My mother once told me that the most pain you could feel as a parent was when your child was hurting and there was nothing you could do about it. In these kinds of situations you would take their pain on yourself if necessary, just to stop them from hurting. But generally that isn’t an option, and you just feel helpless. I experienced this feeling when my daughter was applying for admission to college a few years ago.
During a recent drive, we started talking about the admissions process and my daughter reminded me of what we had gone through. She battled an illness in high school that caused her to miss a lot of class and struggle to make decent grades. This was very hard on her, because she had always excelled in school in the past. It also meant that she had to face a strange reality when she started applying for colleges.
Grace applied to five schools: the University of Pennsylvania, William & Mary, the University of Texas, the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and the University of Maryland (College Park). These are not the easiest five schools to get in to. She considered Maryland her “safety” school, but in hindsight that was not the smartest idea; admissions at Maryland have gotten very tough even for in-state students.
One by one, the rejection letters came. By mid-April, Grace was holding four rejection letters and waiting on a response from her “safety” school that she was not at all sure would be positive. She had to face a new and terrifying idea: she might not get into college. If you had told my high-achieving daughter that this was going to be the case several years earlier, she would have laughed at you. But now she was staring that possibility in the face. Apparently excellent SAT scores and really good essays weren’t enough to convince these schools to take a chance on her.
I never realized the true cost of college admissions until I went through it with my daughter. Not the actual monetary cost – although that was an eye-opening experience, too – but the emotional cost for the students and parents. A few weeks ago, a private college in the US accidentally sent out acceptance letters to a number of students who were not really accepted to the school, and then had to break the bad news to them. Those students had already called their families and started celebrating, and I’m sure they felt so proud of themselves for getting accepted to a fairly exclusive school. I can only imagine how bad they (and their parents) must have felt when they were notified of the mistake.
Fortunately for us, my daughter’s story had a happy ending. Her letter from the University of Maryland arrived with good news – they had accepted her. In the end, the University of Maryland benefitted, too. Having finally overcome her illness at the very end of high school, she was able to resume her academic achievements at Maryland. She graduated in 3 years, cum laude, with a 4.0 in her major, history. She was also involved in an important research project on the history of slavery at the University.
As we were talking in the car, I commented that she must take great satisfaction in having proved all those other schools wrong. Her answer surprised me. She said it did feel satisfying, but at the same time she had come to understand why they did what they did. She was more proud that she had proved the University of Maryland made a smart choice when they took a chance on her.
I was grateful that I was seated in the back seat, so she could not see the tears streaming down her old dad’s face.
Have a great weekend,
Ro