This is mainly a vent and I want to see if any other people have the same feelings or have advice:
Do any other high schoolers feel way too much stress about college?
Like I know I can make the most of it wherever I end up. I know that regardless of where I go, going to college is what matters. But there’s so much focus on getting into a “good” college.
It doesn’t matter how smart I think I am based on test scores and stuff–kids with better than my scores who own a whole business or found a new way to detect cancer or something else crazy still get rejected from schools all up and down the rankings
What if I pick the wrong college and it’s too boring? Or it’s too party-party? Or it’s too hard and stressful and I lose my mind? Or I can’t seem to make any real friends?
I feel like I have to decide what I want to do with my life so early. If I want to attend med school and graduate on time I have to start prerequisites early. But if I want to do engineering and graduate on time I have to start that early. If I want to graduate on time with music I have to start early. I want to be a mom and have a great career but what if I don’t have time for both? What if I pick the wrong career and took out loans for grad school and then it’s either be miserable with my job or take out more loans and start over?
In-state college is always a good safe option, but the “dream” private colleges are charging almost $60k a year?? Even going out of state is $35-50k. I’m trying to accept the fact that the most likely outcome is I get rejected by some dream colleges and then accepted by 1 or 2 that I love but they don’t give me enough scholarship money and I end up at the same place as the other people who coasted through high school taking easy classes and making B’s and got to have way more fun in high school because they weren’t doing homework or studying all the time. In that case what even was the point in taking so many APs and studying so much to get high test scores and a 4.0 instead of just having fun? I know it’s not just me who thinks this because my friends stress too. It’s a weird combination of “I know it won’t matter much in the long run as long as I go to college” but also it feels like one of the most important decisions ever. Even though it isn’t some life-ending decision. I just can’t help it. Does anyone feel the same? Or have kids who stressed out a bunch and have advice or anything?
My daughter, currently waiting on college admissions decisions, feels similarly. She has busted her butt the last four years to get good grades, do strong ECs, research, etc. She sacrificed a lot for her accomplishments. She knows her dream college may not come through for her and she may end up at one of her safeties. That stresses her out, because her immediate reaction is, “then why did I work so much instead of having fun with friends?” Like you, she worries that she will end up at the exact same colleges as classmates who didn’t work nearly as hard her and spent more time just enjoying being a teenager. So why did she “waste” all that time studying and working?
I talk to her a lot about this these days, and the fact that, no matter what happens with admissions, her work doesn’t just get erased and her achievements don’t get taken away from her. She has earned them and they are hers no matter what happens now. And she has learned and grown, she has met fascinating people along the way, and gained a ton of great experience. That counts for a lot, whether your dream college accepts you or not. That will make you a better student no matter where you end up, and that will make you a more interesting person, who knows what they’re capable of.
It’s a journey. And, no matter what happens, what you’ve done and what you’ve learned during high school can’t be taken away from you. It goes with you wherever you go. And wherever you go will be lucky to have you and will benefit from the unique experiences you bring. It will not have all been a waste, because it has made you who you are. And you can be proud of that.
My eldest ended up at UCSC which is strong in his major, but not considered a “prestige” school and he could have probably attended a school with a lower admission rate, but he wasn’t interested. He received an academic dean’s scholarship and is probably considered a “strong” student. He’s really enjoying his classes because he’s able to excel at what he’s interested in, probably very much based on the foundation of his strong high school work. Even the HS stuff he isn’t using right now were formative experiences, so be proud of your work and what you’ve learned and accomplished. It will make you the best version of you. And don’t worry about things you can’t control, like being a working mom. One day at a time and you’ve got this! BTW, I also went to a school that had a 50% admit rate at the time bc of my area of study. It now has a sub 10% admit rate. It’s the same exact school…they just have more people applying now.
Even if you never go to college, that hard work in high school wasn’t wasted. You got an education! But you’re right about all the stress. My kid who wound up at a tippy-top was so stressed out during the fall of senior year that they developed severe TMJ from clenching their teeth in their sleep, and also had their hair falling out. It was horrible. But that kid would also have been pretty happy to have wound up at our flagship state U, wouldn’t have felt as if all the work would have been a waste.
I know plenty of spectacular students who wound up at our flagship state U (usually in the honors program), and did incredibly well there, became student leaders there, because that’s just who they were, whether they got into a T20 school or not.
If you had friends in high school, you will find your tribe in college, no matter where you go. Even for many who were loners in high school, they still find their people in college, because you self-track into meeting people who share your interests. Even at party schools, there are people who aren’t partiers. Some schools with a rep for partying also have honors or sober dorms.
You don’t have to worry about boxing yourself out of the potential for med school. You can always finish your premeds after college, and then apply. If you want engineering, you can still wind up going to med school. And guess what, med schools like to admit music majors, so that’s still an option, too.
That whole thing of whether to do motherhood or career is SO 1970s. Nowadays, women definitely have the option of both, even of single motherhood. Absolutely no need to stress about that ahead of time.
Money. It is always a good idea to be graduated from college debt-free. So if your family is like so many, earning/having too much to qualify for much fin aid, but unable to pay the now 80K/yr for private college, then your flagship state U is probably your best option. You need to have a frank talk with your parents about college finances. I pre-empted applications to schools that weren’t going to be an option financially, when that was relevant, since I knew we’d be deemed full pay. You might want to look into schools where you could get a huge merit scholarship, if your stats are very good. You could have a great college experience and come out having saved the family a ton of money, which will take some pressure off of the money for grad school issue.
I think that you are worrying WAY too much over things that you shouldn’t be, right now, like how will you combine motherhood and career. Even this level of college application freak out is too high for a junior in January. That tells me that this isn’t just about college. Either something else is stressing you, or you may have a predisposition to anxiety, where your mind just searches for something, anything to worry about.
Hi, I volunteer on a text line for people in crisis. We regularly receive calls from kids who have worked so hard to go to a certain college and who are in crisis because the college was either not living up to expectations or way too stressy or it was their parents’ dream. Start asking some adults in your life where they went to college and what effect that had on their overall career. Keep your focus on getting an education, having fun and networking. Good luck!
Slow down. You’re trying to know the unknowable. All the what ifs will drive you crazy.
The #1 most important thing you can do is find a safety that you love and that is affordable. Where your classmates apply or get accepted doesn’t matter. You will realize soon (probably the day after you graduate from high school😉) that all this stuff you’re stressing about right now doesn’t matter once you’ve made your decision.
You do your best. You live life for yourself, not for bragging rights or for your peers. You’re going to be fine.
P.S. All your feelings are 100% normal and common.
And think of college as a city with a lot of neighborhoods. You will find the one you’re comfortable in. I was a female engineering major at UT-Austin, a huge party school. I lived in a private dorm with lots of sorority girls. Even though I was shy, I made tons of friends and had a fabulous four years. You will be fine!
Big hugs to you. You are not alone!
Here are two things to think about, one for now, and one for after you get college decisions:
For now, read this: Applying Sideways | MIT Admissions
And as best you know how, try to live it (note that it applies for any big ambitions you have, not just that particular school, and is a useful frame of reference for your whole life)
For after you have college results:
It’s hard to imagine, but one of the hardest parts of the college process is after you have all the decisions, and you have to choose one to say yes to- and tell the others ‘no’. All the weight of ‘what if I make the wrong choice’ comes thundering down on you and it can be overwhelming.
Here’s a great quote from the top woman poker player in the world:
“There’s this word that we use in poker: “resulting.” It’s a really important word. You can think about it as creating too tight a relationship between the quality of the outcome and the quality of the decision. You can’t use outcome quality as a perfect signal of decision quality.”
In other words, you can make a really sound choice, and still not have it work out. Another quote, this time from a novel: “what is life but foolish and imperfect choices?”. The thing is we all make the best choice we can, based on the info we have at the time we make it, and lots of times, for lots of reasons, it doesn’t pan out as we hoped or expected. So then what?
You change your decision! IF you decide that you don’t like…your college…your major…your job…you can change it! even very late in the day: a friend of mine in HS had a Dad who had gone back to med school. And if you are still following the basic precepts of the “Applying Sideways” piece, you will be in a good position to make that change.
Good luck!
My DD feels the same way- worked so hard so many years, taken so many AP classes, made sacrifices to maintain strong stats and involved in EC activities which she loves. She will be disappointed if results do not turn out the way she was hoping. It also doesn’t help that the teachers and friends at school also expect her to go to a top school and other people telling her she’s too good for this school and that- which is very frustrating. We keep trying to remind her that regardless of the results- it’s not based on self worth or that she wasn’t good enough. She just had a lot of things stacked against her- her race, school county, income level, parents have an education etc. I really think it’s dangerous when parents and kids who have gotten into these top schools to say “she or he deserved it”- many kids “deserve it” but just don’t meet the schools policies of URM, low income, first gen, etc. Good luck - what’s imp is that you make the most out of your college experience where ever you go and be successful where you are- that will go very far in life. I work in a career where everyone comes from very diverse college backgrounds, some got a degree from an online school, some went to Ivies, some to flagship state schools, and some to schools I’ve never heard of- but we all work together and make the same amount. You can be successful no matter what school you choose to go but be proactive and continue to take initiative when you attend the college you choose.
This is the key. It’s hard to take a jazz dancer and turn her into a chess champ unless she loves chess.
I totally agree. And nothing is wrong with being a jazz dancer- my DD is also a dancer and she loves it! Need to be involved in ECs that you love. My Dd doesn’t do ECs that she doesn’t like just to get into college. If I had to force my Dd to do an activity for college, she would never talk to me ever.
Definitely you are not alone. As a parent of a HS senior, I could feel that my son has a lot of stress about college.
Here’s my 2 cents:
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You have been working hard for yourself and for your future, not just for the college admission. You’ve developed the work ethic, self-discipline, the willingness to go extra mile. That will stay with you long after the college admission process is over. You’ve earned it, you’ll keep it and that will help you be successful along the way. You mentioned that you’ll probably end up at the same place at the others who coasted through HS taking easy classes, but you’ll be in a different “place” because you’ve already had the work ethics. It’s similar to how you differentiate yourself in the workplace: there are tons of colleagues but you can distinguish yourself if you do the right things instead of just collecting paychecks.
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Not many people knew what they wanted to be when they were 18 and ended up doing that years later (I thought I wanted to be a doctor and then oil & gas engineer. Fast forward 30 something later, here I am an accountant and love the profession). Be open to options and change.
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Talk to people who have experiences. I know talking to parents are not popular for teenagers but find family members, teachers, or people who can give you perspectives.
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At the end of the day, things happened for a reason (I am not religious but very spiritual). As I told my son, “you’ve done your best: with your rigor, grades, tests, ECs and you write the essays that describes who you are. Those are the things that you can control. You can’t control whether the AOs think your essays are good enough or fit with what they are looking for, you can’t control whether your EC is “good” enough for them. Don’t worry about things you can’t control”.
Do your best, see where you get accepted and where you feel comfortable. We always reap what we sow, so as you’ve worked hard, you’ll get into the right school for you.
All the best to you!
Just think of this as a sneak preview of “LIFE”! There’s only so much you can control. You control how much work you put into things. Maximum work doesn’t guarantee a positive outcome, it just makes it more probable. Sometimes we work hard and the outcome is just what we wanted. These are the moments that we rejoice. Other times we work hard and at the end there is not much no show for it. There is disappointment for sure. But…better to have tried and failed than to never have tried at all. There is no life without failure. Wishing you more successes than failures (with the caveat that you will need a few failures; without them you’re probably not stretching and growing).
Are these things stacked against her, or stacked in her favor?
It’s all about perspective. Just a reminder that we are not entitled to special recognition in life for doing things that are expected of us. Working hard is its own reward. Getting good grades will serve you well in all aspects of life. If anyone here, including the OP, is living in comfort and doesn’t want for anything, then you are more fortunate than a lot of others.
Being able to afford college is a luxury that many others do not have. Even in the US, there are many great options that are unfortunately very expensive for a LOT of people. So if you are working really hard and get into an affordable college, full stop, be grateful. If others are coasting, it doesn’t matter. You will get out of college what you put into it.
From my perspective - Staked against her when it comes to admissions- things that should never be used to determine college admittance and have unfair practices. My daughter studies hard and does well
in school but she also gives back to the community in so many ways because she genuinely wants to. But still she can’t prob get into the top school. It’s a loss for the schools that don’t accept her. We will encourage her where ever she’s goes and to maximize her resources there which she will do on her own and get to a top grad school. As parents we worked hard to go to school and got jobs etc -but that somehow negatively affects our child from having a hook and being passed over.
Unfair is so relative. I recently came back from a college visit to a “highly rejective” university where the “scuttlebutt” is that they are so PC that you have to be Af-Am/disadvantaged/refugee/tragic upbringing in order to get in.
Obviously, I can’t tell who had a tragic upbringing. But the college green- filled with upscale looking white guys. The coffee bar- filled with upscale looking blond white guys. Every campus path- more of the same. If you photoshopped out the ever-present phones, you could have taken a picture and folks would have assumed it was from the 1950’s when indeed- only men were admitted-- and even then- a VERY tiny smattering of Asian/ethnic minorities/Jews etc. But it was all male, and VERY pale.
So sure, the admissions offices are sensitive to being a bastion of the Protestant elite (their historic roots) and now admit women (yay for Have Faith’s Daughter! ) and recognize that a mostly WASP freshman class won’t work in today’s society.
This is a good thing, not a bad one.
How does YOU working hard and having a job negatively impact your daughter? Do you think she’d have a better chance of getting into college if she’d been raised in the foster care system, or grew up in a homeless shelter???
I get that it feels that way…but if you look at the actual statistics, it is still strongly majority white, majority middle income or higher, and majority parents with higher education students who are getting in to the selective colleges.
It is true that the pool you are swimming in makes a difference: we had collegekids applying from a very competitive (and over-educated!) region, with lots of high profile independent schools and nation-topping public schools. The pool of talent was so deep that even really accomplished kids could feel like underachievers. But in the end the competition was so stiff that our lot figured out that the only race they could run was their own.
Because you’re playing the long game, and there’s a whole lifetime after HS and college. I’d like you to do a mental activity for me.
Close your eyes and imagine 2 years from now:
You’re enrolled at your in-state flagship and sitting in a really cool honors seminar class about your favorite topic. Look around, do you see any of those unproductive high school kids there? No.
Imagine 3 1/2 years from now and you just started a really good internship/research position.
Look around, do you see any of those high school kids there? Probably not.
Imagine 5 1/2 years from now and you’ve just been offered a permanent position after college as a result of that internship, and you’re graduating with honors.
Look around, do you see any of those “get by” high school kids there with stoles? Not likely.
The point is college is not the end game for high school; it’s another step along the journey. Living a happy and fulfilled life (and hopefully successful as defined by YOU) after college is the long game; just because 2 students go to the same school doesn’t mean they’ll have the same jouney. Will you utilize the opportunities available to you while you’re there? It sounds like you’re the type of student who will. Will those other kids from your high school do the same? Likely not. What you do with your time over those 4 years is entirely up to you.
First, I’ll add my voice to those who are telling you that what you are feeling is normal. You are about to make huge changes in your life, and it’s normal to be worries about things not working out.
My recommendation is that you let yourself have a minor freak out about all this. Acknowledge that these are normal worries and they are 100% legitimate. Then you can read some of what I wrote and what other people wrote.
It’s OK to be worried, however, once you’re ready, here are some facts which hopefully will help mitigate your worries.
I’ll start with - here’s a secret - the vast majority of college graduates are happy with their college experience.
You can always transfer. Second, you can always change your major. You can choose whether to party or not, and, if you made friends in high school, you can make friends in college.
I know that it feels like you have to decide everything early. However, it is not true. There is no “on time” for med school - it’s an 18 year process until you finish you specialization, and believe me, a year or two here or there will not make a difference. Moreover, while most med students are bio majors, a significant number are from majors like English, engineering, etc. So not only did these people not start getting ready in high school, they only made the decision after they graduated from college.
As for engineering. It’s not that you have to start early. It’s that engineering is really heavy on math and most kids who end up as engineering majors, and graduate as engineering majors, are also very much into this type of math. The great majority of high schools fast track students who demonstrate that type of interest and skill in math, as well. They haven’t started early - the high school responded to their math talents and skills.
Nonetheless, there are many great engineering programs at colleges at which students are not accepted directly to engineering. AT these colleges, a student really can start preparing for their engineering studies after they start college.
Much of what is perceived as “you have to start early to be able to do X” is simply the result of kids who have interests and skills in specific fields showing interest in them in high school. Kids who figure out later than that can still end up in the carre that they choose later.
For example, a kid of very good friends started college without knowing what he wanted to do. He only applied to the flagship, and started as a chem major, just because of some vague notion. Long story short, he just finished his PhD in Wildlife Management. He didn’t start a wildlife club in high school, he wasn’t even a bio major, in fact, he only started taking courses in environmental sciences as a junior in college.
So you really don’t have to start anything early.
SInce being a mom generally requires a partner, and I tend to advise people not to raise kids unless they have a partner (who does not have to be the biological parent of the kid), that just means that you need a partner who is willing to do their share. I know a good number of women with great careers and with kids.
This is not a career thing, this is something that you need to internalize - you deserve a partner who will do their share in child rearing. This should be the bare minimum for anybody who wants to have a kid, especially if they are not the person who is getting pregnant. Don’t ever settle for less.
In all honesty, my advice is “never take out loans for grad school”. Simply do not do it. If you want to go to grad school in a field where this is almost required (like law or medicine), take some time to work closely to the field and to see up close what it looks like. Most professions have the opportunity to shadow a professional or to do an internship. That way you’ll know whether you’ll enjoy a career.
Even at the same college, taking those advanced high school classes and having a high GPA will mean that your own experience will be different than theirs.
While they will be taking simple intro courses, you will be taking the really interesting courses with small classrooms and personal interaction with faculty. While they are taking remedial summer courses, you will be doing paid internships which triples or more your chances for a well-paying job post-college, as well as gives you a good chunk of money. You will be getting letters of recommendation, tips, and advice, while they are busy partying and doing the minimum.
That is not even mentioning that, at a large flagship, an applicant with a high GPA and great accomplishments is likely to be in the honors program, with even more opportunities (and very often better dorms).
Finally, the most important things that a high school student learns, when they are a 4.0 students with great ECs, are how to study, how to put effort into things, and time management. Those will help you for the rest of your life, long after anybody even cares where you attended college.
I’m a female engineer. I have three adult children. I worked part time when they were young, then my husband and I started our own firm in 1999. We’ve worked from home ever since. It worked out great! 