My two kids (HS 2019 and 2022) are very similar in some ways, but very different in others. They are both bright kids. My 2019 grad hated hated hated high school, but this is a kid who can look at a blank world map and name every country on it because geography is fun. So is learning Vietnamese on Duolingo, but this is a kid who does not want to go to college at all right now, so is taking a gap year for 2020. I am hoping once 2021 rolls around and COVID is more under control that working at a job might spark a little more goal-setting and ambition, but with everything that is going on right now I think the 2019 kid just feels very pessimistic about the future and can’t see that far. So we are in a holding pattern for the moment.
On the other hand, DD22 has now set her sights on going to uni in the UK where university admittance is all about test scores, but she is not stressing and spending every minute doing test prep. She has pretty decent preACT scores and has set Khan Academy up for SAT test prep and will be taking the PSAT in Jan, but she is more organized than stressed. She is setting attainable goals, keeping budget in mind (UK universities are about the same as most US schools and cheaper than many), and working on finding programs she wants to apply to with a safeties in mind in the UK and the US.
So my advice as a mom of two, who have approached high school and the college search completely differently is to remember that they are two different people. There is no reason to think that your son’s experience has to be the same as your daughter’s. She seems like she was a very very very driven high school student. That does not have to be the case for him and it’s okay.