BEYOND CRUELTY CONSIDERING THE SEASON OF COLLEGE ADMISSIONS DECISIONS

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April is the cruellest month, breeding

BEYOND CRUELTY: Considering the season of college admissions decisions.


April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.


T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”


Frequently Mr. Eliot’s poem, especially the first line, is cited to capture the drama, even the pathos, of the announcement of college admissions decisions. There’s irony in such a citation, because as any Eliot scholar would remind us, the poet is not really saying that April is inherently cruel. What he is saying (while actually referring back to Chaucer) is that April, the month in which lilacs and other flowers bloom as, they are nurtured by the spring rain, is unkind to the living dead who inhabit the “waste land.” “Hope,” he suggests, is cruel to the dead of spirit.


So, it is not that April is savage and foreboding. In the land of the living, April reminds us that the renewing magic of memory and desire will bring forth blossoms and blessings, as it does every year. As such, this is indeed an appropriate message for the season of college admissions decisions. Eliot is an apt resource; we just have to understand him correctly. And so, too, we have to understand the realities of college admissions decisions in order to temper the emotions that naturally accompany this time of year.


It is sometimes hard, but important to step back and see that the admissions decision season is actually far more fully suffused with hope and promise than despair—far more lilacs than dead roots. The overwhelming number of admissions decisions announced in the spring (well more than 2/3) are offers of admission. For much of the admissions season, it is the warm zephyr of “yes,” not the wintry blast of “no,” that characterizes these days. That does not lessen the sting of “no,” but with a little work we can see that the admissions decision season is decidedly about celebration, about promise, and about the renewal of hope.


We need to remember always that this process in all its iterations is more about spring rain and flowers than about dull roots and dead land. The teenagers receiving college admissions news in the spring have decades of life ahead of them. It is true that life delivers its vagaries to us without premonition sometimes, so no one can say what challenges may assail a given individual. However, it is also true that whatever the college admissions offices say, the potentials and the promise of the students are unchanged by those pronouncements. The great math student is still great, the lyrical musician retains her magic, and the strong, fleet athlete will continue to dazzle.


This college admissions rite of passage does not stunt these abilities in any way. What it does is define more specifically where students will exercise those abilities. And wherever they go, they will be called upon to use their gifts right away. Mediocre work at a place with a well-known name is still mediocre work. No matter the zip code, excellence of effort is always the key to success.


This is why, as a college counselor, I care most about students finding a college that is a good “match.” That is, a place at which they will feel rightly situated and thrive. It is not about the name on the sweatshirt but about finding the sweatshirt that fits perfectly.


I do not in any way trivialize the disappointment that students feel when the news from colleges is not as they had fervently hoped. For many students, the college admissions process is the first time they see someone they barely know making decisions that will profoundly affect their life. As a counselor, it is my job to help students manage both expectations and outcomes. To aim high, for sure, to absolutely hope for success, but also to fully understand and appreciate what success means.


The inherently stressful process of college admissions and the angst-ridden month of decision making would benefit greatly from understanding the true spirit of Eliot’s magical words at the beginning of “The Waste Land.” Recently I heard the Brothers of the Weston Priory in Vermont talk about the Eastertide as a time when we learn to make the journey from “grief to gratitude.” So too in this annual season of college admissions decisions, I hope that all students and their families can understand with certainty, that no matter what the April letters say, the spring rain will renew us. It always does. Espy the emerging flowers. And bloom with them.


Terry Ward

East Providence, RI

April 22, 2013


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