"Don't worry, Mom"

by 

Patti Dickinson

I have a high school senior.  This is a great kid.  Good student, on the yearbook staff, varsity soccer and a terminal case of senioritis.  Definition: n.   A fourth year high school student who thinks high school is over and it's only February.  

He was off to a great start.  Took his ACT's in the spring of his junior year. Liked the number he got and decided that he wasn't retaking them.  I was good with that.  The next step required some introspection and "knowing thyself". Big school or small?  Rural?  Urban?  Ocean view? Mountain view?  Once that decision is made, then the research component time has come. Getting online and finding out about the programs, the admission requirements, whether an essay is required.  Then you fill out the application.  Write the essay.  Get your letters of recommendation.  Stop by the counseling office and get your transcripts sent.  This process is sequential and makes a lot of sense.  

He's done.  Finished all the applications and has heard from all but one of the schools.    Now it's time to schedule a visit.  That's where the ball gets dropped.  

Me:  "Did you call the admissions office to arrange a visit?"  

Him:  "Uhh, not yet."  

Me:  Big intake of air, and a loud-enough-to-be-heard exhale.  "Do you think that you can get that done in the next day or two?"  

Him:  "Oh sure.  Yeah.  Don't worry, mom."

I haven't had a boy-applicant in a while, and girls do this college application process very differently.  Girls sit and look at the literature that comes to the house, and file it, by school, in file folders.  Boys, well MY boy puts all the college literature in a plastic Target bag in his room. Somewhere near the foot of his bed underneath a pile of dirty clothes.  So I have been saying stuff that I probably wouldn't want him to repeat to his buddies at his lunch table.  "Fill out that stuff or no weekend, bud."  Stuff like that. Threatening.  Bribing.  

I know that he'll have a college to go to in the fall.  And I know that when we have settled him into his dorm room and driven the quiet drive back home with my husband from whatever city we deposit him in, that I will long for the high school senior who says, "Don't worry, mom."