<p>Rejection parties are a great idea. </p>
<p>I know a selective private high school (where the pressure to get into the Ivys, etc., is intense) that actually has a big bonfire at their rejection party for kids to toss their rejection letters. It's something very cathartic and fun that the kids actually look forward to.</p>
<p>A little different twist at our house........ being invited to apply to Honors Program and then being rejected. "But Mom, the ASKED me to apply! How can they NOT want me?". As I tried to explain, you are still accepted to the school!</p>
<p>Communal approaches to rejection are a good way of dealing with it. At S1 & S2's HS they have a wall of rejection where students post their rejection letters. It is comforting to see hundreds of letters posted. Some students have even been upset that they did not have a letter to post!</p>
<p>Ice cream works wonders - I recommend it for Mom, too.</p>
<p>We had a bonfire for college viewbooks, another cathartic experience.</p>
<p>aklindarn, same thing happened to my D. They invited her to apply to the Honors program and then they deferred her. The app said that the adv. ACT score for the Honors program was a 26, she has a 31. I have no idea why they deferred her, she says that school is off her list.</p>
<p>cangel, I agree, ice cream works wonders. I am going to have to work my butt off after this is over. I'm eating and worrying. She's eating and is skinny as a rail. Oh, to be young again!</p>
<p>Like many other parents who have posted earlier....my son too was deferred from his first choice and then waitlisted! Luckily he was accepted to his second choice ( which was my first choice!! Mother knows best!! ;) ) He is finishing his first year there and LOVES it, he is doing well, and I really could not imagine him anywhere else. So, I think what you have to remember is that when one door closes, another one opens.... and sometimes it leads to someplace wonderful!!
Good luck to your daughter, I hope she gets into her first choice, but if she doesn't, stay positive and focus on the future and not what "might have been".</p>
<p>Although I think it's bad, it could be worse-not being able to attend your first choice financially even if you've been admitted. You'll second guess your decision not to attend there for a very long time, perhaps even the rest of your life. As opposed to a first choice rejection, which although you've been rejected from, you can't have as many second regrets. I think being grateful what you have is the best way to handle it.</p>
<p>Three years ago (Has it really been that long?), I was rejected from my first choice school. Back then, it felt like being slapped in the face, and I even wondered whether I really "cut out" to go to college and still do well. However, looking back on my college career so far, I think receiving that rejection was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It helped me to grow as a person.
Before that instance, I had never really experienced rejection. I did well in school, and that was usually enough for me to get what I wanted. However, this experience taught me that not everyone is going to support me in life (especially people who do not know me well or at all). Unfortunately, rejection is a part of life, and everyone experiences it once in a while. </p></li>
<li><p>If I went to my "first choice school," I would have missed all of the wonderful experiences that I'm having at my current school.
Honestly, I love Michigan, and I'm grateful for what the school has given me. I receive wonderful instruction in my classes, and I push myself to do well (usually with success). My classes have prepared me to study abroad this summer with Duke University. Hey, I'm a Spanish and Classics double-major. I've also had the chance to help others by raising money for pediatric rehabilitation programs with Dance Marathon (and I do it every year). Oh, and who could forget Squirrel Club? :) I believe that the experiences one has build the personality. In this context, I would be a different person today if I had attended a different school.</p></li>
<li><p>The people!
Even the thought of not meeting some of the friends I've made here makes me want to cry. They are always there to support me when I need someone to talk to and push me when I need the extra nudge to do something that needs to be done. Of course, they also reassure me when I doubt myself. I don't think I've had as many "true friends" in my life as I do right now. For me, half of the fun is figuring out who will be a new friend because half of friendships I've made here were made in unlikely circumstances and with unlikely and unsuspecting people. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>To overcome the rejection from a school, one has to mourn but then "Move on." It's really not the end of the world, and very soon, the event will only be a memory. The most important thing one can do is to GIVE THE SCHOOL YOU END UP ATTENDING A CHANCE.</p>
<p>reeses414... your last statement is so true. Your experience and what you take out of it is entirely in your hands. I think what many students forget is that this is a decision that they made. They chose which schools to apply; therefore they chose which schools they were willing to receive an accept or reject letter. Of course, everyone would love to get into their top choice, but this is not always the case, Even some "can't miss" students with multiple dream options have to make a choice. </p>
<p>There are never good or bad decisions, just decisions with different consequences. These consequences then offer new decision points. It is how you adapt to those consequences that will determine your level of success (however you may define it).</p>
<p>It sounds to me like your daughter has already come to terms with the possibility that she will not be accepted by her first-choice school. Given that she already knows her stats are upper middle (making acceptance a toss-up), and given that she did not expect to be recruited for the school's honors program, then she also knows that there is more than just "a chance" of rejection. When she told you that a rejection "will be ok" with her, she is very likely telling you the absolute truth.</p>
<p>Your daughter sounds like she has her head screwed on straight. If she is accepted by her first-choice school, then you and she can celebrate. However, if she is rejected, her realistic outlook will be the best thing going for her--and for you. She would be appropriately disappointed by a first-choice-school rejection, of course, but... heartbroken? Probably not.</p>
<p>Like your daughter, my daughter also has a highly-selective first-choice school--a school she first learned about in eighth grade, and which has remained her first-choice school ever since. My daughter's goal of attending this school has provided her with one of her motivations to work hard in high school, and to earn the grades, ranking, and test scores which has made her a competitive college applicant. Still, she knows that her fellow first-choice-school applicants have academic records as good as or better than her own, and that this somewhat small school has a limited number of freshman openings. My daughter knows that she is as likely to be rejected as accepted by this school, which will be the last of her prospective schools to release admissions decisions (in mid-April), allowing her only two weeks to decide which school to attend. </p>
<p>Realism is very big in my household, so as my daughter researched prospective colleges, she made sure that every school to which she applied--including her two respective in-state and out-of-state "safety" schools--offered everything she wants in a school, with respect to academic programs, faculty strength, geographic location, housing, and campus life. Therefore, if she is rejected by her first-choice school, she will attend one of her twelve equally second-choice schools, and she expects to be entirely satisfied with whichever school she chooses to attend.</p>
<p>Even though your daughter's safety school is not "the same" as her first-choice school, it is still--as you pointed out--a "great" school. However, it sounds to me as though you need to convince yourself that her safety school is, indeed, "great." As you and your daughter wait for her first-choice school's admissions decision, I suggest that you quietly and privately take a fine-toothed-comb look through her safety school's website and printed literature, and familiarize yourself with that school's strengths, because it is the school your daughter might be attending. Your ability to express a well-informed and genuinely positive opinion of that school is a good way for you to provide realistic emotional support for your daughter if she is rejected by her first-choice school.</p>
<p>It is normal for her to shed a few tears of disappointment if she is not chosen...this is after all not a rational process, so we can't ask 18 years olds to be Sages about it. And she could function just fine in this school even if declined..we all know this. The whole process is a bit crazy-making...I have written before that it is sort of like asking someone 18 years of age to be sincere 24/7 but to date five girls in the month of April, and experience one who doesn't return his calls and seems elusive and perfect, and two who want to see him permanently but he rather takes for granted. Really, the basics in manners will get you through all of these awkward situations in public, and home is where you are free to vent and be unreasonable in your crushes, expectations and hopes.
Attach to your match is my mantra. Our son is attending a reach college, but we absolutely know kids who should have been admitted if life was fair. He attended classes in his match schools and I think he was actually blue about not going to them when it was all over because he recognized school would be just as great at any of them and the faculty was superb at all of them.<br>
There are too many top quartile students who are not in their top two or three colleges, and who ought to have developed real respect for the fantastic match colleges on their list. Our son shed a few tears when he was waitlisted at an Ivy crush college, where we are sure he would have flourished, when he was way in their top quartile..and there is nothing we could have said to get him to not have some magical belief that the one in ten shot he had was really really one in ten...this is all OK to experience.<br>
He has forgotten all about that place, and I do mean it never crosses his mind and he fell in love with the people on his freshman hall in like five minutes.<br>
Teach your child to send out very warm and very short but gracious missives when THEY have to decline a school that has welcomed them in. This street works both ways, and expect them to publically be gracious when they are declined or decline others in life.</p>
<p>Faline, such a wise post. I'd never read your dating analogy before - it says it so well. Thank you!</p>
<p>And I do think that kids should feel free to mope, cry, stamp, whatever, upon first hearing disappointing news. "home is where you are free to vent ..." - absolutely.</p>
<p>From the student perspective, you can never support your kids enough. Throughout this whole process, all I've heard from my mom is that I didn't work hard enough and that I'm not going to get into my top choices. This certainly doesn't help. Coming from somebody with their heart set on one school, getting rejected from it will feel like a million paper cuts on the heart. Let your D mourn, but tell her you're proud of her anyway. Wherever she goes, try to make her see that this school is the best for her.</p>
<p>Hope your D gets in!</p>
<p>Before D received her first decision I told her "You will be the same wonderful person tomorrow, whether or no the school accepts you." I just wanted her to know that her self esteem, and my opinion of her, would/should not be dependent on a school's decision; she still is the same person, with the same qualities, as before she applied.</p>
<p>TargetRed0872- I am so sorry your mother is so clueless....Please do not allow her to influence you in this regard......I had a similar mother experience and couldn't wait to escape from that negative influence. Some day you will look back and know she was wrong.</p>
<p>Oh, I already know this</p>
<p>:-D</p>
<p>Good!! :)</p>
<p>Waitingseemslong, be prepared that if your D is rejected it may hurt you even more than it hurts her. As parents we so want the best for our children, especially if its something they've worked hard for and we think they've earned. You can let her see that you're disappointed because it was something important to her, but life goes on and she will have other good choices. If you feel the need to pound a pillow and curse, do it in private. And don't think you're bad for feeling like that!</p>
<p>I agree with Target...I got rejected from my 1st choice and i keep getting the same from my mother " you should have worked harder...just dont let it happen for medical school ...you want to be able to choose where you go then."</p>
<p>everytime she talks like this anger bubbles up in my stomach because she manages every time to make me forget how excited i am to be going to my safety school and sends me into a rage that causes me to doubt my sanity...</p>
<p>so to parents :
-don't ever make it sound like there was something your kid could have done that they didnt do...even if it is true, its really not the time to say it, and im sure you know that</p>
<ul>
<li>in an argument, no matter how angry you are, never ever tell your kid that he/she is not good enough, or throw that rejection in their face (not that you would, but it has happened too many times to me and it hurts more than anything)</li>
</ul>
<p>-just tell them they are amazing and that it is the school's loss..
It sounds corny, and you prbly think it wont help, but sometimes, that is exactly what someone needs to hear...</p>
<p>-also, if the parent is from a different country, or hasnt been through the process, an older sibling might be a better candidate to console because they truly do understand it....
(my mom tries...i think...but my sister is much better....of course, she got in to the school i didnt and they were the best four years of her life...)</p>
<p>-if your kid is really angry for awhile, and is just rude/not themselves, just give them their space, but find some ways to give them back a little confidence...dont blatanly ask them whats wrong...you know what is wrong...but dont ignore the mood because then they may think you are disappointed in them and that is one of the worst feelings a kid can have..</p>
<p>-if they snap at you for trying to make them feel better ...let them do that a few times...dont get angry back...just be there...when they need you, you need to be there</p>
<p>-also remember, it is more their "difficulty" than yours, so you shouldnt act like you are upset about it, rather, you should acknowledge that it is unfortunate, but move past it so that they can too</p>
<p>anyway...my $0.02 from personal experience</p>
<p>but hopefully the OP won't need any of this :)....good luck to your daughter!
she's lucky that she has a parent that knows to be prepared for this</p>
<p>[not that my parents are bad people, i am very lucky and they always want whats best for me, but they just dont seem to realize what i need..]</p>
<p>My d was wait-listed at her top school choice. It was disappointing because a couple of her friends were accepted. Given her initial reaction I thought she would really go after it and do everything she could to get accepted but she didn't. Within a couple of weeks she was completely cool about her second choice and has never looked back. These kids are resilient and ultimately they want to be where they are welcomed.</p>