"After Much Consideration ... " When College Admission Doesn't Go The Way You'd Hoped. How to Help Your Student Cope
Spring is just around the corner. For some, that means more daylight and warmer weather. For others, it may mean allergies or cleaning projects. But for high school seniors and college students applying to graduate and professional programs, spring can be a season fraught with stress and anxiety because spring equals college decision season and the dreaded letter that begins with “After much consideration, we regret to inform you….”
College admissions have become increasingly competitive, with some elite schools having acceptance rates as low as 5%. And yet, each year, college admission becomes more of a frenzied obsession. We hear in the news about a kid who was accepted to all the Ivies and now has to make the harrowing but enviable choice of which one to attend. We see touching videos where the anxiety is palpable as we watch a high school senior open her laptop to read her acceptance letter and then collapse into joyous, relieved sobs as her family embraces her and cheers.
It’s not just elite schools like Stanford, Harvard, and MIT that are becoming harder to get into. Schools often looked at as an applicant’s safety school have proven unreliable as backup, as their admissions rates decrease.
I asked my daughter Brynlee, who has worked as a college application consultant for four years, for some insight on why this is happening. She said, “The Covid-19 Pandemic has complicated things in a system that was already pretty strained. Students are more worried about getting in and having good options at multiple places, so they’re applying to more schools than in years past. On the other hand, schools are simultaneously not admitting classes that are as big because they don’t necessarily have overflow housing if their yield calculations are off. Both of those lead to lower admissions rates. But also, outside Covid, there are more and more qualified students wanting to attend college, and funding issues are making even state schools more expensive.”
Not all applicants will have the grades, test scores, or extracurriculars to be competitive in college admissions, but thousands of qualified, well-prepared students face rejection letters every year. When a student feels like a program is a good fit for them, their application checks every box, and they still don’t get in, rejection is unexpected, painful, and seems arbitrary. Of course, some students will get into their dream school or have their choice of programs to attend. But what about those students who don’t? For some high achieving students, this may be the first time they’ve ever failed at something, and that’s painful enough without the stakes seeming so high.
In his book Where You Go Is Not Who You Will Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, Frank Bruni says, “...for every person whose contentment and fulfillment come from faithfully executing a predetermined script, there are at least ten if not a hundred who had to rearrange the pages and play a part they hadn’t expected to, in a theater they hadn’t envisioned. Life is defined by little snags and big setbacks; success is determined by the ability to distinguish between the two and rebound from either.”
So, what can we do to help our teens and young adults rebound from college rejection?
1. Recognize that this is a legitimate loss. We often think of grief as only applying to the loss of a person, as with a death or divorce. We call that a tangible loss. But the loss of dreams, hopes, or expectations is an intangible loss. Grief stemming from these types of losses is just as real. This type of grief is often not recognized or affirmed, so it’s easy for the person grieving the loss to feel unsupported and misunderstood.
In this particular situation, it may be easier to recognize college rejection as a loss if the student doesn’t get into any program at all. To use Frank Bruni’s terms, this is easily seen as a big setback. If a student doesn’t get into their top choice, but does end up receiving acceptance somewhere, we might see this as a little snag. However, the student may not see things the same way. If you really want to support your student, let them take the lead on whether or not they think this is a setback or a snag.
2. Make space between your reaction and theirs. You may be highly emotionally invested in the outcome of your child’s college application process, and this is understandable. You’ve put a lot of time, effort, money, and love into raising your child to this point. Many factors go into why this is also emotional for you. You want them to see success. You may have a deep desire for them to attend your alma mater. You may have a school you see as the perfect fit for them, even if it’s not their top choice. You may have financial considerations that you are taking into account. You may have different hopes, dreams, and expectations than they do.
But when it comes to supporting your student, don’t forget: this is about them, not you. Now, this isn’t to say that your reaction isn’t valid. It is, and you should absolutely feel and process those feelings. But your feelings may be very different from your child’s. Please do your best not to tangle them together. When you are trying to support your child, the focus needs to be on their emotions. Going back to number one, let your student decide whether this is a setback or a snag.
I remember feeling relieved when one of my daughters didn’t get into her top choice school because I felt so strongly that she was supposed to go to her #2 choice. I’m not sure I did the best job of supporting her in her loss of the dream of #1 because I was so thrilled she got into #2. It is one of those parenting moments you wish you could go back and make sure you did a better job.
When you are dealing with your own emotions (and you should!), you should do that with someone other than your child. Don’t put your child in the position of having to support your grief. If you are grieving news they feel positive about, you will dampen and maybe even ruin their exciting moment. If you are grieving news they are also disappointed about, the added burden of knowing this caused you emotional pain is not something they need to deal with.
3. Let them feel their feelings. We don’t like to see people we care about feeling bad, so the temptation will be strong to try to cheer your student up by pointing out the bright side or scolding them for not being grateful for where they did get in. Their emotions are valid whether they feel this is a setback or a snag.
Pointing out the bright side feels like we are trying to invalidate their loss. And, believe me, they are grateful they got in somewhere, but we can feel gratitude and disappointment simultaneously. Grief is the normal and natural response to loss. Let them grieve it.
Remember, tears don’t always mean sadness. When one of my daughters opened her decision letter from her top choice school, she immediately burst into loud sobs. I thought from her reaction that it was terrible news. It wasn’t, she had been admitted, but the relief from all the tension and angst over waiting on the decision came out loudly in the form of tears.
Dr. Edith Eger said in her book The Gift, “The opposite of depression is expression. What comes out of you doesn’t make you sick, what stays in there does.” Give your student opportunities to talk – whether it’s to you, a sibling, a friend, a counselor, or a teacher. It’s important to give expression to feelings of loss or grief. Is your student a writer? Maybe writing in a journal or writing a letter they’re not going to send would help. An artist can express themselves through art. There are many ways to express these feelings, so they are not buried deep inside to fester.
Special Note: You know your child best. If their grief reaction seems over the top or continues for an extended length of time without improvement, please reach out for help. Though rare, talk of suicide or self-harm should always be taken seriously immediately. For reference, the suicide hotline number is 800-273-8255.
4. Ask questions to understand, and then listen to the answer. Try to put yourself in their shoes as much as possible, but don’t assume you know how they are feeling or why they are feeling it. Ask them what they need. Maybe they don’t want to talk about it with you yet. Maybe they need to talk it out for hours. Maybe they want to be alone for a bit to process; maybe they want you to sit with them but not talk. Maybe they want to see friends; maybe they don’t. And ask again tomorrow because they might be feeling very differently by then. Keep the lines of communication open.
5. Suspend judgment. After illustrating all of their accomplishments and highlights to an admissions committee, being rejected feels pretty terrible. They are judging themselves harshly, and the last thing your student needs is to feel judged or criticized by you. Pointing out that maybe they should have worked harder in chemistry or taken the SAT one more time is not constructive at this point; it’s just criticism. Plus, they’ve probably already thought of these things themselves. All the should-haves in the world will not help, so don’t go there. Not even a little bit. Chances are, they feel they have let you down as well.
The greatest gift you can offer is love, a listening ear, and a shoulder to cry on. If those three things come with a side of judgment, you might as well not offer them at all. When we think we are being judged, we feel shame. Shame brings disconnection, which is the opposite of what you want if you are trying to support someone you love through setbacks and snags. As we like to say in grief recovery, be a heart with ears. Listen. Love.
As you know from years of experience, this is just the beginning of adult life which is naturally full of setbacks and snags. Learning how to navigate setbacks and snags and knowing they have your support and love will make that journey more manageable, and the connection between you and your student will only grow stronger. It all really will work out in the end, and your student will find their way around that as you give them the space and opportunity to process the college application experience authentically.
If you are interested in more ways to support children, teens, and young adults through their setbacks and snags, whether you are a parent or work with kids on a professional level, check out my Helping Children with Loss class HERE.
If you are looking for specific one-on-one support with grief, please schedule a free consultation HERE and see my Grief Recovery Page for more information.
