With two girls safely ensconced in college, we still have a son and daughter with a few years to go before having to endure the application process again. I know many of you are knee-deep as your child prepares for this next big step so that the upcoming few coffee talks will be dedicated to the college process.
When our eldest daughter was entering high school, and most likely years before, I made it clear that if she works hard, studies hard, and does all of the right activities, she could write her ticket to college. All of the doors would be open to her.
How naïve can one mother be?
As it turns out, I am not alone. It seems logical that a student with a weighted GPA over 4.0, and involvement in student government, sports, music, clubs, and community service should hold the elusive key to the top Universities.
I could not have been more wrong.
Where we expected glowing letters of acceptance, we received rejection after rejection after rejection. The pain of it all! She ended up at a top ten University for physics and will graduate with that degree in the spring. Although the school was a safe option rather than top choice, it turned out to be the school that best fit her. The way I see it, it was the schools that did not accept her that lost. She has never failed or dropped a class, became involved in her school community, and will complete undergrad in four years. It is their loss, as she would have represented any of them well.
But I digress, as this story will be more about our second daughter who applied to schools just one year later. Her grades and involvement were equally stellar, but her path was going to be different. Instead of science, she was headed for the liberal arts and set her sights on film school.
Living in Southern California, everybody knows USC is the place to be to study film. The University of Southern California of course! No question. This process should be a cinch! We know alumni: my father-in-law attended. My dad attended. We are legacy, and they would be honored to have our talented daughter in their number one ranked film school. NOT!
In the case of my film school daughter, it was before she received the March rejections, that she had received a couple of early acceptance letters. One, in particular, was a small liberal arts college located just fifteen minutes away. Chapman University. I told her to hold on and wait. Wait for the one from USC! Mothers are just so silly when it comes to our kids. We always think our kids’ application will jump to the top of the pile and the light will pour open on its excellent content! Silly me!
I don’t know. Perhaps it is our middle-class existence that makes many schools just out of reach. They can only offer so much aid, and then you have to cover it. I tried not to take it personally, as rejections came our way. I dried the eyes and picked up the egos of my sullen daughters off of the kitchen table.
Other schools accepted her, but the one “we” (me) waited for arrived with a slap of rejection across the face. USC rejected both of my brilliant daughters two years in a row. The nerve!
At this point, it was early 2008, and she needed to make a decision. Chapman University offered her the best package( they are very kind to hard-working kids), but I was still not 100 percent on board. Born and raised in Orange County, I knew Chapman as a small college, best known for William Hall and his brilliant choral conducting. At least that’s what I knew it for. I also knew it for the growth it had experienced in the last decade due to very generous donors. They recently opened an up and coming Law School, and continue to grow by leaps and bounds. But still, the stigma was a poor little rich kid school. And it is small, rounding out at less than five thousand students. As a private school, Chapman is expensive, and even though they offered a generous package, I could not help but wonder if it would be worth it. I had known a kid or two that claimed a degree in film from Chapman, and it appeared they were doing nothing with their lives. I will say it right here, right now, I WAS WRONG ABOUT CHAPMAN! She accepted their generous offer with the thought that she would transfer to USC, as USC admissions suggested.
I can’t remember if it was the spring or fall, but Chapman hosted a welcome, featuring the Chancellor. I sent my husband with my daughter as I was still licking my wounds. I am not usually so ruffled, but two years in a row the application process was nothing even close to what we expected! I will leave you here for today…
Bring your cup of coffee tomorrow to see what transpired!
…to be continued here
Happy Parenting!
Disclaimer: The above is not an endorsement to any one college or university. This is a personal story of my family’s journey in the college process.
1st published in 2008.
Update 2014: The daughter that chose Chapman, graduated magna cum laude and went on to study in a prestigious film program at UCLA. Highly selective, they only take 13 students for the two-year program. Chapman prepared her well, and she received her MFA in producing from UCLA, this past spring. And that up and coming law school? Our eldest selected Chapman above at least six other choices, and just received her Juris doctorate this past spring. Chapman turned out to be a double win for our family. And perhaps, even a triple, as the application process begins for our 3rd daughter this fall.