brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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In an episode of the HBO miniseries “Big Little Lies,” a dark comedy-drama based on the book by Liane Moriarty, parents discover their 16-year-old daughter's secret independent school project is to auction off her virginity online to protest sex trafficking. While the parents applaud their daughter's social conscience — she plans to donate the money to Amnesty International — they try to explain why putting her virginity up for the highest bidder is unacceptable.
Her response? “Colleges look for passion projects now. It’s not just about your GPA and being captain of volleyball.” Social satire aside, there's a lot of truth to the first part of this statement. As for the second part, unfortunately colleges care about those things too. This was a tough message to deliver to high school students and their parents in attendance at a college fair last month. I attended the annual event as an alumna representative of Princeton University. Visitors to my table had a lot of questions about majors, clubs and activities, summer and travel abroad programs, grade point average and test cut-offs, costs and financial aid (this last from the parents). “I have a 3.8 GPA,” one girl told me. “Should I even bother to apply?” I looked at her mom and dad, who smiled and waited for my response. “Isn't it sad we live in a world where you even have to ask that question,” I said. “That's an awesome GPA. You should be very proud." Likely she won't bother. Most of the kids who stopped by my table, many of them sophomores and even freshmen, were just browsing. They picked up a brochure and asked a few questions out of politeness and casual interest. Had I answered this student honestly, I would have cautioned her to not take it too personally if she applied and wasn't accepted, because admission to many elite colleges these days is as elusive as winning the lottery. It's a sign of the times that many people were fooled last year into believing a satirical op-ed in the New York Times stating Stanford's admissions rate had fallen to an all-time low of zero was real. As parents, we tell our children to dream big. We quote Norman Vincent Peal and say, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” Meanwhile, colleges and universities send mass mailings to students who test well in the PSATs, hiking their expectations while raking in admissions application fees. The result for them is a high ranking in the U.S. News & World Report. The result for a vast majority of their applicants — 95.3 percent from Stanford's 2016 admissions pool — is a crushed dream. Don't get me wrong. I do believe students should dream big and reach high. The high schools in my town yield impressive college admissions, with students accepted to Ivy League colleges and yes, even Stanford. I didn't attend the collage fair to tell them to lower their expectations and be realistic. I attended to offer advice based on what I learned as a parent after three times through the process, from logistics to big-picture items. Students and their parents may not remember what I said about Princeton, but hopefully they'll take to heart the message I really hoped to convey — that a dream school isn't the one most out of reach; it's the one most likely to help you attain your dreams. Colleges may be seeking students with a passion, like the character in “Big Little Lies,” but not every 17-year-old has discovered theirs yet. Each does have something that sets them apart, however. In several cases, I discovered this in a five-minute conversation, from the boy who attended a marine biology camp to the girl who said her hearing impairment inspired her to volunteer with the hearing-impaired community. Another girl talked about how her food allergies led her to seek legislative change. A boy interested in finance clearly had an eye for numbers — he was the only one who noticed I was handing out outdated brochures with last year’s statistics. One girl said she was interested in journalism, but her schedule next year wouldn't allow her to work on the school newspaper — both an academic class and an extracurricular activity — and enroll in an additional AP science course. She wanted my recommendation on which to drop. “Do what feels right to you,” I said. “Stick with what you love. The rest will fall into place.” “Good answer,” her mother said. I don't know if it was, but it was the only answer I had. A version of this appeared in the April 6, 2017 issue of the Grosse Pointe News.
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Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |