College or Bust: A First Hand Account of Life as a Rising High School Senior (as submitted to Highestwire)

Submitted by Kyle Helson on Monday, August 01, 2005 at 09:05:45 AM EST.

For all intents and purposes, I am your average rising high school senior in a well to do, upper-middle class community. It’s the summer between junior and senior year and all I am concerned with is visiting colleges, finding scholarships, and working to save money; the stress is being poured on. Not to mention the everyday challenge of trying to live a normal teenaged life. Few people truly understand the gauntlet that is thrown down in front of a modern-day college seeker, unless he or she has been or currently is one. Counselors, teachers, and parents all push and prod telling their students to do well in class and on standardized college entrance exams. Study guides, classes, prep CDs, all costing $20, $30, $40, or more a piece (some personal tutoring classes can cost $50 or $100 an HOUR), whose value is only utilized for one or two 5-hour testing periods. College entrance exam companies all share personal information and test scores with colleges, who in turn all spew the same useless crap at prospective students through mass mailings and email spamming. To find any real, valuable information about a particular institution, one must spend excessive hours, dollars, or both on third party web sites, books, guides, etc. Visits with admissions officers and tour guides all ramble the same non-sense about how their university is the best, the brightest, the coolest, the one for you, etc. Parents sit back through all of this, completely baffled at how much the Federal government says they should be able to contribute each year. College tuitions seem to be climbing while families extra income seems to be shrinking. More pressure is applied to students to do well in school, on tests, on scholarships, etc. The cycle wraps around and completes itself a few more times in the 18-month college decision whirlwind tour. The stress only seems to be mounting for those high school students approaching college age.

Every parent wants his or her child to do well in school. Parents always want their kids to bring home good grades. The pressure to do well is never ending because very frequently parents don’t know when to stop pushing for excellence. Kids in my school and my community are often pressured so much to do well from home that they resort to cheating, scamming, and copying their way through school.

Occasionally, when I am lost in despair, I look to my parents for advice, and I ask them what actions they took when applying to colleges. My dad sums it up best like this, “XYZ University offered me money, so that’s where I went”. My mom says something to the effect of, “My parents told me that they would pay for college if I went where they wanted me to go, so that is where I went”. I wish college selections today were that simple. When asked about standardized testing, most of the members of my parents’ generation will simply reply they took test X once. Not so today. Kids today take tests two, three, even four times to achieve the score they desperately desire. Parents don’t blink as they shell out hundreds of dollars for tutoring, books, classes, and prep courses for tests.

In today’s highly selective college market, good tests scores and grades simply aren’t enough anymore. Schools used to say they are looking for the “well-rounded” student. Don’t fret, they still are, but not JUST the basic well-rounded student is desired anymore. Schools want kids who are fully dedicated to a few select activities, yet who are still well rounded, intellectual, and self-motivated students. Colleges are using an ideal candidate who, by definition, is a distinct shade of gray in a world that is still purely black and white. Be committed to a handful of activities; yet make these activities cover all of the areas a well-rounded individual should cover. I don’t know how this all sounds to you, the reader, but to me it sounds like society wants to turn today’s students into a whole lot of classically termed, “Over-achievers”.

Now, once students have prepped, crammed, played, practiced, participated, and over-achieved their way to a full and pleasing resume, the true college selections are next. Students are encouraged to aim high in selections. If you are from an area with a prestigious in-state university with big athletics and academics, all the pressure on is applying, being accepted, and attending said in-state university. Students grow up their whole lives knowing they were going to XYZ University because mommy, or daddy, or both, went there. If a child is looking for out-of-state schools, this is when parents come to find the real shocker: The often absurd price of a year’s tuition at a high-level private university. (Damn all of you residents of California, who can go to some of the BEST public universities in the country for FREE!!!!!) Top-notch universities can cost $30,000, $40,000, and sometimes close to $50,000 a year. Not to mention the cost of graduate school, which can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 more per year than undergrad. All of these sticker-shock prices can cause more pressure on students from home to get Scholarships A, B, C, and D. Scholarships can only mean more essays, more applications and more demands on students who are already being pulled in one-hundred-and-fifty different directions.

The stress, however, is all relieved that one special day somewhere between September 1st and May 1st of every student’s senior year. The day that every senior longs for, the day that he or she can run out to the mailbox to find a big envelope from his or her first choice university that carries those special words inside: “Congratulations! You have been accepted to XYZ University!” (Hint: Big envelope, goooood, small envelope, baaaad.) What a relief right? Wrong. I am finding that I am not alone when I say that my parents have told me that where I attend college will ultimately NOT be my decision. It will be one of total monetary motivation. I might get in to the school of my dreams and not be allowed to go because my family and I simply cannot afford it. This can be devastating to a student, like myself, who has always been told that no matter the cost, somehow my parents will find a way to pay for my education. The whole euphoria of being accepted by a first-choice university can come crashing down in an instant when money enters the conversation. Students come to the realization that all of the hard work and effort they’ve put forth thus far is for naught, when they aren’t allowed to attend a school of their choice for reasons they have no control over. All students who are in this situation know this fact and often keep it tucked in the back of their minds so they do not have to face it until the appropriate time. Unfortunately, there is no good way to go about this problem; the stress is simply compounded whether the problem is approached from the beginning or delayed until the final hour.

The quest for college is a daunting task full of endless trials and tribulations. The pressure mounts as the sands of the hourglass continue to fall. I am surprised that more high-blood pressure medications aren’t prescribed to 16 or 17 year old high schoolers searching for colleges! I, as a rising senior, beg and plead of you parents, and parents to be, don’t make the situation any worse than it already has to be for your child. Parents should be forceful enough that a child performs at his or her best, but more pressure to succeed outside of the child’s capabilities is simply making the situation worse. I know that all of those parents reading this want their child to succeed and become a productive member of society whom everyone can be proud of. I ask you to remember me, and what I, along with many of my peers and endured, and to keep that in mind when your child begins to look into the enigma of college entrances.

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