My son is smart, authentic and unusual, but his deepest feelings have been a mystery to me since he became a teen. This makes his senior year and the college search and application process difficult for me.
That’s right…difficult for me.
He, on the other hand, is as cool as his bare arms are on a cold day even though I inevitably ask him several times to put on a jacket. On this particular day, his coolness came in the form of working on his computer to put the finishing touches on a Google Doc for his World History Class.
He did this just moments after reading that he didn’t make the cut at his early decision application to Swarthmore College, a highly-selective liberal arts college. It wasn’t only the denial, though, he also learned that his close friend since kindergarten was accepted.
Did my son wonder why his friend got in and he didn’t?
I wonder if he questioned what about his friend was better than him or if he choose to believe the college and his mother when we said there were so many applications, too many great applications, to accept everyone. I looked at him as he worked, with his long hair falling down his back and his serious, dark eyes focused on the blue baroque pattern he chose for the background of his slides.
I told him that he now has something in common with President Obama as he, too, didn’t make the cut at Swarthmore. I let him know that I’m here if he’d like to talk and tell him I love him and that he should feel proud for having the courage to apply knowing the odds were not in his favor.
I wish he would let me hug him like he did so easily when he was twelve but this is not about me no matter how much it feels like it is. We revisited the list he compiled over the past couple of months and he made a decision on whether or not to apply Early Decision II to a different school or ride the college application process until March through regular decision. I reluctantly paid for every application he chose to submit plus more money if he submitted his SAT scores or if the school required a CSS Profile.
How did my son with such strong credentials get rejected?
In the meantime, I will question how a child who has scored so well on the SAT, and has a near perfect grade point average in advanced classes, a young man who comes alive with true passion and curiosity when talking about chemistry and literature, will face more denials ahead as he jockeys for a position at another college. If he is successful, he will then have to hope for merit aid or a school accepting him that awards aid on need without loans included, as $45,000 is the average cost a year for tuition (not counting room and board and all the other expenses) at a private school.
He also had to write another ten or so essays and attempted to express his authentic self in 250 words or less to an admission’s counselor who assigned scores based on their perception of what he has written.
Mainly he will get continued lessons in humility.
We will need to take out loans for our son’s education
We will need to take out loans for his education. Unfortunately, we never had any money until I graduated college as an adult and our three kids were all old enough for me to work full time alongside my husband. This means our yearly income is currently high but our savings is low and having a savings account for college was not even a consideration at our previous income level. We are the misfit middle class.
These are tough lessons that we are lucky enough as a family to face together, all in good health. Gratitude is important, and I know he will figure it out and, in the end, find a place where he belongs.
As I write this, I can hear him in his room laughing loudly. The sound fills me with instant joy and relief. I can guess he has already moved on from his school work to meet his friend online that got into Swarthmore, and that they’re already onto another epic adventure together in game.
At the sound of this I tsk tsk myself. This balance of providing freedom while also loving from afar is so difficult. It is at least difficult for me, but I’m still learning too.
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