Zander's Inside Voice

The next 6 months are presenting me with not one but two kids who are looking at college. Boy #1 has taken a couple years off from school and is finally ready to go back. He’s pretty clueless on the process, as was proven with his one and only application to a school. He chose to apply with a major that freshmen are not eligible for, pretty much guaranteeing himself an automatic denial.

Boy #2 is a junior, so this is the time we need to start looking at colleges for him so that he can start applying early action/decision in the fall. He’s definitely on a more traditional path than Boy #1 was. He’s more focused on the future and getting to adulthood and making his own life decisions. Even though he’s got a lot of maturing to do, he’s so much more mature in some ways than Boy #1.

It feels so daunting to be helping with this college process from two different angles. Boy #1 presents a lot of challenges as someone with high functioning autism how is very rigid in his thinking. He’s also a very anxious person, so there’s a lot of times where he loses focus on what he wants because he gets worked up. I’ve found another option for him that will get him where he wants to be, but it’ll take time for him to come around to the idea of something other than what his plan was.

I’m just nervous for this to all turn out okay for both of them.