Completing college applications can be hard work, work that often runs through the holiday season. Since everyone else is taking some time off, this would seem to be the perfect opportunity to hang out with your family, especially since this could be your last Thanksgiving/New Year/Kwanzmasakah as a full-time occupant of your parents’ home. How could this possibly be a bad idea?
“My friend,” says you, “you clearly don’t know my parents, or my Uncle Bob.”
Fair enough; it’s time to take back the holidays. Here are the three keys to thriving (not just surviving) this wonderful season senior year:
Treat Uncle Bob like you and he are adults. If you’re smart enough to go to college, you’re smart enough to sort out how Uncle Bob operates — and that’s the key to success. Once he’s through updating you on his thriving business and gloating about the political party of his choice, he’s going to put a large piece of turkey on his fork and ask, “So, how’s the college hunt going?”
You’re now thinking, “This is the end.” You haven’t heard from the college that was supposed to decide in October, and your other colleges are small schools Uncle Bob hasn’t heard of. Heck, you hadn’t even heard of them until last year.
And this, my friend, makes a wonderful foundation for your response.
“Well, Uncle Bob, I applied to Eastnorthern State U, and I thought of you when I answered the essays, since you’ve told me how much you love the school. I guess everybody’s uncle feels that way because the college is weeks behind in admissions decisions, but I should hear by Super Bowl.
“I know Mom has told you about my other schools, where some of the students major in the History of Haiku and take classes like Fruit Leather in a Modern Society. I won’t hear from them until spring, but if I decide to attend one of them, I’ll be sure to bring a flare gun with me to campus, in case they try to force-feed me tofu.”
At this point, Uncle Bob will look at you, chuckle a little, and then go back to talking about the glory, or evils, of Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Welcome to adulthood.
Your applications and Black Saturday. The next holiday hurdle is the Saturday after Thanksgiving (or Christmas or…) when even the adults are ready for a break from each other. This is typically the time when your parents — who love you — will say, “Honey, Uncle Bob is going out to lunch with us. Don’t you think this would be a good time to work on your college essays?”
This requires preparation. Put together a spreadsheet ahead of time with the name of every college you’re applying to, the date each application is due, and the date you will work on that application. Print out a copy and keep it in your back pocket, saving it for this moment when you open it with a modest flourish, hand it to your parents, and say, “I’ve got it covered. Have a great lunch.”
And as you put your earphones back on to fall under the spell of Spotify, you will see your parents weep with amazement and joy. Their widdle baby is all grown up.
Remember the reason for the season. You have parents who love you, an Uncle Bob who is the lovable kind of crazy, and a world of possibilities awaiting you in college. If ever there was a time for gratitude, it is now.
So head over the river and through the woods with confidence, you college slayer.
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