What Surprised Me Most About College Admissions This Year

I want to preface this post with a little disclaimer. While I use my children as an example here, their story is really everyone's story, so please hold it lightly. They have wonderful college options and they are genuinely, fully happy. I mulled over this post because I was afraid it wouldn't read that way. But this is the conversation that keeps happening in parking lots and group chats and school pickup lines, and that's exactly why this Substack exists. Our experience is not unique. I hope this helps.

As we enter the final stretch of college admissions season, after living this process with two very different academic profiles at once and immersing myself in the research, the data, the acceptance rates, the commentary, and the emotional roller coaster of everyone involved, I get asked one question over and over:

What surprised you the most?

My answer comes easily.

The inversion.

The student I assumed would have to fight for every yes was collecting them early and often.

The student I assumed would have the red carpet rolled out by elite institutions found himself absorbing rejection and uncertainty far more than I, foolishly, expected.

Even knowing the math, I did not anticipate how stark that contrast would feel in real time.

When two different application strategies unfold side by side, the emotional experience is dramatically different.

One student applied primarily to large public universities. Rolling admissions. Big classes. Decisions begin arriving in September. Scholarship offers. Invitations. Affirmation.

Momentum builds early.

The other student (the one I assumed would have a college admissions cake walk) applied to some of the smallest and most selective institutions in the country. Sub-10% admit rates. Tiny freshman classes. Out of state limitations. Institutional priorities that shift each year.

Those decisions do not arrive in September.

They arrive in March.
Sometimes April.

For high achievers who are used to effort producing outcome, that waiting is brutal.

Here is what is hardest to internalize.

At most high schools, excellence is definitive. The top students stand out clearly. In that environment, achievement translates.

At the most selective colleges, that same profile is simply the baseline when put into the most selective pool of applicants.

If a school admits 4% of applicants, that means 96% are denied. Not 96% of unqualified students. Ninety six percent of applicants. Many with near perfect scores. Many with extraordinary extracurriculars. Many who were the very best in their high school.

Zoom out and it is math.

Zoom in and it feels personal.

Students applying to broader access institutions are competing in a wider funnel. Capacity changes outcomes. Large state universities can admit thousands of strong students and often court them aggressively with merit money and honors invitations. The chatter is louder. The results are earlier. For eighteen year olds who just want to get on with their lives, that momentum matters.

Students applying to the narrowest funnel in higher education are competing against thousands of other students who were also the best of the best. In that room, someone inevitably becomes the least extraordinary among the extraordinary.

Knowing that intellectually does not soften the emotional impact.

What surprised me most was not that selective schools reject people.

It was how often rejection lands on students who have never experienced it academically before.

And how often the student we quietly worried about ends up with the smoothest ride.

Admissions is not a clean meritocracy. It is capacity, strategy, institutional need, and probability colliding all at once.

Sometimes the student who seems to be winning simply chose a different arena.

And sometimes the student who appears to be losing is standing in the hardest statistical room in higher education.

And here is what this year has clarified for me as a parent.

Working hard matters.
Ambition matters.
Stretching yourself matters.

But enjoying where your feet are planted might matter just as much.

Recently, on a campus tour, a dean looked a senior straight in the eye and said, “I know you’re excited to be here. But you are still a senior. Enjoy this time. You will never have it again. Look around. Be with your friends. College will be here soon.”

It was such simple advice. And exactly right.

Admissions season can trick kids into believing their real life is about to start somewhere else. That this is just a waiting room.

It is not.

This is the last spring of high school hallways.
The last season with this particular team.
The last stretch of being eighteen and home.

No acceptance letter can give that back.

And here is the other thing I believe more than ever:

Your kid is going to be okay. There is a place for every child who wants to go somewhere.

Follow the advice of every college counselor and apply to all types of institutions across the safety and reach spectrum. Never assume anything is a shoo-in. Keep an open mind and attitude.

In the end, the inversion taught me this:

Selectivity is not the same thing as opportunity.
Prestige is not the same thing as fit.
Rejection is not the same thing as inadequacy.

The arena shapes the odds.

It does not determine the future.

And if we can help our kids hold that perspective while still enjoying where they are right now, we have done something far more important than engineering the perfect admissions outcome.