College applications aren’t reason to panic

For parents of high school seniors, the holiday season could well be filled with tension — and not just because of awkward small talk with relatives and weird Uncle Ralph’s embarrassing rants.

Many of these moms and dads have had the added stress of knowing that their kids face looming college application deadlines. Some colleges — the UCs included — had end-of-November deadlines, while other school deadlines are fast-approaching.

That makes for a unique dynamic for families of prospective college students, one which probably added a note of anxiety to their recent turkey dinners.

It’s hard enough for parents to deal with the bittersweet feelings that arise from knowing that one year from now their kids might be living elsewhere and merely swooping in for holidays.

But they also must grapple with the uncertainty of not knowing where their children will get in and whether they’ll be happy, successful college students.

Yes, I’ve written about this topic before, and I no doubt will again, for each year there’s a new crop of parents undergoing the college application craziness for the first time. They are likely in need of a little extra TLC right about now. I’d like to give them all a reassuring hug.

Then I’d like to shake them and tell them to suck it up.

I know that these parents and their students have been working toward this moment for many years, and that they’ve probably made many difficult choices and sacrifices in pursuit of that golden ticket of admission to some wonderful institution of higher learning. They certainly have been inundated with information — bordering on propaganda — that has semi-brainwashed them into thinking that everything is riding on the outcome of college applications.

But, as is often the case, the reality isn’t quite so life-or-death as we are led to believe.

First off, parents need to get over the idea that their kids should strive for acceptance at the highest-ranked school possible. Such overzealousness often leads to outsized expectations followed by crushed hopes, and it’s all very unnecessary because the truth that most colleges don’t want the rest of us to know is that these rankings are mostly hokum.

They’re a great way to sell magazines and a terrific opportunity for schools to market the heck out of their highly massaged statistics.

But as a means of choosing where to apply they’re dreadfully misleading.

Hopefully most parents these days are savvy enough to look beyond an assigned number and consider more deeply what various schools have to offer their children, given their particular educational and career goals, as well as their personalities.

It’s also worth noting that such thoughtful weighing of each college’s potential benefits is particularly important in this era of rising tuition and student loan debt.

Indeed, neither of my two sons chose to attend the highest ranked universities to which they were granted admission. But their choices were excellent ones for them based on the kind of education they were seeking and where they saw themselves feeling most at home.

They both sought, and found, that nebulous but crucial “right fit.”

As a parent, I firmly believe that a student’s level of comfort, dare I say “happiness,” will help them succeed more than any other factor. And I’m also convinced that it’s not where students go to college that matters so much as what they do when they get there.

That’s not to suggest that every student’s post-high school path will continue to be smooth and straight. Some kids will find themselves, despite carefully selecting their choices, enrolled in colleges that turn out to be bad matches. Some will change their minds about what they want to study. Others might hit bumps, academically or socially, and need to regroup.

Going to college isn’t an end in itself; it’s a process, a journey of self-discovery, and oftentimes adjustments or even major changes will be necessary. As parents, it’s important to look at such stumbles not as failures, not as cataclysmic, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it events, but as problems that are fixable. As our kids transition to adulthood, we can help them by displaying a calm, can-do attitude in the face of challenges and disappointments.

So buck up, parents of prospective college students. Your sons’ and daughters’ applications are now in the hands of the admissions gods. It’s your job to try to keep things on an even keel while you’re waiting and, when the time comes, to help your kids make the best decisions possible for the right reasons.

I’ll leave you with a story I recently heard about a young man from Orange County who made an important decision when he was finishing high school. His grades were good, but he didn’t feel ready for a four-year college, so he chose instead to attend a two-year community college.

He applied himself, earned high marks, and transferred to a big university, where he again excelled. This tenacious young man then earned admission to a very good law school, after which he landed an impressive job in Washington D.C. Now he’s in New York, in a position that outsiders, at first glance, might assume goes only to Ivy Leaguers.

I’ll bet he’s only too happy to disabuse them of that notion.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.