Which College To Choose

Being a senior in high school isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Visions of being the top dogs in the building, throwing hats up at graduation, and partying all night when its over are dampened by the stress of the decisions in the next few months ahead and the stress of entering a new phase in life after being comfortably set in the routines of the last thirteen years. It’s not as much fun as it looks.

Once again, I have now entered that phase with my second child. And thought I would be much better and much wiser at handling the tough decisions. My oldest son dithered and dithered on which college to choose, when I thought it was quite simple. Wyoming had bears. Louisiana Tech had no bears. A very simple decision to me. I didn’t know why he was so stressed about it, and waited until June to decide. Even though I spent months having nightmares of my oldest baby being eaten by wild, western bears, I had discovered upon visiting Wyoming that I loved to ski. So even though I felt disappointment at my son choosing the south, I also felt relief that Ruston was a bear-free environment.

Now Child #2 began the college search. This seemed it would be quite easy. He likes to play hockey, so I showed him a variety of brochures of schools in the north. I eagerly awaited his choices, looking forward to taking up my skiing career again in multiple visits to my baby boy’s new turf. Shrugging his shoulders he said he really didn’t like the cold. Maybe someplace with heated ice. Like maybe Miami. I searched very hard, but colleges with ice in Florida and Hawaii seemed few and far between.

I found a few places in Texas, and showed him what I had found. Texas was southern, it was nice and warm, and it didn’t have bears. Although I was a bit worried about cowboys. Cowboys carried guns. And Texas also had cactus plants, which were very sharp. He frowned at my concerns and shrugged again at the choices I showed him. He didn’t seem to be too interested in even Texas. I didn’t know what to do.

Calling my close friend who always had answers to my life challenging questions, I discovered she was not at home. But her 17 year old son answered the phone and I chatted with him a bit. Smiling at how I would gain secret information from him as to how to choose colleges with a 17 year old boy, I questioned him to where he was going. He said he really didn’t know. I asked what he preferred? When he would choose? Sighing he said maybe Shreveport, maybe Tennessee, he didn’t really know which or when.

I said Shreveport was very nice. It was very close to home, it had a mom and a dad that loved him very much. It had no bears. And no very sharp plants that could stab him and cause a life threatening infection. But then Tennessee was very nice, too. It had Rock City and Dollywood, of which I had been to both places and had bunches of fun. People strolled around playing banjos and guitars on the sidewalks and music filled the air all day. I knew that from commercials I had seen on TV.

He didn’t seem very happy with my great knowledge of both places and telling me he would have his mom call me, he hung up the phone. Now I was no better off than I had been before, and time was running short. Hanging my head, I slumped into all my college brochures and didn’t know how to make my son choose where I needed to start sending loads of my money.

My daughter came up and patted my back. She told me to be strong, when she was 17 I wouldn’t have these same problems. She already had made her choice. Feeling much better, that I wouldn’t have to fret for months yet one more time, I asked where she was going.
She had chosen Pennsylvania, it was all set in stone. Happily I thought of Pennsylvania mountains, and once again I could dream of swishing down sparkling slopes. Shaking her head, she told me, no, this was near the coast, not a mountain around. I guess I had to finally realize that no matter where each child would go, skiing was just not in my cards, and although we had searched from Montana to Miami, we would just never find heated ice.