Reply to Question for anxious parents: what are you truly afraid of?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I see a massive amount of hand wringing on this forum.

So I have to ask: what are you truly afraid of?

What do you suppose might happen if your kid doesn’t get into a “good enough” college?

Surely you all must know successful people who went to a huge range of colleges. So you know it’s far from the end of the world if you don’t get into the college you like at 17 years old.

So what’s the fear? [/quote]
The way the process unfolds ratchets up the anxiety. While the sane position is that each student can be happy and successful at a huge range of colleges, the ED round encourages students to identify, and then invest in, their “top school.” The disappointment of not getting in ED therefore hits much harder than it would if the schools all only did RD, and students only identified a single top choice after results were out.

In addition, the way commitments trickle out from October to May creates a feeling that this is musical chairs, and students who don’t have a seat yet will be left behind. The fear of being left out can become especially pronounced with schools that admit in multiple rounds and defer from one to the next.

And there is a real feeling that different kinds of students are “supposed to” go to different levels of school. I got my kid genuinely excited about her early rolling schools, [b]and the reward for this was that she was told by her peers and even the little kids in the aftercare program where she works that she needed to aim higher.[/b]

So yes, some anxiety starts with the crazy parents. But some anxiety is driven by the broader community, and amped up by the calendar. [/quote]

No way!!  What group of little kids is that!?  Twilight Zone?![/quote]

Btw I didn’t mean to come across the wrong way - it just sounds awful.  And I’m sorry she’s experiencing this, and  though I don’t know you all, wishing you great news soon! [/quote]

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