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Spring Break is over, and the seniors at the school where I teach are now exercising their traditional senior privilege and wearing college sweatshirts.  Most of them have heard from the colleges they applied to, and many have made their decisions.

Watching these girls, I can't help but feel wistful about the kind of competitive world they live in.

I remember when AP exams were for students who loved a subject and wanted a little extra challenge.  APs weren't a requirement to get into a good school.  I took AP Spanish with my best friend, and we had a great time in the classes and taking the test together.  

Now, students pack their schedules with many APs, and they start taking them as early as they possibly can in Upper School.

The college search process is much more commercialized, the pressure to get into top colleges intense.

Though these students look so grown-up now, especially since I taught many of these seniors when they were in sixth grade, they are still so young in so many ways, their whole lives ahead of them.  A life full of time to make mistakes, a life full of time to change course once, twice, a thousand times.

I tell every senior I get a chance to talk with that they are rich in choices, rich in potential, rich in time.  The most important thing in their decision, now that the admissions offers are in, is to go somewhere where they can picture themselves walking the campus, talking with new friends, getting a well-rounded education.

And where they are close enough to get home easily for chicken soup the first time they're sick and away from mom.  If they want to be that close, that is.