"Family gets a lesson in admissions"

The college decision season has always been tough. Here's a USA Today story from a few years ago when it was just as hard:

From his first step on the Princeton campus, Jonathan Cross just knew it was the school for him.

"I loved it and thought it was the perfect place," says Jonathan, 18, who was smitten by the environment, the endless opportunities and the Ivy League allure.

A year and a half, 12 applications, one deferral and two rejections later, Jonathan is starting college — happily and gratefully, with a full-tuition scholarship — at Duke.

Getting deferred and then rejected by Princeton was a big blow, but the college admission process packed many lessons for Jonathan, a member of USA TODAY's 2006 All-USA High School Academic Team. Aside from learning to pick himself up from disappointment, he also had to let go of nine of the 10 places he did get into. "I put a lot of stress on myself," he says. "I learned to fail; I learned to fall and get up and end up at a place I'm thrilled to be attending."

Jonathan and his parents, Jim and Karen Cross of Springfield, Va., look back at the process with the clarity afforded by 20/20 hindsight. As the high school class of 2007 starts sweating over SAT and ACT scores and early-decision deadlines, the Crosses agreed to share some of their hard-won insights with USA TODAY readers...

Read the rest of the story here.