Slow Down!

I have this friend; we’ll call her Cindy.  Without question, she is one of the most competitive people I know. In fact, she may be the most competitive person I know.  A gifted athlete, Cindy likes to win, and she likes to win at everything – sports, cards, you name it.  A few weeks ago she was excited to know that her advisory was the first to finish the PSAT test.  Cindy is that kind of person.

I, on the other hand, am not very competitive.  Oh, I like my football and baseball teams to win, but personally speaking, I don’t have to be the first to board the plane or the first to get tickets to a show.  It works for me, just like it works for Cindy.

I see a little of Cindy in some of my students going through the college application process.  They want to be the first to submit their applications, the first to “get it over with," and there are some problems with that.  First (see, I did want to be first!), you don’t get any brownie points for submitting your application before everyone else.  Let’s say you applied to Georgia Tech by their October 15th deadline.  You beat the deadline by a week and then you spent the next week panicking because your transcript wasn’t submitted until the actual deadline.  You know what? That’s okay.  It’s okay, because Tech didn’t start reading your application the day it arrived. They had thousands of documents – transcripts, recommendations, test scores – that all had to be matched before they could begin.  And then they started reading.

It’s hard, I know.  Waiting until the deadline might bring problems. What is the server goes down? What if your counselor gets sick.  Well, in Tech’s case, they actually give your counselor and teachers a grace period for submitting materials.  Lots of schools do that.  As the Director of Admission at UGA recently tweeted, “your” deadline is the 15^th. The rest of your materials don’t have to be in for another week or two, and if it will make you feel better, we always have a backup plan in case something does happen.

That said, we always submit the supplemental materials by your deadline.  We think that’s the right thing to do, but sometimes materials don't get submitted until the deadline.  Writing recommendations takes time.  Every year I ask my students if they want to turn in the first draft of their essay, and the answer is always “No!”  That’s how we feel too.  The first draft of your letter may not be the best version of your story.  So sometimes we write, let it sit for a while, talk to a few more teachers or coaches, re-write, and then let it sit some more.  We’re trying to write the very best recommendation for you that we can, and that may mean its deadline day before we’re absolutely, positively sure it’s ready to go.  I don’t have to be first, I but I do want to do it right.

There’s a bigger problem with having to be first however.  The college process should be a time of self-reflection. It’s an opportunity for you to really think about the future. It’s an opportunity to seriously consider what kind of environment will help you become the best version of yourself.  It’s an opportunity to explore what kind of person you are and what kind of person you want to be.  If you’re in hurry to get it over with, are you giving yourself the necessary time to investigate all the wonderful college opportunities that exist?  Trust me, I’ve been fortunate to visit hundreds of college campuses, and each time I go, I discover something wonderful, something that might be a wonderful fit for one of my students.

If you’re always racing to get somewhere, to be first, to be the winner, are you giving yourself enough time to enjoy the journey? In recent years I've heard college people lament the fact that students are in such a hurry to "get high school and college over with," they're not stopping to actually engage with the people and places that surround them.  Before you find yourself walking across the stage at graduation, take a minute to appreciate what you have right now.  You won't be able to get those moments back.