Parents of seniors, ask your child one very direct question tonight: Is your personal statement actually done? Not "Have you thought about it?" Not "Do you have a topic?" I mean done, as in there is a complete draft that can now be revised and strengthened.

At this point in the fall, an unfinished personal statement quickly becomes an application problem, then a deadline problem, and before long, a family problem. I see it every year. Students have multiple Google Docs titled "College Essay Final," "College Essay FINAL FINAL," and "College Essay Final Mom Comments," but somehow there is still no finished essay.

That is when panic starts.

Parents begin offering sentences. Students begin avoiding the c...

Our seniors are submitting college applications, and I am proud of them. They are not talking about submitting, circling the same essay for the sixth time, or insisting they are "almost done" while the Common App remains open on a laptop at midnight. They are actually pressing submit. That matters, not because these students are somehow more organized, more mature, or more disciplined than every other teenager, but because they had a plan before the pressure became overwhelming.

That is the difference parents need to understand. Senior fall does not become chaotic because teenagers suddenly stop caring. It becomes chaotic because too many important decisions are still unresolved at the exact moment dea...