Chelsea Xie

Margaret Dunlap explains to parents and students how to approach college admissions in a healthy manner. She guided attendees through exercises related to college admissions.

Nonprofit Challenge Success hosted a college counseling workshop titled “A Healthier Approach to College Admissions” for sophomores, juniors and their parents in the Patil Theater on Wednesday.  

Associated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, Challenge Success aims to foster a community of mentally healthy pre-college students. Challenge Success senior design partner Margaret Dunlap presented her research about the pressure society puts on college acceptance and the inevitable mental toll on high school students. 

Dunlap surveyed high school students in her research on questions like, “What is your definition of success?”, which she specifically asked the audience to discuss amongst themselves. She found that when they were in the presence of an adult, students mostly responded that success meant happiness, but when they were alone, they admitted good grades and money controlled their definition of success. 

Students often believe that after going to college, there will be a clear path to success. However, Dunlap explained that an individual’s career beyond college is not predestined but full of choices that lead to unexpected twists and turns and encouraged parents to share their own journeys. 

She believes that seemingly detrimental shifts are contingent for students to discover their true passions, whether for specific classes or in extracurriculars. Ultimately, balance was key for student well-being: creating space for school, extracurriculars, friends and family.

The presentation changed junior Robinson Xiang’s initial feelings of obligation to his surrounding environment to commitment towards his personal investments. 

“I want to see how I interact with people around me and whether I am fulfilled in the long term,” Robinson said. “If you really care about the relationships with people you have and who you’re spending time with, you will make sure you have that special time designated.”

During the presentation, students and parents filled out a form to rank certain aspects of colleges like diversity and location from “Not Important,” “Nice to have” to “Essential” based on their personal priorities. They evaluated the student’s own readiness for college in the categories “Academic Skills,” “Social-emotional Skills,” “Positive Coping Skills” and “Life Skills” in a second form. 

“What’s interesting to me is that what I think is important to my child is actually quite different from what my child thinks,” Catherine Li, parent of sophomore Chelsea Xie, said. “[Selectivity] has nothing to do with how well your kid is going to learn in that college. I’ll try to respect my child’s choice more, especially the one that makes her happy.”

Dunlap concluded the session by asking the audience to promise to make a commitment to themselves from the ideas that she shared, from sleeping the necessary nine hours to entirely rethinking their goals for college. 

Sophomore Eliana Chui believed that the session changed her perspective on college admissions. As a swimmer, she hopes to continue her athletic journey at the collegiate level.

“College is just a small part of your life,” Eliana said. “It’s not something that you should stress over because when you’re older, and you look upon this moment, upon your college life, it will be full of good memories, but it also won’t be a defining moment.”