Episode 27 | When the Process Doesn't Look Like You Pictured It

Last week I got an email from a senior mom that stopped me in my tracks.

I had sent a check-in note to senior families. She wrote back and said something I have not stopped thinking about: this process is just not what I envisioned it to be.

I felt that in my whole body. Because I think it is true for almost every family in some version. And I think it is one of the least talked about parts of this entire experience.

Today I am going there. The gap between the picture we build and the reality we get. The comparison trap — why everyone else seems to have it together and why that is not the whole story. The kid who shuts you out of the decision and what is actually happening underneath that. The kid who gets in and does not seem excited and why that flatness is almost never what it looks like. The mom guilt that sneaks in when you realize you are grieving something that is supposed to be a celebration — and yes, we are talking about perimenopause too, because whoever designed that timeline owes us all an apology.

I am also talking directly to the students today. If your mom handed you her phone and said just listen to this — this part is for you. Including why she was in the closet crying with the secret chocolate stash. And what you can actually do about it.

And I am sharing what I am doing differently this time around with Josh — and why having already lived through this process once, even as a counselor, changes everything about how you hold the picture the second time.

In this episode I talk about:

• The album of pictures we build about what this process is going to look like — from the college list through move-in day, dorm hauls, class conversations, and the first holiday break — and what happens when the real version shows up differently
• The comparison trap — why everyone else's highlight reel is making your real version feel like a failure when it is not
• The kid who shuts you out of the decision — what is actually happening underneath that, what not to do, and what actually works
• The kid who gets in and does not seem excited — anxiety, grief, and the anticlimax of a moment that cannot live up to years of anticipation
• The mom guilt piece — why you are allowed to grieve the picture and love your student at the same time, and the uninvited guest that makes all of it harder than it needs to be
• A direct message to the students — why mom was in the closet crying, what she actually needs from you, and the small things that matter more than you know
• What I am doing differently with Josh — how living through this once changes how you hold the picture the second time around
• What to actually do with the feelings — and an open invitation to reach out directly
• What freshman, sophomore, and junior families can do right now to hold the picture loosely enough to fall in love with the real version when it arrives

If you’re a parent navigating high school, college admissions, or the many transitions that come with raising teens, you’re in the right place.

I’m Lindsay, a college counselor and parent who believes thoughtful guidance matters—especially for the awesomely average kid. The student who isn’t chasing prestige, but still deserves smart planning, clear strategy, and a path that truly fits.

You can explore ways to work with me, learn about upcoming programs, or find additional resources at www.thecollegecounselingmom.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter here. 

If this episode was helpful, I’d be so grateful if you’d follow the show, leave a review, or share it with another parent who could use steady, grounded support.

Thanks for being here. I’m honored to walk this season with you.
Lindsay | The College Counseling Mom

Transcript

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I want to start today with something a little different. Last week, I got an email from a senior mom. I had sent a note out to senior families just checking in the way I do every other week, reminding them that if a decision has not been made yet, it is okay. There is still time. And here's how to think through the final stretch. She wrote back and said something I have not been able to stop thinking about. She said, This process is just not what I envisioned it to be. And I felt that in my whole body. Because I think that is one of the most honest things a parent can say about this experience. And I think it is true for so many more of us than ever actually say it out loud. So today I want to talk about it: the gap between the picture we had and the reality we got. The kid who shuts you out, the kid who gets in and feels nothing, the mom guilt that shows up when you realize you are grieving something that is supposed to be a celebration, and what to actually do when you are sitting in the middle of all of it. Or if you are a mom listening to this thinking, I need to send this to my kid right now so they understand why they caught me crying in the closet with my secret chocolate stash. Stay tuned. I have something for you too. This one is different, and I think it needs to be. And yes, that title is a whole mood. I am a school counselor and a college admissions specialist. But honestly, my most relevant credential might be that I am a mom surviving this exact process in real time. We talk about all of it here: testing, essays, campus visits. The moment your kid tells you something important from the backseat, and you have to pretend you are not about to cry. No gatekeeping, no fear tactics, and absolutely no judgment. Grab your wine and let's get into it. From the time your kid is young, maybe even before high school starts, you start building a picture in your head of what this process is going to look like. And it is not one single picture, it is a whole album of them. There is the picture of junior year, the visits, where your student walks onto a campus and just knows. The way they are going to come home excited, talking about the school, telling you what they felt, the picture of you sitting together, building the college list, making it feel like a team project, everyone rowing in the same direction. There is the picture of the application season, the essays that capture who your kid really is, the moments of pride when you read their words and think, yes, that is exactly who you are. The picture of hitting submit together, maybe even a little celebration after. There is the picture of decision season, the acceptance letters, the moment they find out, maybe the video you were going to take, the dinner where you celebrate, the way it was all going to feel. And then there is the picture beyond the decision, move-in day, helping them set up their dorm room, the dorm hall. And if you have been on TikTok at all in the last two years, you have seen a very specific, very aesthetic version of this. The matching bedding and the command hooks and the organized closet and the tearful but joyful goodbye in the parking lot. The conversations about classes, the regular phone calls home, the first holiday break where everyone is back under the same roof, and it is everything you hoped it would be. I had all of those pictures, every single one of them in detail. And then the real versions showed up. And they were different. Not bad. Not ruined, just different in ways I did not expect and was not fully prepared for. Jake is a freshman at UNC now, and I will tell you honestly, move-in day was not what I pictured. The dorm hall was not what I pictured. I had mentally planned that dorm hall approximately 100 times, and the real version was messier and faster and more emotional in different ways than I expected. The conversations about classes have not gone the way I thought they would. The Christmas break did not look like the movie version. There have been moments all year where a milestone arrived and it just felt different than I expected it to feel. Not worse necessarily, but just different. And I think that is just what this is. Not just the application process, the whole transition, all of it. It keeps not looking exactly like you thought it would. Maybe for your family, the gap shows up somewhere completely different. Maybe your student did not get into the school they always talked about. Maybe they got in, but the financial aid package was nothing like what you were hoping for. Maybe they got in somewhere wonderful and feel absolutely nothing about it. Maybe they are not including you in the decision the way you pictured. Maybe the whole thing is just taking longer and feeling harder and costing more emotionally than you ever imagined. And underneath all of that is this quiet feeling you cannot quite name. That the thing you were looking forward to for years is not going the way you thought it would. And that is a loss, a real one. Even when everything is technically fine, even when your student is going to be okay, that gap between the picture and the reality is its own kind of grief. And it deserves to be named. So before I go further, I want to talk about something that makes all of this harder than it needs to be: the comparison trap. Because here's the thing: you are not just comparing your reality to your own picture. You are also comparing it to everyone else's highlight reel. And that is a really unfair comparison because the highlight reel is curated to within an inch of its life. You see the acceptance posts, the kid holding up the pennant, looking like they always knew exactly where they were going. The parents beaming, the caption that says something like, so proud of this one, he worked so hard and it paid off. And you hit like and you mean it. And then you put your phone down and you feel this thing you cannot quite name. Listen, post the highlight reels. I certainly did. But when you are on the other side, know what you're looking at. Because your version does not look like that. Your version and theirs has more complexity, more ambivalence, more decisions that did not go the way you planned. Nobody posts about the night their student got waitlisted everywhere they really wanted to go. Nobody posts about the family meeting where you had to talk about money in a way that felt like taking options off the table. Nobody posts about the mom who sat in her car in the driveway after a hard college conversation with her kid and just cried and then went back inside and made dinner like nothing happened because she did not want to make it about her. Those things happen constantly in almost every family in some version. And when you are inside your own version of it, surrounded by everyone else's highlight reels, it can feel like you are the only one for whom this is hard. Like something went wrong with your family specifically. You did not do it wrong. This is just what it actually looks like from the inside. The kid who stops sharing information with you, who gets vague when you ask questions, and who seems to be making a major life decision in a room you are not allowed to enter, who used to tell you everything and is suddenly telling you almost nothing. When that happens, it feels deeply personal, like your student does not trust you, like the relationship you thought you had is not what you believed it was. But I want to offer a different frame. Here is what is actually happening for most students who go quiet. This is the biggest decision of their life so far. And they are already carrying an enormous amount. The pressure to get it right, the fear of making the wrong call, the weight of everyone's expectations, including yours and including their own. They are trying to figure out who they are and what they actually want at the exact same time, they are supposed to be making a decision that feels permanent and enormous. And on top of all that, they can feel your feelings. Even when you think you are hiding them, even when you are being so careful, so measured, so deliberately neutral, they still somehow know. They can feel the tension in the room when a certain school comes up. They can feel the hope you are trying not to project. They can feel the fear you are carrying about cost or distance or fit. They know. They always know. And sometimes the reason they shut you out is because they are trying to protect the decision from all of those feelings, their own and yours. They are scared that if they let you in too much, it will stop feeling like their choice. They are scared of disappointing you. And so they go quiet. They keep it close. This is not rejection. It is self-protection. Now, here is what not to do when this happens. Do not push harder. I know it is tempting. I know the silence feels unbearable. But pushing harder when a student has gone quiet almost always produces the opposite of what you want. They pull back further. Do not make it about you. Even if it feels like it is about you, even if the silence is genuinely hurting you. Find somewhere else to put it. Do not go around them. Do not call the college counselor behind their back or research schools they have ruled out or make phone calls they did not ask you to make. Even when it comes from love, it communicates that you do not trust them to handle this. So what you can do, and this is what actually works, is make yourself available without making it feel like pressure. Let them know you are there, that you want to hear whatever they want to share, and that you are not going to make them feel guilty for the things they are not ready to share yet. And then the hard part, actually mean it and actually back off. Most students come back to you eventually. Not always on your timeline, but they do come back. And the parents who stayed available without being suffocating are the ones they come back to first. So let's talk about the kid who is not excited, because this one deserves its own real conversation. The student who got in, maybe even somewhere great, and just does not seem excited, not relieved, not celebrating, just kind of flat. A few things might be happening. Sometimes it is anxiety, wearing the mask of apathy. The thing they have been working toward for years is suddenly real. They have to actually go. They have to actually leave. They have to actually build a whole new life somewhere they have never lived before. The brain goes numb when it is overwhelmed. That flatness is not indifference. It is the nervous system doing its job. Sometimes it is grief. If there were schools they wanted and did not get into, even if they got into somewhere wonderful, there can be a real mourning process for the virgin that did not happen. They cannot fully celebrate what they have while they are still processing what they lost. And sometimes, and this is the one nobody says out loud, they got in where they were supposed to get in, and it still does not feel like enough. Not because anything is wrong with the school, but because the whole thing has been built up for so long that the actual moment of acceptance cannot possibly live up to the anticipation. The feeling they were supposed to feel just is not there. And that can be confusing and a little frightening. So what those students need from you in that moment is not more enthusiasm, not pep talks about how excited they should be. What they need is space and presence and the quiet message that wherever they land, you are going to be okay. That this does not have to feel a certain way for it to be right. The feeling usually comes, not always when you expect it, but it comes. And then you feel guilty for being frustrated because you know it's not about you. You feel hurt by the parts that did not go the way you hoped. And then you feel guilty for being hurt. And underneath all of this, you love your kids so much. You wanted something beautiful for them. You built that picture with so much care and so much hope. And when the real version shows up differently, the grief of that is real, and you are allowed to feel it. Now, can we also just acknowledge something that nobody in the college prep space ever talks about? A lot of us navigating this process, the junior year visits, the senior decision season, the move-in day, all of it, are doing it while also dealing with a completely uninvited guest in our own bodies. Perimenopause. Whoever designed the timeline where your kid hits the most emotionally loaded years of their high school career at the exact same time your hormones decide to stage a full revolt. I have some questions and a strongly worded letter. Because here is what that combination actually looks like in real life. You are trying to be the calm, steady, available, non-pressuring parent. You are trying to hold your feelings loosely and not project and not make it about you. And at this exact same time, your body is like, surprise, we are crying now for no reason at a commercial at 2 a.m. in the parking lot of the grocery store. Also, is it hot in here? It is definitely hot in here. And you are doing all of this while also just trying to function as a normal human person. If that is you, you are not falling apart. You are just doing an extraordinarily hard thing in a body that is also going through something. Give yourself some credit and maybe keep the chocolate stash well stocked because you have earned it. You are allowed to be sad about the things that did not go the way you hoped and proud of your kid at the same exact time. You are allowed to feel all of this and still show up. Those things are not in conflict. The goal is not to not feel the hard things. The goal is to feel them in the right place. Not on your student, not in the middle of their process, but somewhere safe where they can actually move through you. Okay, I want to shift gears for a minute and talk directly to the students. If you are a student who stumbled onto this podcast on your own, welcome. I'm glad you were here, and I promise that this will make sense in a second. Or maybe your mom sent this to you. Maybe she handed you her phone and said, just listen to this part. Maybe she did not even tell you why. Maybe she just needs you to hear it. Either way, hi. I am glad you are listening. Here is what I want you to know. Your mom is going through something right now that she probably has not fully explained to you. And it is not because she is dramatic or high maintenance or making this about herself. It is because this process, the college search, the applications, the decisions, the entire transition of you leaving is one of the biggest emotional experiences of her life. And she has been carrying a lot of it quietly because she does not want to add to your stress. That crying in the closet moment that Staring at you across the dinner table. That was real. That chocolate sash doubly justified. She was not crying because you did something wrong. She was not crying because she is unhappy for you. She was crying because she loves you so much that even the good versions of this feel like a lot. Because she had a picture in her head of how this was all going to go. And the real version is different in ways she was not totally prepared for. Because she is figuring out who she is when her whole identity as your mom starts to shift. And I'm just gonna say this: there may also be some hormones involved. It is a whole thing. You do not need to understand it. Just know it is not your fault. None of this is your fault. And none of it is your job to fix. But here is what you can do. And these are small things. They do not require a big conversation or an emotional breakthrough or anything that is going to feel weird. Tell her something. Not everything. You do not owe her every thought in your head. But something real. A little window into what you are thinking or feeling about this process. One genuine moment of here is where I am at. It matters more than you know. Say thank you. Not in a formal way, just in a real way. For the drives, for the research she did at midnight that you never even asked for. For the way she has been showing up, even when you were not sure you wanted her to. She has been carrying a lot of this quietly. And she would love to know you noticed. And please, cut her some slack. If she asks one too many questions or gets a little emotional at a weird moment, or hangs on to a hug slightly long enough to make it awkward. She is not trying to pressure you. She is just trying to stay connected to something that is moving very fast and that she cannot fully control. That is hard for a mom who loves you. You do not have to include her in everything. You are allowed to have this process be yours. But let her in a little. Even just a little. It will mean the world to her. I want to share something that I think might actually be useful for the families just entering this. Josh is a junior. I am right in the thick of this process again. This time from the inside as the mom, not just the counselor. And I want to tell you what I am doing differently this time around. Not because what I did with Jake was wrong. It was not. But because Josh is a different kid. And I am a different mom than I was. And I think the experience of going through it once, even when you do it for a living, genuinely changes how you approach it the second time. The biggest thing I am doing differently is this. I am holding my expectations much more loosely. I have already lived through the version where the process does not look like you pictured it. I know what that feels like from the inside. I know the move-in day moment and the holiday break moment and the phone calls that are shorter than you hoped. I have already learned that the picture and the reality are almost never the same thing. So with Josh, I'm trying to stay curious instead of attached. Curious what he will respond to on visits instead of already knowing which school he is supposed to love. Curious what his essay is going to reveal about him instead of already having an idea of what it would say. Curious where this process is going to take us instead of quietly having a destination already in mind. It is not passive. He will agree, I am still fully engaged. I am still the college counselor mom who knows every deadline and has opinions about every school on the list. I am still on the road doing visits, paying attention, and asking all the right questions. But I'm holding it differently, lighter, with more room for the real version to surprise me. And I think the spring break trip we just did actually showed me something about that. Josh on those campuses, the way he reacted to city energy and green space, and the specific combination of things I did not fully know he was looking for. That was not in my picture. That was just him. And it was so much better than anything I could have planned. That is what I want for this process. Room for Josh to show up as himself, room for the real version to be better than the imagined one in ways I did not see coming. I do not know how this chapter is going to go. I genuinely do not. So for the moms, here is what I actually want you to do when you are in it. Name it. Not to your student, but to someone. Your partner, a friend, a therapist. Say the actual words. This is not what I pictured. I am grieving the version I had in my head. That naming takes the feeling from something vague and suffocating to something you can actually work with. Find somewhere to put it that is not your student's process. Journal, walk, call the friend who gets it, cry in the car or the closet, with your chocolate, whatever you need. Process it somewhere that is not directly in front of your kid. Look for what is actually true, not the version you hoped for, not the highlight reel. What is actually good about where your student is landing that you might be missing because it does not match the picture. And reach out. This is exactly the kind of conversation I want to be having. You do not have to carry it by yourself. And I am not going to tell you to stop. That picture is what keeps you engaged and present in this process. But hold it loosely. Hold it loosely enough that when the real version shows up, and it will be different in some way, it always is. You have room to adjust. Room to see what is actually good about the version you got. Room to be surprised by the parts that exceeded the picture, even when others fell short of it. The families who navigate this best are not the ones who had the most accurate picture. They are the ones who were flexible enough to fall in love with the real thing instead of mourning the imagined one. That is the whole goal. Not a perfect picture, a real outcome that your family can actually embrace. Tag someone who needs to hear that the picture in their head does not have to match the reality for everything to be okay. You never know whose closet you might find them in. The grief is real. The complicated feelings are real. And the love underneath all of it is real too. If you want to talk about it, reach out. Send me a message, I mean it. And I will see you next week. Thanks for listening to the College Counseling Mom podcast. If this episode helped you feel a little calmer or a little more confident, please follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. And share it with another mom to use a reminder that it's all going to be okay. Head over to the blog at thecollegecounselingmom.com for full show notes, links, and resources from today's episode. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook at the College Counseling Mom. And remember, it's fine, you're fine. Your kid's just in high school.