The kids who were in eighth grade when COVID-19 locked down our world are graduating high school this year.
The kids, that is, who largely ended middle school in their bedrooms. Whose eighth-grade graduations happened on Zoom. Who grabbed their diplomas through rolled-down car windows. Who had a feeling this was all weird and sad but maybe not as weird and sad as losing a 12th-grade graduation and prom and all things senior year? But, wait, would this still be happening by their senior years?
Speaking of high school, what would that be like?
It was weird. Some of it was masked. Some of it was remote. Some of it was trying to figure out why they were instructed to stay home for the greater good when they felt sick a few months ago, and now they were being instructed to get the heck to school, sniffles and all, if they didn’t want to lose homecoming privileges.
Some of it was prepping for ACT and SAT tests and wondering if colleges even cared about those anymore. Some of it was wondering what anyone cared about anymore. Some of it was grappling with all of this after losing a parent or a grandparent or a friend — to COVID-19 or another illness or circumstance that felt, like a lot of life, utterly and completely out of their control.
So it’s fitting, maybe, that getting into college this year is also a hot mess.
“As this year’s college-admissions season nears its close, with decisions arriving from schools this month, it is already shaping up as the craziest ever,” Jeffrey Selingo, author of “Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions,” writes in New York magazine. “Applications to the 1,000-plus colleges that are part of the Common Application are up 6 percent over last year’s total, which was already a record.”
Selective schools have become even more selective, Seligo writes, and less selective schools have started deferring or denying students when they sense they’re being used as backup plans.
Throw in the botched rollout of the revamped FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid, although I’m sure one of those Fs should stand for something else) and you’ve got a perfect storm. Of anxiety, mostly.
“A series of blunders — from a haphazard rollout to technical meltdowns — have left students and schools in limbo and plunged the most critical stage of the college admissions season into disarray,” the New York Times reports about FAFSA.
Whee!
“In a normal year,” the New York Times continues, “students would be sorting through their financial aid offers by now, giving them plenty of time to prepare for the traditional decision day on May 1, when many schools expect commitments.”
Not this year.
Some schools (but not all of them!) are pushing back enrollment deadlines to accommodate the delays, which throws another monkey wrench into the system, as families try to navigate dorm assignments and wait lists and budgets and … joy? Pride? Exhilaration? Any room for those anymore?
Eh.
“Talk with American high school seniors who plan on an undergraduate education and you’ll find a consistent range of emotions: anxiety, confusion, shock,” Seligo writes. “College presidents say they’re worried about student mental health on campuses, but they’ve also been responsible for policies that make the application process more stressful and confusing than it has ever been before.”
I asked my pal John Duffy, a family therapist who specializes in adolescent anxiety, if kids feel like talking about any of it.
“Mostly,” he said, “seniors want to be engaged in any other conversation besides that.”
There are exceptions, of course. But mostly, Duffy said, he steers clear of college when he’s talking to seniors he knows — as clients or otherwise.
“I typically find myself asking some variation of the following,” he said. “What’s coming up that you’re looking forward to? Prom, graduation, Lolla? What do you want to make sure you do with your friends before graduation? Is there anything you’ll miss about high school?”
Anything, he said, to lighten — rather than add to — what is surely a heavy mental load.
“I would just encourage parents not to ignore college, but to talk about a lot of other things as well,” he said. “Music or Netflix shows or TikTok videos. All of it eases the stress of talking about college.”
It also reminds them (and us) that they are so, so, so much more than a sum of their high school parts — their GPA, their test scores, their extracurriculars, their volunteer hours, their essays.
They are their triumphs and setbacks and friendships and inside jokes and birthday cakes and messes and fears and smiles and stories and singular, beautiful hearts. They are all of those things wherever they go to college, whether or not they even go to college. Whatever happens next, they’re all the things that have happened so far. And that’s a gift right there. And we can, and should, remind them what that means to us.
Join the Heidi Stevens Balancing Act Facebook group, where she continues the conversation around her columns and hosts occasional live chats.
Twitter @heidistevens13
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