For many teenagers in the Denver area, the college application process feels like the culmination of everything they've worked toward. To them, the stakes are absolute: where they're admitted will decide who they are and what their future holds. It's a version of all-or-nothing thinking, where a single rejection can undo everything at once.
As acceptances and rejections arrive and peers begin announcing where they're going, the comparisons intensify. College admissions culture rewards this kind of comparison, making it harder for teenagers to step back and see it clearly. My prior work providing SAT and ACT preparation gave me a close look at what teenagers face in this environment.
Parents often miss that their teen's stress is more than a single bad test score or a peer's early acceptance. It's that their baseline has shifted: the teen who seems fine most of the time is operating at a higher level of anxiety than they were a year ago, often without realizing it themselves.
Well-intentioned parents can inadvertently compound this dynamic — asking about applications, following the process closely, expressing confidence in their teen. Some parents push more deliberately, convinced that sustained pressure will produce better outcomes. What tends to get missed in both cases is that the parents become one more audience to manage, and that the anxiety, insomnia, and irritability that follow are direct responses to that pressure.
In my Denver practice, therapy during this period focuses on helping a teenager become more aware of what's actually happening inside them: noticing the early signs of a panic spike rather than only registering it once it arrives, and understanding what feeds the all-or-nothing thinking. They also get clearer on what they want and what direction feels like theirs.
I regularly meet with parents — separately from the confidential work I do with their teen — to help them understand what's going on and how to be most helpful at home.
When the process resolves, what follows isn't necessarily simple relief. Some teens find the anxiety lifts once the uncertainty is gone. Others notice something worth sitting with — a recognition that this period revealed something about how they function under pressure that goes beyond a single stressful season.
If you're wondering whether this might be useful for your teenager, I'd welcome the chance to talk.