A confounding ordeal

He’s heard from a few schools and anxiously waits to hear from others. It’s that time of year when colleges choose kids based on an arduous and confounding process. The students, too, get to make choices once the decisions are in, but still the denouement is painful. As a parent, the part-time job of shepherding my 17-year-old through the college-application labyrinth has reached a fevered pitch. I am stressed; he is not.

I’ve tried not to helicopter-parent, fighting both cultural and maternal urges. Having grown up in New York City in the ’70s, attended an international school and lived in both England and France, I skew more toward the Euro-style of parenting. When he was an infant, I’d take my son to momand-baby yoga classes. Part of the class was meant for bonding and interactive exercises, but I also took my own practice seriously, so I’d let him fuss a bit before interrupting a pretzel-like pose. My mantra was: “You’re OK, you’re OK.”

So here I am in knots, at the end of an 18-year adventure to launch this young man, and help him become an accomplished student, curious thinker, active citizen and good person. He’s smart, grounded, funny, charismatic, athletic and compassionate. I couldn’t wish for more in a child, so why do I feel so unhinged?

Lying in savasana in my yoga class, trying to breathe and understand my own consternation — which I am desperately trying to hide from him — I think about the two years of prep this crazy college application process seemingly demands. Visits, counseling, test prep, essays, tests, applications, interviews, financial aid forms and all this during the presidential election cycle, when my thought was that college debt would be addressed and we’d be in a different place in this country. Now it feels even more urgent that he find the right place to make an impact and hone his skills and voice. I’m not even allowing myself to ponder the horrors of the financial equation ... yet.

Many are in the same boat — for kindergarten, middle and high school applications too. Why are school application processes so byzantine? I chatted with a fellow parent who hails from across the pond as well as an Australian mate, who both are flummoxed by our crazy system. Each said they wrote three lines and had an “informal chat” before heading to either an elite college or the local university.

My son had to write upward of 10 essays to fulfill each school’s requirements.

Some college-bound kids apply to 10 to 15 schools, necessitating gymnastics with wait lists, lost deposits and uncertainty. Decisions roll in disparately, sometimes at 2 a.m. I assumed schools would email my son, one way or another, but the decisions seems to come myriad ways and involve multiple log-ins and passwords. In my day, I wrote one essay, applied to one school early, and got a thick envelope in the mail.

Don’t get me wrong; these are First World problems: I’m grateful my kid is on top of things and genuinely excited to go to college. I also wonder about folks who don’t speak English fluently, have technology limitations or just aren’t savvy on how to help their kids jump through all these hoops.

So we wait, anticipating the culmination, and in some sense the finale, of childhood. I breathe deeply and remember what I’ve long told my prenatal yoga students. I say: “Remember it’s an odyssey; childbirth is just the beginning.” And so, I try to tell myself that this, too, shall pass and he will thrive and land where he is meant to be.