough courseload she’s taking, and the knowledge of impending decisions–her own (where to apply?) and the colleges (on her!)–is making my own daughter pretty psycho too. I’m hoping this will smooth out in a few weeks, because anxiety does very bad things to her stomach lining, among other things. One thing I’m going to try to suggest is getting back into her regular workout schedule: she knows from experience that that helps her with stress.</p>
<p>We had our kids (with grades in top 5 to 10% of a very competitive high school, top test scores, EC’s and awards, etc. that could have qualified them for just about anywhere) apply to a couple of rolling admissions schools with very fine honors programs, then left the rest up to them. (They did fill out other applications, and sent them off.) We would have been fine had they decided to go to any of the schools that accepted them in the fall, and I suppose it helped that at their public high school, some very good students are fine with Pitt honors or PSU (even without Schreyer) and do not even bother to apply anywhere else. </p>
<p>Getting back into a work-out schedule should also help with the stress…</p>
<p>I think I understand what your daughter is feeling as a senior who feels like the admissions process isn’t entirely fair and who is worrying about financial aid (we also have the same SAT score). It feels like they are letting in people who were born into things rather than people who worked for them. And when you’re in both boats of being “unhooked” and needing aid, you feel like there are essentially two admissions processes that you have to go through: the typical one, and the financial aid process, which you have absolutely no control over but can override an acceptance to your favorite school.</p>
<p>I don’t really feel stressed yet (although my sport hasn’t started). But it’s sort of a constant frustration that all I can really change about my app now are my essays, and regardless of what I do, I still might have to settle for a safety.</p>