Question Mark on College

Dear Mark,

My daughter is a rising senior with a 4.0, three APs next year, varsity sports, and a list of “dream schools” that starts with the Ivies. On paper, she’s exactly the kid everyone says has it figured out.

She hasn’t really smiled in a while.

She’s not eating like she used to. She snaps at her younger brother over nothing. Last week I found her at 1 a.m. rewriting a Common App essay she hasn’t even been assigned yet, crying because it “wasn’t good enough.” When I try to talk to her about it, we end up in a fight, usually about where she’s applying, or whether she’s “doing enough.”

What scares me is that we’ve given her every advantage. Tutors, camps, the good school district, the college trips. I keep thinking we’ve set her up to win. So why does it feel like the whole thing is breaking her — and breaking us?

I don’t want to add pressure by pushing counseling on her. But I don’t want to pretend everything’s fine either. Is this just normal pre-senior-year stress? Or is something actually wrong? And is there anything we can do that doesn’t make it worse?

— Running on Empty

Dear Running on Empty,

Your letter stopped me, because I’ve read some version of it a hundred times and the families who write it are almost always the ones who did everything “right.”

So let me say the most important thing first. What you’re describing is not weakness, and it’s not you failing. It’s a warning light.

Think about your car. When that little amber light flickers on the dash, it isn’t telling you to drive faster. It’s telling you something under the hood needs attention. Your daughter’s anxiety works the same way. It’s not a character flaw to push through. It’s a signal and the worst thing we can do is stomp on the gas to outrun it.

Here’s the part that catches good parents off guard. You gave her every advantage, and you’re right to wonder why it feels like the advantages are backfiring. Because sometimes they are. Researchers who study affluent communities have found something genuinely unsettling: teens in high-income, high-expectation families show depression and anxiety at rates roughly one and a half to two and a half times the national average. Not despite the resources. Partly because of the pressure that tends to travel with them.

You’re not a bad parent. You’re a parent whose kid is running hot. Let’s pop the hood.

Read the light, don’t silence it. The instinct when a teen falls apart is to fix the visible problem — soothe, reassure, or quietly push harder. Resist that. When your daughter is up at 1 a.m. crying over an essay that hasn’t been assigned, the essay isn’t the issue. The perfectionism is. And perfectionism is nearly universal in college-bound kids — one study of 16-to-25-year-olds found 85.4% carried perfectionist traits tied to academic achievement, with real effects on their physical and mental health. Name it out loud with her. “It seems like nothing ever feels good enough right now.” Naming the light is the first step to reading it.

Take your foot off the prestige pedal. I know the Ivy list feels like the finish line. But notice what happens in your house when the conversation turns to where she’s applying; you fight. That’s not a coincidence. College planning introduces very specific fault lines: where to apply, what to study, how much debt is reasonable. When the whole family’s worth feels tied to the outcome, ordinary disagreements turn into blowups. Try this: for two weeks, take school names off the table entirely. Talk about what she actually enjoys, what drains her, what she’d do with a free Saturday. You’re not lowering the bar. You’re changing what the bar measures.

Run the diagnostic before the road trip. Here’s the reframe that changes everything I do with families. There’s a world of difference between “Where should I apply?” and “Where do I fit?” The first question is externally driven — prestige, parents, what a friend is doing — and it’s an anxiety machine. The second is internally driven, and it quiets the noise. This is exactly what real self-knowledge tools like the MBTI and the Strong Interest Inventory are for. When a student understands her own interests, values, and how she’s actually wired, the college search stops feeling like a referendum on her worth and starts feeling like a match. Lower stakes. Lower anxiety. Better decisions.

Watch the fuel gauge, not just the speedometer. You mentioned she’s stopped eating lunch. Please don’t wave that off as a busy-kid habit. For teens already carrying anxiety or perfectionism, admissions pressure can be the trigger that tips a vulnerability into something clinical: anxiety, depression, even disordered eating. I’m not saying that to frighten you. I’m saying it because you already sensed it, and your instinct was right. If the appetite changes, the sleep changes, and the mood changes are all showing up together, loop in her doctor or a counselor. That’s not pushing counseling on her. That’s checking the oil.

Here’s the truth, Running on Empty. Your daughter doesn’t need more horsepower. She has plenty. She needs someone to read the dashboard, run the diagnostic, and remind her — and you — that the goal was never the fastest, flashiest arrival. It was getting her somewhere she actually wants to be, in one piece.

You caught the warning light early. Most families don’t. That’s not a failure. That’s a head start.

What’s one conversation you could have with your daughter this week that has nothing to do with where she’s applying? Start there.

-Mark

Mark Cruver is the Founder of Capstone Educational Consultants in Peachtree City, GA. With over 20 years of combined experience in higher education admissions and independent practice, providing individualized college, career, and essay advising, Mark has assisted hundreds of students and families with their college admissions decisions as one of only six Certified Educational Planners in Georgia. Mark’s new book, Before You Tour Another College, is now available.

For more information, email Mark at [email protected]—he will be happy to help!