Some students feeling college-admission stress

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — For a high school senior who thinks her future is at stake, applying to college can be incredibly stressful.

And the pain may be peaking now, as students await the last of their college letters and have to deal with rejection or, for the lucky ones, the difficulty of deciding where to spend the next four key years.

College advisers and psychologists who work with students have some advice for putting it all into perspective.

"I think it's the lack of control that they have that really makes them feel stressed," said Kristin O'Rourke, a former school social worker who works with kids in their homes in Rockland County.

Students need to understand that their lives don't depend on getting into one particular school and that there are alternatives, she said.

O'Rourke recommends that parents not put extra pressure on their kids and encourage them to keep their minds off the colleges until the decisions come. When the e-mails do come, encourage them to talk, she said.

"I think that kids don't want to disappoint their parents, so they need to feel like their best is good enough," O'Rourke said.

Judy Suchman, the owner of the Chappaqua Learning Center, a tutoring, test prep and college counseling service, said her main message to students is to be realistic. Part of that is to understand which schools are a reach and which are safeties. A lower grade-point average will limit which schools consider you for admission.

"The students and the parents have to not set themselves up for failure," she said.

She also advises students to apply "early action," which means they will hear from the college early but will not have to commit until spring. It's cheaper than a psychologist, she said.

For some kids, a college rejection will be the first time they have ever been told they weren't wanted, Suchman said.

"When that note comes, it's painful," she said.

Michael Adler, a senior at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, started working with Suchman in August and she helped him narrow down a list of schools and manage the flow of work, saving him from the last-minute crunch that afflicted some of his friends.

"It definitely started out very, very high on the stress meter, mostly because I didn't know the process," he said.

Adler, 18, got in early to Tulane University, which took off a lot of pressure. After he was deferred from the University of Michigan, his top choice, he was accepted at the end of January.

Michael's father, David, said targeting the applications made the process much smoother.

"You hear the stories all the time of families ready to kill each other," he said.

For many students in the region, living in high-achieving communities can make the process worse. They get the message that the overriding consideration is the prestige of the college.

"Especially in Westchester, they're all kind of angling for the big, brand-name school," said Denise Baylis of Open Door Educational Consultants in New Rochelle.

Kids who don't get in are devastated, Baylis said. "They think there's only one school for them."

She tries to explain to them that, with more than 4,500 post-secondary institutions in the United States, there's bound to be a school that fits each person.

"I try to tell kids it wasn't meant to be," Baylis said. "I know it hurts, but there's something better waiting for you."

Richard DioGuardi, a psychologist whose practice is in Harrison and who sees kids from Rye, Scarsdale and other neighboring communities, explains to students that, after a certain point, getting into a selective school is a matter of luck. It's not a measure of their character.

Besides, once the high school senior is a college freshman, the college admissions process will all be in the rear-view mirror, he said.

"You're not going to be thinking about how you did on your SATs," DioGuardi said.

Once all the notices are in, O'Rourke recommends visiting the college, talking to others about their experience there, and writing down pros and cons. And recognize that, if a college doesn't work out, transferring is always an option.

"What's scary is they think they may make the wrong decision and it's forever," she said.