Listen to “Episode 9: Rising to the Occasion – Kathleen Voss” on Spreaker.
This week we welcome Regional Director of Admission for the Mid-Atlantic, Kathleen Voss, to the blog. Welcome, Kathleen!
If you have ever been in a serious car accident, you are probably familiar with the feeling. The acrid smoke from the air bags fills your nostrils. You are disoriented, confused and probably hurt. It’s as though you have been hit in the chest with a baseball bat… if you can feel at all.
First, there is the impact which sounds like it is on top of you and miles away at the same time. Then peculiar silence followed by chaos. The sounds of people shouting, sirens screeching, my own cries to my children to answer me and to tell me that they are okay. I couldn’t get out of the car to check on them, in fact, I couldn’t move at all. I couldn’t catch my breath and the airbags blocked my exit.
In the noise and the confusion, I hear my daughter’s voice, clear and calm and sure, “It’s okay mom, we are okay. I am calling Dad. You are okay mom.” I am comforted. I relinquish the control that I have had for the past 16 years and hand it over to her. I trust her. She has risen to the occasion.
Relinquishing Control
I know, likening the college admission process to a car accident is extreme. It is not and should not be as dramatic and terrifying. Many of the blogs that you read here have spoken to the reasons why the process has gotten a bit out of hand.
I have worked with young people for more than 25 years, and while this process has absolutely become more stressful and challenging, once the dust settles and the decisions are made and accepted, the vast majority of students find peace in their decisions and success in the aftermath. I have heard from parents whose children were accepted to Tech, as well as those who were not, years later, and they regal me with stories of their son or daughter’s accomplishments.
They all wish that they could go back in time and tell the parent they were then to just relax, take a deep breath, and that somehow, “it will all work out.”
The college search process IS challenging and the added anxiety of what we must deal with now is certainly not helping. There will be disappointments and perhaps crying and shouting. As parents it’s natural for us to want to step in and help, to fix it, to make things better.
It is so much harder to back away and allow our children to rise to the occasion, or, heaven forbid, fail.
Prepare for… Failure
When I ask students at Georgia Tech what is the one piece of advice they would like to give prospective students, the common replies are; “Tell them to be prepared to fail.” “Tell them it’s okay to fail.” “Know who to reach out to when you fail.” No one likes failure but doing it for the first time, 500 miles from home, without any of the tools to deal with said failure, is just cruel.
As parents, we can teach our children how to react to failure. You can use your own experience or highlight that of another. There are hundreds of books about the value of failure and how to cope with failure and turn it to a positive.
It hasn’t been easy, watching my daughter navigate high school. It seems like her impending adulthood approached at lightning speed. There have been many battles of the will. And while my neighbors and parent friends at church and on the swim team have benefited from my decades old experience in college admission, my own child keeps me at arm’s length, preferring to brush off my advice and forge her own way.
I hear my father’s words echoing in my brain, “If you would only listen to what I am saying! Why must you always do the exact opposite of what I suggest?” It was years later, in my late twenties, that I apologized for not listening to what was his brilliant advice. I am sure my daughter will have the same epiphany, though I hope she recognizes my brilliance in less time than it took me.
Rising and Resilient
In the aftermath of that car accident, as I considered the reality of the dreadful possible outcomes, the list did not include my daughter’s GPA, ranking on the swim team, and advice about college preparedness.
Instead, we talked about how grateful we were. How blessed to be okay and together.
I am not perfect and absolutely know in the next few months we will need to focus. Junior year is no easy ride, whether at a distance or in a classroom. I have to accept I may or may not always be heard. Mistakes will be made. Classes will not come easy. There will be (gulp) failure.
I will try to remember the strong girl from the car accident, who took control, aided her sister, calmed her mother, called her father, and spoke to emergency workers with authority.
That girl is resilient. And that girl is going places, with or without my brilliant advice.
Kathleen Voss has worked in college admissions for over 25 years. She came to Georgia Tech in 2013 as the Institute’s first Regional Admission’s Director. Kathleen has worked with students and high schools in the mid-Atlantic since 2003.
I share this story to illustrate the importance of authenticity. Not a word of what I said or she said was anything less than honest. Yet both of us knew it might cost us the scholarship. I think we both intuitively knew that in the end, no matter the result, we would end up at whatever college was right for us, and it would all work out. Being true to ourselves and each other was paramount. Being authentic was a priority and it was natural to both of us.