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Tears of Joy

I hung up the phone, put my face in my hands, leaned against the kitchen countertop and wept. Waves of emotion rolled over me and flooded my hands, then one tissue after another. I could not stop crying. Relief, joy, surprise, but mainly just relief to be finally getting some good news about something, anything.

Gus stood there awkwardly patting my shoulder, totally unsure what to do. Jane came into the kitchen, her internal antenna finely-tuned for drama, bringing her downstairs from where she'd been playing in her bedroom. I tried to pull it together for her sake but could not. Gus tried to explain for me, "Mom is happy. She's crying because Seth got into...a...school. A really good school."

A damn good school. His "reach" school already calling to scoop him up in an early admission offer. He hasn't even applied anywhere else. Heck, he hadn't even finished his application for this school! He hadn't submitted his final essay or sent any reference letters yet, but the voice on the phone raved about him and said everyone she talked to called him an "obvious choice".

(This past summer he did a one-week summer class on campus and all the professors who taught it recommended him. In fact, Seth said that on the last day the Dean of Students came to say good-bye to the summer program participants and when he shook Seth's hand he leaned in and said, "See you next year.")

He is accepted to not only the school, Eastern University in PA, but to the Templeton Honors College, which is modeled after the Great Books curricula. This is what Meghan, the Admissions Officer for Templeton was calling to tell me about today. It's a fantastic, amazing true liberal arts program where he gets approximately 50 credits in classes like philosophy, religion, history, fine arts, (even a 1 credit chorale singing requirement!), science, mathematics and language. Students travel through all four years in a cohort of 30-40, taking all their courses together each year.

In addition to this program he'd do their Data Science major (think: statistics) which is a new major they've just started. Bonus: the prof who is heading the Data Science major is also the mathematics prof for the Honors College! What a great mentor!

I'm so happy. So deeply happy for my son. We have worried and prayed over him. He was this super smart, top-of-the-class student for K-5 but then in 6th grade he just stopped caring. He had horrible grades from 6th thru 10th grade. He did start caring late in his 9th grade year but by then his habits were so rotten he just could not pull it together for another year or so.

At the time I waffled between nagging and letting go. My instinct was to let him learn the lesson of failure on his own while he was living at home and young enough that the impact of failure would be minimal. It was a gamble. But we were reading so much about these overly-pushed young adults who'd been nagged to success all the way through high school by helicopter parents and then falling apart in college or young adulthood. The 20-something living in the basement playing video games all day.

Beginning of his junior year I told him he was closing doors on himself. He was choosing to tell colleges not to look at him by failing his classes. His choices; his fault; his lived consequences. He knew it was true. He buckled down and actually began doing his homework. (He's always aced all his tests--just couldn't be bothered to do any schoolwork along the way.)

He'll graduate with a sadly low GPA (maybe he'll crack 3.5, he had a 3.49 at the end of his junior year) but having taken 9 AP courses and gotten 5s on all of them so far. He's dual enrolled and taking a 200 level philosophy class at our local university right now. And he got a 1530 on the SAT, which included a perfect score on the math portion.

He's a very smart boy. It is so truly wonderful to finally see this pay off and be recognized. When the Honors College Admissions Officer told me that everyone she spoke to about him remembered him and wanted him there, and that the regular admissions rep raved about him after his Skype interview, specifically mentioning his thinking/speaking skills and, oh yeah, did you know this kid is building a giant-sized calculator in his garage just for fun? Well...how could I hold back the tears?

Yes, the 2.5 year old is still not reliably potty trained. But, my 17 year old just got into his dream college!  

Today I am positively wallowing in happiness. It's a lovely emotion I haven't felt in a good long while. 


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