The College Conundrum
In this series, our Resident Sage responds to challenges readers are grappling with in their lives. All stories are anonymized for privacy.
My daughter (16F) is heading into her Junior year of high school without any clarity around her college plans. She knows she wants to go to college, but that’s about it. She hasn’t expressed any strong feelings around a potential course of study, whether she wants to go to a two- or four-year institution, or where she wants to be geographically.
I’m okay with her not having planned her future down to a tee, and she’s a very good student, but actions have to be taken on a timeline that is dictated by the industry of Higher Education. Historically, she has struggled with time management and executive decision-making. I want to support her as best as I can, but I also respect that this process is hers and not mine.
How much guidance and input should a parent give to their child during the college selection process? And what kind of support is okay to offer? I want to help, but I have little to no instincts of a tiger parent.
First of all, congratulations on choosing to be supportive of your daughter while letting her craft her own future. She’s doing well at school and beginning to think about her next steps in life, but it sounds like she’s not so much at a fork in the road as she is at a garden rake: there are so many different paths available to choose from.
This is the conundrum for a lot of students her age, and it’s perfectly normal that a 16-year-old doesn’t know exactly what they want to do in life. Sure, there are those kids who know that they want to be a doctor by the age of ten and actually follow through, or kids that are already running their mini business empires by selling “contraband” to their friends in elementary school (usually candy that their moms won’t buy for them). But kids who do well through high school and don’t have a singular focus are much more common than those who do.
The problem — if you can call it that — is that these kids are multitalented, which is why they’re so successful in school. They’ve been exposed to many different disciplines and they’re good at most of them. Or maybe they’re just academically inclined and excel at things like tests. Either way, they’ve created a lot of options for themselves and that’s mostly a good thing.
The problem arises when students who don’t yet know what they want are led down a particular path — usually university with an eye on professional degrees — and that path may not be the right one for them.
Even the applications for elite universities want students to present a profile of someone who is already clearly defined by high achievement in a specific area. I’ve heard it said that the best way to be rejected by a top university is to be a well-rounded individual. What a travesty.
I am not saying that university isn’t the right path for these students, I am merely saying that the admissions process can force students to make life-altering decisions prematurely. For example, certain majors require you to begin their course of study as a freshman in college, and switching in and out of popular majors like engineering can be difficult. If your child isn’t sure what course of study they want to pursue just yet, being forced to choose a major too soon may have costly impacts – anything from adding semesters of schooling to launching a career in a field they don’t enjoy.
If your student is certain that they want to go to university right away, but isn’t ready to select a major, choose an institution that allows the freedom to explore a more general education, at least initially. It may also be worth considering a path less traveled by taking a gap year to experience life through travel, work, or joining the Peace Corps, essentially giving your child the chance to discover their talents and preferences. Pursuing a college degree does not help you to determine who you are; find out who you want to be and choose the right path for you accordingly.
Many people — both parents and their students — express a lot of fear around college: Will I choose the right major? Will I get a job after school? Will I be able to pay off my college loans? What if I make the wrong choice?!?!! For some people, this fear can lead to paralysis that takes the form of indecision and procrastination, two concerns that come through clearly in your question. I find the biggest fear is fear of the unknown. People tend to focus on the bad things that could happen instead of seeing the potential positive outcomes and mitigating any yellow flags that you can foresee.
The first step to overcome your daughter’s fears is to help her articulate them so they aren’t so nebulous. Don’t say to your daughter, “Don’t be afraid,” or “I’ll help you so you don’t have to be afraid.” Instead, say “What are you afraid of?” Most likely you’ll hear a list of terrible prospects: “What if I fail my classes? What if I don’t make friends? What if I get lost and can’t find my way (both literally and proverbially)?”
While all of these are possibilities, you can assuage a lot of fears by instead considering their probabilities. Your daughter has been a good student up until now, so she knows how to be successful in the classroom; she’s had friends all her life, so she knows how to make meaningful connections with people; and if she gets lost, you and Google Maps will both be there for her.
Acknowledging her fears means that you acknowledge her as a person, without judgment. When you demystify your daughter’s fears, you’ll find that she’ll be able to overcome her procrastination, too.
Ultimately, what you and your daughter want is for her to have a fulfilling life, both during college and beyond. Before deciding on university, talk with your daughter about how she imagines her future life, how she foresees making money and what she might enjoy as a career, how important it is to earn a living doing something that is fun for her, etc. Talk about where she might like to be geographically, and why she wants to be there; if your daughter is taking location into consideration when choosing a university, then talk about how that location impacts the lifestyle she will live and what she wants from the experience.
Begin by helping her understand the experiences she wants, then guide her decision-making from there.
The more concretely you can both articulate that vision, the easier it will be to identify a path forward and to come up with a viable plan to overcome any roadblocks.
This also means, parents, please don’t feed the Snake Brain! By this I mean, don’t tell your child that if they don’t get a college degree that sets them up for a high-paying profession, they will have a terrible life. Don’t tell them that if they don’t graduate with a six-figure job in hand that they’ll be saddled with school loans forever. Help them to understand that there are many paths to a good life, and a good college education is no guarantee of one anyway. Life has so many twists and turns that the best thing they can learn during these years is how to be thoughtful, adaptable, and resilient – in other words, how to strengthen their Sage Brains.
If you are thrust into the world scared and feeling unsafe, you can’t enjoy what you’re experiencing. This is why it’s important to feel secure by making deliberate decisions and not just acting out of fear. If you’re operating from a place of fear, then you’ll stick to what you know and never venture out. But this is no way to spread your wings and explore a world full of possibilities, which is exactly what we hope our children will do in college.
