Dear Friends,

When I was a boy growing up in New England, my perspective on the arrival of spring was slightly different than it is today living in southern California. While I truly loved winter back then with “nor’easters,” days off from school, and sledding on the local hill, there was something very special about the arrival of April when the days lengthened, the snow gradually disappeared (except for those monstrous piles at the end of our driveway), and the crocuses and forsythia came into bloom. These were the signs that we had, once again, survived another winter.

Unfortunately, those fragile notices of spring in early April were often tantalizing and nearly always deceptive for no sooner had they appeared than we were hit with another blizzard from out of nowhere. For a brief but seemingly endless moment in time we were forced to endure one last gasp of winter’s grip and keep those shorts and tee shirts squirreled away for at least a few more weeks. It was so discouraging!

As this cycle repeated itself again and again, I came to realize that T.S. Eliot had it right when he said in his poem The Waste Land that “April is the cruelest month.” Of course, the arrival of spring has taken on a wonderful new look for me now and April appears far less hostile than it did the northeast, except for two relentless phenomena – the tax deadline of April 15th and the ever escalating intensity of the college admission process.Taxes aside, April is without doubt the month of highest anxiety for high school seniors. While I once focused on melting snow and emerging flowers, my concern has now shifted to those many seniors all across the country who stand anxiously by the mail box waiting for their fate to be delivered by the U.S Postal Service. April has struck again!

As a college preparatory school, we spend a great deal of time and energy dealing with the process of college counseling and admission. By all measure, our college counseling office does a phenomenal job managing this extraordinarily difficult process. Endless hours are spent meeting with students and families, researching various options, developing lists of the reasonable and the reach, and in the end, always emphasizing that it’s the fit that matters, not the name.  But, in the end, no matter how good the counseling or how prestigious the secondary school, there are always those bitter disappointments and seemingly life altering rejections. After all, it is April!

I wish I knew how we got here and why this process has become so intense and frequently so painful. Regardless, the reality today is that many schools, students and parents define themselves by the colleges they or their children/students attend. I recall years ago an intense discussion at another school about a student’s application to a certain prestigious college and how his admission there would strengthen our school’s image. Sadly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of concern about what was best for him. Ironically, in this time of the most intense pressure ever felt by students to attend the “right” college, I feel very good about our efforts to define what is “right” not by what looks good or promotes our image, but rather by what best fits the needs and interests of each individual student. Of course, there are those who want to define the worth of a St. Margaret’s education by the colleges our students attend, but I submit that the real measure of our success is how our students ultimately fare wherever they end up.  After all, in the end, this is not about us.

When my daughter was a senior in high school in New Hampshire, she literally refused to apply to the University of New Hampshire because it was, in her opinion, where all the “losers” went. Eventually, she enrolled in a very fine liberal arts college in Connecticut only to learn early on in her freshman year that she and the college were not a great fit. Sometime around March (or maybe it was April!) of that first year she declared somewhat reluctantly that she wanted to transfer to of all places, the University of New Hampshire! Of course, she was quick to add that this would be just a short term stay as she planned to apply to another highly selective, name brand New England college for her junior year. As it turned out, however, she found herself truly happy at UNH and three years later she graduated and went off to teach math at a superb independent day school where she still is today. It wasn’t the perfect script but it worked for her.

For me, April may well still be the “cruelest” month but not because the snow lingers too long or the buds on the trees are slow in appearing. Rather, the cruelty comes in the messages that are communicated and the hopes that for some are seemingly dashed. Yet, April is indeed the beginning of spring when despite the disappointments of the unexpected blizzards and the thin envelopes of rejection, the days do in fact lengthen and the sun does indeed become warmer and even the darkest of futures become brighter.

Enjoy the spring and the promise it holds for us all.
Best regards,
Marcus D. Hurlbut