This guide to the stressful and exciting challenge of applying to college provides parents with the tools to teach their teen self-advocacy, time management, and how to rebound from disappointment. Making clear the two issues—one academic and the other maturational—the authors hold the admissions requirements of highly selective colleges responsible for overstretching, overscheduling, and panicking teens about getting into the "perfect" college. Adding that teens' thinking patterns at this pivotal stage are changing and not fully mature, the book urges parents to counterbalance this pressure and offers sensible tips and strategies that begin with searching for a college that fits rather than one that impresses, and end with a plan to turn the application deadlines into opportunities to teach coping skills such as good organization, relaxation, and keeping worries in perspective.