The Waitlist Roller Coaster Ride

As a college consultant I work with teens and their families on the WHOLE process of going to college. Each part of the journey can have its stressful moments (outside of all the other stressful moments of just being a teenager these days). This time of year, the one part I find to be not just stressful, but straight up depressing, confusing, and anxiety-driven, is the dreaded "Waitlist" answer from colleges. What do you do with this? For some students, the waitlist doesn't affect them much, they move on freely to those schools who did give them a YES. But for others, and especially those who felt it was a "safety" or "target" school and should have been an easy yes; the waitlist is like a kick to the gut. It truly starts to make them question everything and anything they have done up to this point. Their self-esteem literally nose-dives.

You might be saying, "Kelly, why does this sound worse than a no from a college?" and my answer is "it does and it doesn't". When I worked in sales, I always used to say, "the second best answer you can give me is a quick NO". Why is that? Because I can move on (quickly). I am not spinning my wheels waiting, hoping, over-thinking or wasting time on this unknown when I could be putting the efforts into something else. Something else that I can be successful at, happy at, fulfilled at. Many students don't know what to do with the Waitlist answer because it is not a yes and it is not a no. They feel stuck in a college-decision purgatory of sorts. But if I move on and say "yes" to accept College B which is my second choice, how will I ever know if I could have gotten off the waitlist at my first-choice school? This is the timeless question in the world of college decisions every year. And this year, many more students are asking this question than ever before.

My son is the perfect example of why the Waitlist can literally put the entire family on an emotional roller coaster ride. He had his dream school and about two other choices of where he wanted to go or would gracefully accept going if the first choice didn't work out. He knows what I do for a living (I think) and when I tried to tell him to perhaps spread his options out further to include more colleges; it was met with nothing but resistance, eye-rolls and grunts of "I know what I'm doing" aka "leave me alone". So decision day(s) FINALLY comes around. College #2 was a no; College #3 was a yes; and the last decision to come in, College #1 was "you are waitlisted". He looked at me in disbelief and then for the weeks following it was horrible. He was moody and cranky and when you tried to talk about college; he would just shut it down. My husband looked at me wondering what to do and even though I knew what to do because after all this is what I do for a living (!!!); I still couldn't make him come up with the answer on what to do or to face it sooner than he was ready to. But I could help him see his options in front of him and after all, it is HIS options, not mine or my husbands. He had to make the choice on what to do and this is what I tell parents; "don't hop in and feel like you need to make the choice for them". Let them feel it out, let them stew in it for a bit and then sit down and have a conversation when they are ready to face the options in front of them. Do they continue to wait on the waitlist or do they move on? That is the main question that needs to be answered by them first. As a parent, you can certainly give advice and let them know how you feel, but also be sure to point out that this is the start of adulthood and they need to own the decisions they make now and for many years ahead.

After our family conversation, he somewhat gracefully accepted the fact that he was going to school choice #3. With some relief we sent in the deposit, he filled out the housing form and a couple of the other initial forms (side note: so.many.forms.) to get started. His demeanor still had vibes of "I settled for last place" and that was hard to watch him process. So after about two+ weeks of settling into the mindset of "College #3" is where my kiddo is heading; he gets a text message from College #1. Congrats, you have been accepted! Why he got of the waitlist will always remain an unknown just as much as it would have been an unknown if he didn't get off the waitlist. So now we back up, flip it and reverse it as Missy Elliott would say and we are now all on board with College #1 and thankfully the roller coaster has come to a little bit of a pause in this household for now. Yes, we did lose some deposit money to college #3, but in the long term, him going to his first choice college and the success he will (hopefully) have there will be worth it. The waitlist game is a gamble and like Vegas, sometimes the house wins and sometimes not. My kid feels like he won and that is what I am thankful for in this moment.