How to Support Your High School Senior during College Application Season
The fall of senior year can be an intense time— rigorous course loads, part-time jobs, and celebratory events make it hard to find time for everything, especially college applications. Clear expectations — for students and parents — can help everyone better weather this stressful season.
August 1 brings the opening of the Common Application — the main portal for a majority of private and many out-of-California colleges and universities. The University of California (UC) application and the California State University (CSU) application open on October 1. Traditionally, for California students, the UC and CSU deadline of November 30 always came first, but with the increase of colleges using Early Action application cycles to spread out their application load, may students find that they are pressed to get other applications done by early November as well.
What’s a family to do? Here are some basic tips to help seniors have a smooth(er) college application experience.
Try not to over schedule events in the fall term. Feeling like they only have one more year with their child at home, many parents try to fill senior year with extra family and social events. Just remember that applications take time and effort. The more schools on the list, especially those with unique requirements, the more time they will take; and the more competitive the schools, the better the application elements need to be. Can a student knock out a 650-word essay in a day? Probably. Should they, if they are using that essay to seek admissions into a dozen colleges? Probably not.
It’s difficult to watch a student decide not to apply to a school, not because they are not interested, but simply because they cannot meet the deadline and feel too overwhelmed to try.
Senior year is often a heavy academic year, too; for students applying to schools with mid-year reports, their senior grades also factor into their applications. Make room for strong academic performance as well.
Maintain their confidence in their list. Seniors will start to doubt the list of colleges they have chosen to apply to, especially as they hear their classmates talk about their choices. Students will appear suddenly wanting to add colleges they have never heard of, colleges they don’t even know the location of or even whether the college has the major they want, just because they heard that a classmate is applying. Like with any major life choices, “cold feet” about the college list is a common reaction to this high-stakes decision. Review their list with them, discuss their reasons for applying, and agree to the list together now. Remind them of these conversations when doubts inevitably arise.
Help the student create a weekly routine to work on applications. Whether it is Sunday mornings or Friday afternoons, block out time to work on applications and protect it. Most often, 1–2 hours a week is enough as long as the time is consistently available and the student is able to focus and work during that time. If possible, make this a time when a family adult is around; parts of the applications include family information that the student will need from them. Make a favorite snack and be available, but not too available…
Protect your teen’s time to do the work, but do not do the work for them. Always remember that it is the student who is applying to college. They need to create application accounts; they need to write the essays; they need to email admissions offices for clarifications. If they can’t do this, can they complete their English 1A paper? Will they reach out to a professor if they are struggling? They will need coaching and encouragement now, but use this as a teaching moment to help them practice the soft skills that college learning will require of them.
If a student truly cannot make this process happen, it’s time to have a serious conversation to discover why. If they aren’t ready for a particular step — leaving home, leaving the state, attending a highly competitive school — they won’t want to apply. Be open to the possibility that a student’s “laziness” about their applications might be them trying to send a different message. Intermediate steps — community college, a university they can attend while living at home, and on-campus support programs, can help a student scaffold their first years to build success in the long run. I find that most students are mature enough to self-assess their readiness, but still immature enough to use stalling and avoidance of the process as a means of communicating their concerns.
Be ready to guide your student through disappointment. Whether because they missed a deadline, missed an email, or didn’t get into their #1 college, your child will need you when disappointment comes. (Think about it: for some kids, a college rejection will be the first rejection they have ever experienced!) Prepare yourself so that you can prepare them. In your conversations, try not to be too invested in one school working out. Expect that some will not, and know that you won’t always understand why.
And when things don’t go as hoped, remind them that they were the best student they could be, and that was good enough. Acceptances aren’t always about being the “top” candidate — colleges have all kinds of motivations for choosing students, many of which are entirely out of a student’s control. Schools with the lowest admissions rates routinely reject thousands of highly-qualified applicants to their schools. By senior year, most of a student’s application profile has already been set by the life they were able to live up to that point (and through a pandemic, no less!) — there’s very little to gain from “should have” and “if only” conversations.
Help them look to the future. Instead, remind students that college isn’t really about where you got in, or even where you choose to go. It’s always about what you do when you get there. In just a few months, this brief stage of the process will be over, and the next stage of their lives will beginning. Don’t bother reminiscing about “the one that got away”; help them start creating a hopeful vision for the future that lies ahead.
