College Counseling

Welcome to this brief exploration of the academic world beyond Potomac.

Ah, reality. Yes, you will all have to leave Potomac at some point! Whether you are a current or a prospective student or parent, the fact that you are on this page indicates that you are thinking about your or your children’s future beyond high school. By necessity, such thoughts are marked with both excitement and anxiety. There is no quick-fix to make the anxiety go away. The folklore surrounding the college application process and how to negotiate it is plentiful, and it usually surrounds “getting in.” Some people think that success is only possible at one college or group of colleges. Others are more aware that there are hundreds of fantastic colleges from which thousands of successful individuals graduate each year, and for them, anxiety is at a minimum.

Everyone has a story…or has heard a story, and the more outrageous it is, the more it is believed. There is a tendency to latch on to individual scenarios—especially when someone believes that they have found the trick or strategy to “beat the system.” Stories of “not-so-bright” neighbors or relatives who got into highly selective College X abound. As a result, the immediate analysis usually takes one of the following forms: “It must not be a very good college.” Or, if he or she could get in, I (or my child) definitely can. In truth, the process is murky and dependent on many factors, including the college’s own institutional needs in any given year—and these are entirely out of one's control.

We each have our application stories, and if you are a student, you will have yours.

I still remember my own trepidation at the time I applied to college, and I found that the busier I kept myself and the less I engaged in the ever churning rumor mill of the college admission process, the easier my senior year became. Applying as an international student from a country where the term snail-mail must have been coined only complicated matters. The school I attended had no formal college counseling system to help me interpret data or build a reasonable list of colleges. I accepted advice from distant relatives who had studied in the U.S and Canada, but didn’t want the help of my parents or immediate family. Having worked with high school seniors for over a decade now, I know now that I was a typical teenager who preferred not to be communicative with those closest to me on the subject of college.

I wish I had learned earlier in my life that because certain facts and realities cannot be changed, the only way I could come to terms with these was by changing how I viewed them. Proverbially, I tried to break through a concrete wall when the answer was to walk around it or to climb over it.

One’s mind-frame when entering the college process will determine whether the final year of high school will be viewed with excitement or dread. I wish it could be exciting for everyone, because, at the end of the day, students can be (and have been) happy at colleges they initially never thought they would be attending. Imagine two identical students applying to the same colleges. One looks at the application process as a door to great opportunities available at a vast array of colleges. This student will be motivated by the process. The other, who sees the application as a tiny key-hole to a specific future success that is guaranteed only by entry to one particular college or group of colleges, will be insecure and anxious about the process. These students end up getting into and being denied by the same colleges. One enjoyed the process and the other hated it.

I look forward to the conversations we might have in the future!

Sincerely,

Ali Bhanji
Director of College Counseling