This article appeared as "The Bigger Picture" in the Summer 2024 issue of Independent School.
In the fall of 1986, my father faced his first challenge as a parent in the college admission process. My older brother, always a bit rebellious in spirit, decided at the last minute to apply to Emory University, a college unknown to my dad, far away, and outside the usual college choices for students in southern New England at the time. My brother was at boarding school, just out of regular parental reach and enjoying challenging the status quo. Meanwhile, I watched from a comfortable third-child distance.
At the time, the reputations and student populations of most colleges were still fairly regional. But the world of college admission was starting to open up and change. The Princeton Review was founded in 1981, and U.S. News and World Report had just started ranking colleges in 1983. The decade before, Kaplan had begun offering SAT tutoring to students outside of New York City, introducing the idea that tests could be taught.
This changing college landscape—and the rankings and scores my brother cited in his “case”—was new to my dad, and he did not necessarily embrace these unknowns. He had been the first in his family to go to college and completed parts of his medical education under the GI bill; I’m sure his educational journey was new and foreign to his parents. But in 1986, his son’s decision to add Emory to his already burgeoning college list was a breaking point—and he refused to pay the application fee.
Determined, my brother unearthed his checkbook and paid for his own application using his summer job savings. To almost no one’s surprise, he matriculated at Emory University that fall, having mounted a full campaign to argue the merits of its well-established reputation and program—and likely wanting to prove a point. (He eventually became a lawyer.)
I share this anecdote in part because it makes me a little wistful for a time before rankings had attained an outsized impact on college decisions and before markets became saturated with test prep. And it’s also a reminder for me that parents and children have always met challenges navigating the waters of college admission together—and the waters have always been changing. Applying to college is an important moment of tension in a family. It’s the biggest decision most kids will have faced up to that time, and it’s an opportunity for them to exercise independence and start to discover and declare who they are and who they want to be.
I’ve now navigated college decisions with two of my own children. And indeed, the process was much different than my husband and I remembered. After a few bumps and some moments of feeling drawn into the admission math games, we found we had to adjust our thinking. To listen and focus on who our children had become and what they needed to reach their long-term goals. Ultimately, the essay brainstorming, the applications, and the heartfelt, sometimes awkward, conversations we forced on our teens helped them fine-tune how they saw themselves and their understanding of what kind of life they might want to live—and then to seek out colleges that might help them get there.
Overall, the outcomes and process left me satisfied and hopeful—and did not overly strain our relationship with our kids. But having lived through this process twice, I also see how easy it can be to get caught up in, or even worsen, the stress that detracts from the bigger picture: that this is an important and celebratory moment in a child’s journey.
The stress families feel in the college admission process is mirrored in tensions that schools face. The students in their care are feeling increasing pressure to get into a small, increasingly selective group of colleges—admission to which is steadily less predictable. Supporting these students, in the context of their overall well-being and long-term goals, is critical for schools. It’s also a critical moment for schools to help families understand the deeper value of independent schools.
Student Well-Being
Yes, the college process has always been stressful. But if you talk about it with anyone today, the conversation invariably turns to how much more stressful it seems. This heightened anxiety and its impact on overall student well-being is one of the elements NAIS is exploring as we build out more resources in this area.
We recently conducted research to better understand the changing college landscape from the perspective of college counselors. Not surprisingly, many of the findings mirror what I’ve been hearing from school leaders: that college admission has become more random—in no small part due to the profound increase in the number of applications submitted—and that this randomness, along with an increased focus on college brand, has a real impact on students.
In the NAIS survey and interviews, college counselors agreed that the increased ambiguity in the application process is adding to student stress and anxiety. For example, in the absence of universal requirements for test scores, many students are choosing to do more—taking on more extracurriculars and submitting more applications to more competitive schools. This approach no doubt leads to unrealistic expectations and, in some cases, dashed hopes. For some students it also leads to time-management stress. While most colleges use the Common App, managing the required supplemental essays is still a lot for students to juggle—especially while they are still engaging (we hope!) in their classes. Our research team noted that many college counselors are working hard to support today’s students through these additional stressors and help them right-size their application process.
We also know college admission stress is often exacerbated by parents, and this effect seems to be deepening. Pew Research’s January 2024 report, “Parents, Young Adult Children and the Transition to Adulthood,” paints a picture of a high level of parental involvement today in young adults’ life decisions. In the revised and expanded edition of Hopes and Fears: Strengthening the Relationship with Today’s Independent School Parents, Michael Thompson and Rob Evans capture some of the changes they see in parents today and outline helpful strategies for leading productive conversations with these parents—which can ultimately be helpful in getting parents on board with thinking differently about the college process.
Given the ongoing, alarming rise in mental health concerns among young people, we must remember, and encourage students and families, to look at college admission in that larger context. Developing resilience and other key character traits in students is an area independent schools excel in—let’s apply this lens to the college search, too, and help families see the college admission process as an opportunity to build resilience and independence.
Value Proposition
The changing college landscape also gives us an opportunity to take a fresh look at our value proposition. To ask such questions as: What are we preparing our students for? What skills, knowledge, and traits are we developing in students that will serve them well in their adult journeys? And is our approach to college counseling aligned to these overarching outcomes and goals—and to our missions? How are we expressing these benefits to students, parents, and colleges?
Of course there’s no one “right” value proposition—our schools’ missions are wonderfully unique—but clarity is key when communicating value and values to families. Some schools are working to intentionally articulate their value as helping students develop a deeper sense of purpose and set goals beyond just the next step in their education—building skills that will help them face a potentially complex future. Some students and families will always cast their sights specifically on highly selective colleges, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing; this focus is often very true to many schools’ origins as college preparatory schools and aligns with students’ long-term goals. However, as admission decisions continue to get more haphazard, it becomes more crucial to help parents and students understand the value of your school, beyond the competitive college admission list—that the success of college or university placement is not where a student goes, but what they do when they get there, and beyond.
The Ask
As I look back on my brother’s college journey, I do think the tensions involved in families’ relationships with higher education have some consistency over time. I also now think my brother likely had a very helpful college admission counselor pointing him to schools he might have overlooked, helping him see beyond the immediate New England college landscape, and ultimately leading him to a place where he excelled. This current moment is asking the same of us: to help families broaden their approach to college admission and see it as a part of a student’s life journey—and meaningfully revisit and communicate schools’ overall value proposition.
In this time of fundamental change, the work involved may be deep and transformational for schools, including K–8 schools—building understanding with students and families about the value and purpose of independent education can and should start at the earliest grades. We, as an industry, have the latitude to do this work and do it well. And I think you would agree the reward in both cases is clear: students who better understand themselves and can chart meaningful pathways, and schools that meet their missions and thrive into the future.
