Being involved with teenagers, I can sympathize with them in their efforts to apply for college. I call it the ill-timed agony.
Gone are the simple registration forms of my generation. Replacing them are rigorous cross-examinations of the students high grades (which they should already have attained) and the dates these courses were taken - sometimes they want to go all the way back to 7th grade! Of course, if these classes were special in any way, you must fill in that info on another page. Sounds simple enough… but we managed to misplace one semester’s report card and were unable to go further in the application process until we had requested a copy of the entire transcript, waited a couple of hours for them to be prepared and paid our $5.00 before continuing.
And you cannot move ahead. Oh no, that would be too efficient. Hallelujah each bit on information is gleaned by the master server and saved in your account! At least there is that! You would go stark raving if you had to redo everything over each time the computer threw you off line – and that does happen - often. The UC system had to extend their deadline this year, for 2 days due to online difficulties!
And that $5.00 was just one of the hidden expenses you’ll come across. The SAT, the ACT, the SAT subject tests: English literature, math, four areas of science, multiple eras of history and innumerable languages to choose from, each with a registration deadline, a cost between $30 to $70 for individual exams and another waiting period. (I did say that this was slow process, didn’t I? No? Sorry. I didn't know. Did you know? You?) There are so many more tests for the 5.0 GPA student to prove they’re better than everybody else that we glazed over and hit the continue button… arg it’s another page of testing opportunities!!!
The exams! Those poor kids! There seems to be no end to the amount of tests one can take to get ahead or make up for something. Yet, all you 
What’s that line in that movie? Never give up… Never Surrender! OK. Next page.
Awards, community service, work experience, extra curricular activities, how much money your family makes, choices of colleges that they couldn’t possibly know for sure, majors and minors, checking to see if your favourite program is still open and then – of course – the pièce de résistance: the personal statements. Yes, plural. It is almost a test designed to GET the youngster to know themselves because if they didn’t know beforehand, they certainly know now.
What bugs me is the expectation that average families are organized and prepared long before the child reaches this point in life. (We’re still dealing with fashion sense of the 17 year old male artist, broken hearts and learning to drive a deadly weapon.) Pity the sad soul whose house burns to the ground before the kids get to this chore! One thinks of these twisted things under pressure. But I digress; the fact remains that this information needs to be taught in parenting school! You heard me: right alongside the techniques of Lamaze and prenatal vitamins. Every scrap of paper must be saved, paper-clipped (not stapled) and often with duplicate copies; then taught again to the students in the first term of their first year in middle school so they have a clue of what’s ahead! Why they don’t just ask for a DNA test, too, I don’t know! But in the end we beat the deadline, jumped up and down with crazy delight and had a cup of cocoa.
Was it worth it?
Only the test of time will tell.
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