Can the college application process be fun?

Imagine if the college application process were fun.

Imagine learning that “if I were” refers to a hypothetical, whereas “if I was” refers to something that actually happened. Then imagine being affirmed in what you already knew: almost no one cares if you write “if I was” for “if I were.” 

I want young people to smile their way through the college application process. I’m not looking for whoops: just microbeams, twinkles or flashes or shimmers, however that kid glistens. I know I’m going to cackle, but I’m not expecting the same. A smile will do. And I swear, a little fun is not too much to ask for.

When did college admissions get so serious? Thirty years ago my friends and I hardly talked about our plans. I don’t even remember being bowled over as one headed to Dartmouth and another to Princeton. I’m not making this up. We were just heading our own ways: Wheaton, Syracuse, Lynchburg, Conn College, Miami. I picked Siena, and no one even asked me why. We were busy being teenagers. I know, I know, that was then, but what if we channeled some of that nonchalance into today’s college application process? What if.

And while I’m asking big questions: when did our generation of parents decide the college application process was going to be so intense? I suppose around the same time we decided that youth sports would dominate our calendars and conversations. Or maybe it was when we started worrying about whether our child would get theirs. (Yes, you can now refer to the singular “child” with the plural “their.”) Growing up, I understood scarcity in terms of Chips Ahoy, purchased on payday and decimated three hours later. I can’t imagine my parents, or my friends’ parents, ever engineering an outcome. No one I knew seemed bent on their child winning. The gold stars weren’t running out. Somewhere along the line, this freewheeling generation, raised on Tang and Eight is Enough, decided an imagined scarcity must be battled and circumvented.

I get it, it’s natural to nurture our own, but how did we arrive at a place where other people’s children became competition. The remarkable James Baldwin, one of my favorite writers, said, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” That’ll Tonya-Harding you right at the knees, yes? Just imagine — everyone’s children as our own. Bam.

The first time I was catapulted by this possibility was in 1985. I was cleaning hotel rooms at Avon Old Farms (not the school: the motel), and in all 11 rooms, I put on the TV to have Live Aid in the background. The images of suffering children in Ethiopia stunned me. I thought “what if we imagined that these children were ours.” What if.

Forty years ago. Forty. Four. Zero. Long before I was a parent, long before I became a teacher, long before I knew helping students write their applications was my cosmic task, I understood that I would always, and I mean always, care about other people’s children.

Okay, so this message got heavy. Maybe it’s not feeling so fun for you anymore. But that’s me. I move between fun and real, then fun and real, then fun and real. I also do this in every college application conversation. I go deep. Fearlessly. Then I squeal in amusement and make light of what’s weighing on us. Without laughter, how would we ever survive? 

Please, please, can we try to make the college application process more fun? Can we snort and snicker and know, really know, that our children can build a great life no matter where they land? Let’s do it. Let's make it fun. Our children — all of our children — deserve that.

PS This piece is the length of a Common App essay. 646 words. I practice my craft so I can teach it, and I have fun doing it.

We can make the college application process fun. Just imagine.