No Acceptances: One Kid's Story - A year later...

[andi]

Part I of III Sorry this is long but some posters have pm’d me about our story and I thought it would be of help to re-tell it.

One year ago I posted a question here on CC – “We’re Picking up the Pieces …but what went wrong?” My son had applied to eight schools, been rejected at five and waitlisted at three. I expected to get a few responses and see the thread disappear deep into the archives of CC. Little did I imagine that one year later, not only would I still be posting about the progress, but an entire cyber family on College Confidential would still be going through it with me.

For the benefit of those of you starting out on college applications, or – hopefully not-- for those of you who may find yourselves in our position, this is the story of one kid’s worst case scenario and how he made the best of it. I’m re-telling it here by way of my own original posts and those of other CC posters whose advice was so vital to the journey.

Thanks to all of you!

My original post on April 2, 2005

To all my CC friends. Our family is slowly picking itself up from the devastating blow of college admissions. What we thought would be an exciting and joyous time, has unfortunately turned out to be painful and devastating for all of us. I’m reluctant to post this, but I’d truly like your feedback as to what could have gone wrong. I’ll try to explain briefly, but still give you a picture of my s’s situation.

My son’s second grade teacher said that it was unusual to see a boy who was so intellectually talented not only in mathematics but also in language. Today, a high school senior, he quotes Shakespeare as easily as he writes equations in his physics class. His passion for classical music has brought him joy and wonderful performance opportunities.

This year when he applied to colleges, he selected places where he felt he would be challenged intellectually and that would offer him music opportunities such as good music teachers and fellow students whom he could perform with on a comparable level. His teachers and guidance counselor thought his list commensurate with his love of learning, grades, test scores and course load.

He’s one of 12 National Merit Scholars from our very competitive suburban HS, and four of the other winners -his peers- have been accepted at Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Brown. (don’t yet know about the others) He’s won other types of awards but listing his stats here is not my point.

The results were as follows:

Waitlisted at Oberlin, Swarthmore and Wash U
Rejected at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, U Penn and Columbia

Many other kids at our HS were accepted at Oberlin with lower stats, but he filled in truthfully the question of where else he was applying. Did they wait- list him because they thought they were being used as a back -up school?

He had to check off that he was applying for financial aid because we are not a high income family and have another child in college. Does applying for financial aid when you’re an over -represented majority from an over represented geographical area have a negative effect even at need blind schools?

So as not to dwell on disappointment he’s looking into applying to the University of Edinburgh for science, as it’s not yet past their deadline, and is going to pursue his waitlist status at Swarthmore by sending in his latest accomplishments and additional recommendations.

I’d appreciate any of your thoughts.
Thanks so much.
andi

The post mortem:

Mini 4/02

What went wrong is that he (and you) didn’t choose a safety, and fall in love with it. The safety is ALWAYS the most important school on the list.

I’m looking at the admissions odds for a highly qualified student from a suburban high school who requires financial aid (yes, I know they “claim” to be need blind, despite the massive pile of evidence to the contrary), and knowing absolutely nothing else additional about your son (don’t need to, as it turns out - I’m simply assuming the average WONDERFUL applicant to any of these schools):

Harvard - 1 out of 20 (at best)
Yale - 1 out of 20 (at best)
Princeton - 1 out 20 (at best)
Columbia - 1 out of 20
Swarthmore - 1 out 10
Washington U. - 1 out 10
Oberlin - 1 out of 5

The way I look at, the chances of his NOT getting into any of them (forget the waitlist) are better than 50/50. This has nothing in particular to do with your kid at all (and wouldn’t have even if he’d gotten in), and everything about the institution’s needs.

You’ll increase your odds substantially by having him aggressively pursue all three waiting lists. (Still the chances aren’t great.)

Northstarmom 4/02

Music I know, is the most popular EC of Harvard applicants. I suspect that’s true, too, with many top universities. Indeed, there are many applicants who have been seriously involved in classical music from very young ages. I suspect this is also true with other top universities.

There also is a disproportionately high number of students who are exceptionally strong in math who apply to the top colleges. This includes many aspiring doctors who plan to major in things like biochemistry.

Even in my small area, I see a disproportionate number of Ivy applicants whose ECs are music and possibly something that’s math-oriented and whose most obvious academic and vocational strengths/interests have to do with math/science. as musicians who are child prodigies) it can be very hard to stand out at the very top colleges if those are student’s main distinguishing factors.

For the music to be a real hook, the student would have to be good enough

to get accepted to something like Julliard.

Anyway, I can imagine that even with a very thoughtfully put together application individualized for each college, your son would have still had a very hard time standing out in a pool that had attracted many students that had similar outstanding achievements and talents to his.

interesteddad 4/03

BTW, I know a student last year at one of the top New England boarding schools who completely screwed up his list with an unrealistic concentration on HYSPM. He ended up at a safety school, leaving a whole bunch of great schools he would have gotten into on the table because of a gaping hole in the middle of his initial list. It was kind of sad to watch unfold, especially because my daughter pointed out the flaw in his list to him way back the previous fall. I guess he thought that a famous prep school and super high SATs would be enough.

The big problem is that 5,217,113 kids from New England all have exactly the same college list. And, the list might as well be Xerox’d from the top half the USNEWS University and LAC pages. Meanwhile, you’ve got the rest of the country all driving towards the same 25 schools. You end up with a huge traffic jam.

With the kind of class rank, high school, and SATs that Andi’s son had, even a mediocre, but interested application would have been an acceptance letter from a Wake Forest or an Emory or a Vanderbilt or a Grinnell or a Davidson or a Carleton or many other top-notch schools. Such is the power of the reverse commute. We just instinctively understood that from attending a New England college and knowing the huge percentage of kids from Mass, Conn, NY, and NJ. We also made sure that D visited and/or built a documented record of communication with her regional adcom at match/safety schools starting a year before the application deadlines, precisely to avoid the “Tufts syndrome”.

[andi]

Part II
Jonri

It’s all about supply and demand. The best high school debaters, musicians and actors apply to HYP and other Ivies. With the exception of a few sports–fencing, squash, maybe a few others–the best athletes do not. So, it takes more talent in any of the former to stand out in the HYP applicant pool than it does to stand out as an athlete. This is particularly true in sports which yield revenue for OTHER colleges–the Ivy sports teams don’t generate income, except perhaps alumni donations.

Why would a kid who can play football well enough to be recruited by Stanford, UMich or Notre Dame, all of which give athletic scholarships, choose to go to HYP or another Ivy at which a) he will not get an athletic scholarship; b) he will not have the chance to be seen on TV; c) he will not have the same facilities–ever see the Yale Bowl? d) he will usually play with a small fraction of the # of people watching compared to the schools in the former group–even though Ivy students can go to football games for free many go through college without ever attending a game; e) he will have FAR less chance of making it to the pros; f) he will not get to play in post season games --there isn’t even an Ivy championship football game; g) he will get fewer hours of training–the Ivies restrict the number of hours sports teams can train, in order to make sure the athletes have enough time to study; this is a major consideration for kids dreaming of the pros or aiming for the Olympics; h) he will not get special sports team housing with special food and other facilities, but will live in a freshman dorm like everyone else, i) more important than you might think, he will NOT be a “big man on campus” and will not be the guy who can date any female he chooses just because he’s the quarterback.

Stanford, academically the equal of the Ivies, has few all-state musicians in its applicant pool. Therefore, it takes a lot less to stand out in its pool as a musician --or for that matter, as an actor–than it does at an Ivy. The kind of musical skill that wouldn’t make you one of the top 200 musicians applying to Yale or Harvard in a given year might put you in the top dozen at Stanford–and get you in. (It will take a lot more to get in as an athlete.) Is the fact that this musician gets into Stanford, though not to Yale or Harvard proof Stanford values musicians more than Harvard and Yale? Of course not!

It’s proof of the fact that too many kids who are very talented but not the very, very best in what they do–whether it’s an academic subject or an EC–apply to the very best places to do it. All the mathematicians apply to Princeton, Harvard, MIT. The wannabe economists apply to MIT, UChicago, Wharton (Penn.) The wannabe philosopher applies to Princeton. When they look for matches and safeties, they make the same mistake. The philosopher whose reach is Princeton uses NYU for his match. The musician applies to Yale and Oberlin. The artist chooses Bard . The creative writer uses Sarah Lawrence . The actor chooses Vassar. The squash player chooses Trinity College. A lot of the other kids with the same interests do exactly the same thing. Not surprisingly, the results of this sort of strategy are often disappointing.

Apply to a few schools which are not THE best in what you or your kid wants to do. A mathematician who isn’t USAMO level, but is very good should apply to Stanford and Yale, not just Princeton, MIT, and Harvard. The actor shouldn’t just choose Yale, Harvard, Brown and Northwestern as his reaches, but throw in Stanford too. The swimmer who isn’t good enough to swim for Stanford may well be a major “catch” for Dartmouth–which does so poorly in Ivy competition, that it tried to drop the team–unsuccessfully. If he wants to go to a LAC, the actor shouldn’t just apply to Williams as a reach with Vassar as a match–throw in a Carleton. You can act there too.

The point is to take supply and demand into account in choosing your colleges and apply to a few schools where there won’t be 1,000s of kids who do what you do well too applying. That’s why athletes applying to the Ivies get in.

Northstarmom, 4/3

Please imagine that I am saying this gently because I know that it’s hard to “hear” tone on message boards.

I think that your Boston biases may have been hurting you throughout the admissions process, and could continue to hurt you unless you are able to notice it even more.

As a person who spent 4 years in Boston at Harvard, and who has friends in Boston now, I know that Bostonians tend to really value colleges like Harvard, and to some extent the other Ivies, and to not in general see the value in other colleges.

Thus, I have heard of Bostonians whose kids apply to, for instance, Harvard, Yale and U Mass. as if there’s nothing worth applying to between HY and U Mass., which is above the level of the kind of safety school a candidate to HY probably would need.

Anyway, my impression has been that both you and your son had the assumptions that Swat, Oberlin and Wash U were a bit beneath your son, and would be eager to have him. Thus, it wasn’t necessary for your son to do anything but to show basic interest in order to get an acceptance.

Your statement that I quoted above basically dismisses virtually every college in the country. By the time your S got his Yale deferral, there still was time for your son to have applied to many quality colleges that would have allowed him to pursue his music and math interests, and that also could have been used as safety or match colleges for him.

Anyway, I’m mentioning this now because if your son pursues getting off the wait lists, it will be important for him and for you to take close looks at those colleges and to perceive their real value. If he decides to take a gap year and try again, it will be important for him to cast a wider net and to also enter the process with an open mind, including about the possibilities that a wider variety of colleges offer.

Places like Carleton and St. Olafs are quality colleges that offer good options for students interested in music and science (and I assume math). These could be the kind of places for your son to add to his lists, and to look at with an open mind, not seeing them as things he’d have to lower his standards for to accept, but places that would offer him opportunities where he could flourish in college.

After this post I argued. I can admit it now. She was correct.

For new readers- some of you may be wondering if there were bad recommendations, a poorly written essay or some other hidden problem. We eventually got all the recommendations and read them- they were excellent. I had a couple of CC readers read his essay. They commented that it was well written but perhaps too academic and not revealing enough about his personality. The essay may not have helped him, but it didn’t hurt him either. From all we could find- there were not glaring weaknesses.

Mental Health advice! This post by Blossom kept me on track emotionally.

Andi, believe me… you have a right to need some time and space to lick your wounds. However, having known kids who have been in your son’s shoes and after watching what unfolds, I think you might want to remember that he’s looking to you for clues as to how adults handle disappointment. He’ll model his feelings and behaviors based on what he sees from the adults around him.

We know a kid who had a top heavy list; an outstanding kid in lots of ways, but the list was filled w/the lottery ticket schools. He was a double legacy at one of them, and his parents are convinced that when the other schools saw the list of where else he was applying, and then saw on the app that his parents were both grads of one of them, the adcoms assumed he’d be accepted and be attending that school.

Well, the legacy school rejected him, despite active involvement from both parents on dozens of alumni committees through the years. So did the other schools. They quickly found a school which was still accepting applications although it didn’t really meet any of his other criteria, and he ended up there after a hellish summer.

Story could have had a happy ending, except that he’s now a senior, had a so-so college experience, never really put down roots, and four years later his parents are still angry at their alma mater, complaining about the over-worked GC who didn’t push them for any safety schools, etc. Family is still whining about how having to check off the fin aid box, thereby revealing the list of schools, is what screwed their kid, etc.

The person lost in the shuffle of all of this is their kid-- an outstanding student in HS, an average student in a college he never wanted to attend anyway, about to graduate and still having to hear the story of why he was cheated out of his Ivy experience.

I tell you this because right now the person who matters is your son… not the other Merit Scholars and where they’re going, and whether they are more or less exceptional than your kid; not the GC who obviously gave you bad or no advice; not the adcoms who clearly missed something significant in your son, but that’s water under the bridge. You need to connect with your son after you’ve all had a day or two to lick your wounds, and find out what he wants.

[andi]

Part III
Next was working the three wait lists:

post mortem was completed and work was begun to approach the waitlists. We responded affirmatively to all three wait lists and put a lot of effort into one of them in particular. We and many posters on CC held our breath while the weeks went by until finally in June, the last rejection came in.

SBmom 4/03

I think that he should meet or chat personally with prof in Math, prof in music, private music instructor, & regional rep in admission at <em>each school</em>, if you can swing it.

Get your alumni interviewers involved. Get his teachers and his music instructor involved. Is there a headmaster of his school who could be effective?

Get those NPR CDs out!! Let them know how much your son wants to study in a LAC environment and continue with music, which make the school superior to any of the gap year or foreign alternatives he is also investigating.

Especially if he has not visited any one of these campuses, VISIT, or visit again. He should write impassioned letters that identify 5 or 6 SPECIFIC things about the school that make this school a great place for him so that it is clear he is intimately familiar with the school.

Does he have friends from previous classes at his HS who attend any of these schools? They may be able to help him with intros to teachers or other ideas.

His letter and personal contacts will be key. The CC advice would probably be invaluable because they are old hands at this. There is probably a way to “package” the WL effort just right.

From my novice’s perspective, I would think the tone of his letter, his meetings, etc, needs to be a combination of mature, passionate, not crying over spilled milk, clear-eyed about other alternatives, non-self-pitying, positive attitude, I would be overjoyed to come here, etc. They will need to fall in love again with your kid.

Any of these schools would be a great place for a variety of reasons

My son pursued one waitlist passionately and relentlessly and the other two less so. Unfortunately it was a year in which many schools took only a few students off the lists. It didn’t work. By June 15th the final letter of rejection had arrived.

Hanging on to the wait lists as he did, made it difficult for my son and me to move on. As long as we believed there was a shred of hope, we couldn’t get into the mind-set of pursuing a gap year.

Carolyn posted a link to the National Association of College Admissions Counselors where there is a list posted each May of some schools that still have openings. This could be a great option for some people - worth looking into! We didn’t opt for that because by this time we were totally burned out and just couldn’t get excited about looking into new schools. Also, it was in the midst of AP exams and senior activities and there just wasn’t time.
<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/ForStudents/2006SpaceAvailabilityResults.htm[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/ForStudents/2006SpaceAvailabilityResults.htm&lt;/a&gt;

planning a gap year
Armed with information on the shortcomings of our original list we began the process over - from scratch. At the same time we planned a gap year that fit with my son’s interests and our budget.

Robyrm 4/02

We knew a boy 6 years ago who was class president, national merit, top 5%, very unusual background…etc…who did not get into any of the US schools he applied to(mediocre counseling combined with administrative mishap?-still controversial). He took one year at the University of London and then reapplied in the US- to schools he had not applied to the first go around. He graduated from Swarthmore last year having been very successful. There are ‘happy outcome’ stories abounding, and it is helpful to stay optimistic…so only listen to those!!

We did stay optimistic MOST of the time. Thanks goes to a couple of CC posters who put up with some rants via pm’s.

Next came the planning of the Gap Year. Many good suggestions on gap years were posted on CC! A lot of great ideas for travel, volunteer work etc. But this comes down to personal choices and circumstances. In our case there were a couple of factors that came into play for the overall plan. One was that he wanted to stay very involved with the piano throughout the year and the other was finances. At first we were thinking along the lines of a single major activity that would last the year. However, he ended up doing exactly the opposite. He put together activities based on his main goals and from there the year took on a life of its own. As he got involved with activities he made new connections and new opportunities just kept coming up. His main directions were – studying piano; studying science and earning money to travel the following summer and help with expenses and doing some volunteer work. He began taking lessons from a new teacher, on a college level, with a goal of doing a solo recital in the spring. From here, he was invited to participate in some recitals at the university where the professor taught. Then he was asked to be a piano teacher himself at a local music school. He worked up to teaching 8 students. He established himself as an accompanist which lead to performing with a choir at a state univ., with a children’s choir at a church, with a high school choir that eventually invited him to tour with them to Armenia! They performed in many places in Yerevan and visited several orphanages where they donated clothing and toys to the children. He was also involved in accompanying for a wonderful organization that supports children of color in learning classical music. What I’m trying to illustrate here is that he didn’t plan all these things out in August. He worked hard at what he did and got to know people and this opened doors for him along the way. Some of his goals overlapped – for example his volunteer work was connected to his music.
He worked at Starbucks for five months but soon he was making enough money from his music activities that he didn’t have time/need for that any more. And he was not unhappy to give up those 4 a.m. days 
He also applied for a ‘special student’ status at MIT where he studied science. He took a few courses of interest to him, while commuting from home. His involvement with the university also enabled him to attend some interesting seminars.

He’s having a grand time and it’s not over yet. He just put on the recital that he worked toward. It was a fantastic occasion and became a sort of celebration of his finishing the college process and the culmination of all his practicing. He just bought the plane ticket for his bike trip this summer in France.
For someone who likes structure, this gap year probably wouldn’t be the best thing. But, it worked for him. Within the family it meant a kind of revising of our relationships a bit. We respected his independence, knowing that his friends were off on their own, and he respected his role in helping around the house and being responsible.

The new college list One of the aspects of re-applying and doing a gap year is that the applications are due when the gap year is only halfway through. This means that you really have to put some thought toward what you’re going to do so you can put something about it on the application. Even with my son’s piecemeal approach, he had an overall game plan that he could write about—maybe not all the specific activities, but what he wanted to accomplish for himself.

When he created his new list he came up with schools that covered a wider spectrum of selectivity. Once this became part of the process, he realized that there were many more schools that could meet his interests than he had originally thought. Here is the new list:
Brandeis
Carnegie Mellon
Case Western Reserve
MIT
University of Rochester
Vassar
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Along with two repeats:
Swarthmore
Yale ( added at the last minute due to pressure from a friend there )

He decided to get new recommendations from his senior year teachers since they would be more recent. He wrote new essays and did the applications from scratch. Didn’t re-use anything. Put ample time into every question and let his personality show through more. He didn’t retake any SATs or SAT IIs. He did add new AP scores (even thought they’re not supposed to count) and had some new awards he had received at the end of his senior year.

Results:
Accepted at all the new schools . Every school offering merit aid awarded him a generous scholarship and he received need-based aid from the others. Brandeis awarded him a full-tuition music scholarship. Case was also generous. CM, MIT and Vassar awarded him need based aid.

The two repeat schools both turned him down, but by this time he was ready to move on and with all the good news he hardly noticed the rejections.

In the end he’s had a fantastic year and will fully appreciate how fortunate he was to have the opportunity to go to any of the schools he was accepted at.

Keep the faith- good things will happen!

[marite]

Andi:

I am so glad you took the time to write up Andison’s story! It should feature prominently on CC.

[MomofWildChild]

No- this is a really useful thread and much appreciated. We need to make sure it doesn’t get lost. Thanks for the great review of the whole thing.

[shelf-life]

I am new to cc so the story of Andi and her son is new to me. Thank you so much for sharing it. After reading it through I stand in awe of your son’s resiliency.

I am so sorry that he (and you) had to go through this, but now that you are at the other end, I wonder – despite all the heart ache and moments of doubt, would you truly have had things happen any other way? I don’t subscribe to Pangloss’ theory that everything is always for the best, but in your son’s case, it does indeed seem that things did work out for the best. He will certainly appreciate his college choices in a way that few other students can. He has also learned that no matter what obstacles life has in store for him, he can not only survive them, he can thrive despite of them.

Here’s to you and your son. This is a story worth repeating.

[Faline2]

andi, this story line and painful personal experience is as evergreen as Xiggi’s links to excellent sites on the web about college students who lost their lives to binge drinking.

Please share the story of the “lopsided list” as often as you can muster up the resolve to repeat it.

Many new CC students and parents looking for support, perspective and experience will thank you!
And we all “get” that though the original list was lopsided the student was a jewel of a young man who would be an asset to any university. (We were all rooting for him and holding our breath for his waitlist news last May and June…as were many of his 2009er classmates, believe me.)

Don’t forget to post a few vignettes next year to let us share a bit in his happiness and new life at MIT.

[tokenadult]

Thanks for sharing your story. It was a learning experience for you, and you’ve helped other families learn too.

[neoa1212]

Good stuff. I didn’t even knew gap years could work so well. A big gamble, a great reward. Good luck wherever he goes (mit??)

[berurah]

Dearest andi~

Thanks so much for sharing the benefit of your hard-fought knowledge with so many others…I’m sure your detailed account will save countless kiddos (and parents) similar heartache.

love, ~berurah

[bookworm]

Never hesitate to post. Your experience was so painful, yet one I’ve come to expect from ‘newbies’, who have no idea what the competition is, or how the wrong phrasing in a letter of recommendation, or essay topic, etc, can have a major impact on admissions.
Honestly, a version of this saga could make a good article in a magazine. Andi, your writing, your sensitivity, your S’s strengths, are are compelling reasons people followed this thread and hoped for a good outcome.

[Northstarmom]

Andi,
Thanks so much for posting and for keeping us informed throughout this year.

It’s wonderful to see the options that your son got this year.

I agree with the person who suggested that you could turn this into an excellent magazine article.

[asteriskea]

All my best to you and your son! I think bookworm said it all.

[beprepn]

andi,

You know, there is nothing really wrong with your son’s original list - it’s the system, or lack of one, that is flawed. Not that that helps.

Interestingly, his MIT admit is to the HYPMS school that does the most to just get the best academic kids, regardless of class molding.

[daaaaad]

Your son’s perserverance and resiliency are to be commended. What a great story of turning apparent tragedy into triumph. When it appeared he had “lost” his dream, he found it again at the tips of his fingers, in his piano, and he had the courage to follow his new path into new and unknown terrritory. In the process he became the kind of student that colleges “dream” of having attend their schools. Congratulations. That gap education ended up being worth more than anything HYPS could ever offer.

[thumper1]

Thank you Andi, for posting the whole story. I had wondered about the whole gap year, and the crafting of the final list…something that I know took Andison a lot of time and thought. This is certainly a story that all folks who are going through the college search should read.

[hayden]

andi - thank you for posting this. This post should be tacked up by the mods so that it’s available and visible for years to come on this site. We really appreciate your generosity of spirit in sharing your story, which was so painful for so long. I won’t repeat how thrilled we all were at the final outcome, since you are aware of that.

(I’m still looking forward to seeing a post one day from andison!)

[andi]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. There were many other incredibly helpful posts along the way but I couldn’t copy them all here- as it was I had to copy and post three times in succession

Thanks to Berurah who kindly let me vent along the way. And thanks to Northstarmom for her honesty. We can all learn from the truth.

I’ve tried to incorporate the answers to the questions that were pm’d to me by numerous students.

One thing I’d like to mention, because some students have asked me questions about it. Some kids have written to me saying they’ve gotten into a number of schools and are wondering whether if they take a gap year or do something deemed <em>important</em> if they’ll get into a “better” school. I wouldn’t want our lesson to necessarily be interpreted as a <em>way</em> to get into a top school. There were many lessons learned here, but the main one is to apply to a variety of schools in the first place and to realize that there are many schools out there that are very high quality. In short- this story is how to regroup IF this happens to you, but I wouldn’t use it as a means to an end. Andison had to choose between several schools in the end because he liked them all EVEN those that weren’t “MIT.”
If you’re a student who REALLY wants to take a gap year, and I think gap years are wonderful, than take one. But I wouldn’t necessarily use this scenario as a route to getting into a top school, cuz it might not happen.

[mini]

“Every window is a door.” Congratulations, again!

My only quibble is the title - I can think of LOTS of worse things that can happen!

[Private_Joker]

What school did Andison end up choosing?