April: The Cruelest Month
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), the tops came down on convertibles, 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 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 T-shirts squirreled away for at least a few more weeks. It was so discouraging and so unfair!
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 in the Northeast, except for two relentless phenomena – the tax deadline of April 15 and the ever-escalating intensity of the college admission process. Taxes aside, April is without a 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 both here at St. Margaret’s and all across the country who stand anxiously by the mailbox 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 measures, our college counseling office does a phenomenal job managing this extraordinarily difficult and emotionally charged process. Endless hours are spent meeting with students and families, researching various options, developing lists of the reasonable and within 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 much we love and believe in our students, there are always those bitter disappointments and seemingly life-altering rejections. It seems so unfair. But then again, 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 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, this is not about us.
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.