A few words to the rejected ...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>A lot of people are distraught over getting those thin envelopes in the mail, often among the better students in their HS who felt they had a solid shot at their choices. The pain is real, and understandable. So I hope what follows can give a bit of perspective.</p>

<p>I've posted a version of this previously but I suspect the current round of people getting bad news probably wouldn't have had much interest in reading it a year or two ago. So, one more time...</p>

<p>For most people this is the first moment of honest judgement they have ever faced in their lives and it is incredibly stressful. Your parents tell you that you are wonderful, and many teachers/schools promote self-esteem at the expense of honest but unpleasant feedback. Finally you have to lay your cards on the table when you apply to college, and you know the adcoms are not going admit people just to avoid hurting their feelings.</p>

<p>Coupled with that is the sense that for the first time doors are closing in your life. In reality doors have been opening and closing all along, you just didn't know it or couldn't change it. When your parents chose to live in Des Moines that ruled out a chance at a life growing up in in a big city like Manhattan, and vice-versa. If you spent all your time after school in gymnastics you probably aren't 1st violin in the orchestra, and so on. But college is a highly visible door; when you enroll in college X it means you will never have a chance to be a frosh at any of the other thousands of colleges in the country, and there is the haunting thought that maybe you have chosen (or only have available) the wrong door.</p>

<p>But the despair you sense on boards like this is often fanned by the postings of ill-informed kids who are fixated on brand names because they have little or no idea how life really works. They seem to think that if they somehow get accepted to Harvard or Stanford or some other high-prestige school that their troubles will all be over, that they will be on a golden path the rest of their life -- guaranteed. Just walk thru the door marked "best" and then after that everything falls into place. They sneer at those going to a top-20 or top-50 school, because it is so "obviously" inferior to a top-5 school. And those at a top 100 -- well, they can feel only sympathy for them.</p>

<p>Too many people never grasp that the college door is not the same as the success-in-life door (if the latter even exists). College is a branch in the road, but the idea that when roads split they can never converge again is wrong. Given any goal there are multiple ways to reach it; some no doubt easier than others, but with multiple paths nonetheless.</p>

<p>I don't dispute that you can gain a lot from attending a prestigious college; there is a reason they have earned that prestige. But it is pure folly to think that the top schools have a monopoly on great instructors or interesting students, that a fancy college name on a diploma guarantees success, or that not attending the "best" dooms you to a life of mediocrity.</p>

<p>I would actually argue that in the long run what will serve you more than one crowning moment of glory at age 18 is an inner sense of resilience; a confidence that you can handle whatever twists and turns that life hands you. Sure its better to get into the school of your dreams, to land a great job, meet the perfect mate, etc. But in the real world there are rejection letters, scheming co-workers playing office politics, and divorces.</p>

<p>It is resilience that will get you thru the ups and downs that life is going to hand you, whether it be not making it "big" in college admissions or some other setback that is sure to show up someday. Yes, even the HYPS kids will face adversity in the future just as surely as you will, too. How they handle it will affect their lives more than the diploma gathering dust in the attic.</p>

<p>There are so many people in this world who have overcome incredible difficulties and made a success of their life; sometimes in monetary terms, but sometimes just in a sense of enjoying the brief stay we all have on earth. Look at the people who suffer grievous accidents or illness and yet push on with little self-pity or complaint, the people in war-torn parts of the world who pick up the pieces and keep going after their lives are shattered, and on and on. Then explain to me again why life is so bleak if you only get into a school ranked 200th in the country instead of one in the top 20 (or top 10).</p>

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<p>this is a darn good thread</p>

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<p>For most people this is the first moment of honest judgement they have ever faced in their lives and it is incredibly stressful. Your parents tell you that you are wonderful, and many teachers/schools promote self-esteem at the expense of honest but unpleasant feedback. Finally you have to lay your cards on the table when you apply to college, and you know the adcoms are not going admit people just to avoid hurting their feelings.
I still don't know how to quote. Maybe someone can tell me. </p>

<p>This is the only part of the post that I don't agree with. This year the competition was so tough that kids who really are wonderful and special got the rejection letter also. Kids in the top 10 of my son's graduating class were rejected from very good (not Ivy league) schools which seemed to me as an outsider to be a good match for them.</p>

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<p>Well needed. Thank you.</p>

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<p>I like it :)</p>

<p>I just don't like that paragraph about the sneering kids at top-tier schools. It seems like there's a common perception of Ivy League students being arrogant and cocky.
Hey we're also cool! :D</p>

<p>I'd just like to state that some of my FAVORITE teachers in HS went to small no-name colleges and turned out GREAT. My psychology teacher (who retired recently at 50-something) went to Whittier college and now makes almost 200 grand a year with his private practice.</p>

<p>He has the best outlook and philosophy on life than anyone else I've met. He's an amazing character and always comes to school with a smile. He's taught me a lot and influenced me so much in one year, and I'd be happy just to have a fraction of the life he has.</p>

<p>This just goes to show that college is way blown out of proportion. You can succeed anywhere you want to.</p>

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<p>Thanks for repeating this wise post. I remember reading it a while back when S was nursing his wounds after rejection from S. This thread should be required reading for all new members of CC.</p>

7

<p>
[quote]
This is the only part of the post that I don't agree with. This year the competition was so tough that kids who really are wonderful and special got the rejection letter also. Kids in the top 10 of my son's graduating class were rejected from very good (not Ivy league) schools which seemed to me as an outsider to be a good match for them.

[/quote]

Honestly, these are the kids that need a reality check more than anyone. The longer the facade is allowed to continue the worse the eventual crash to reality is. It's better to get shot down in middle school than it is at your high school graduation, it's better to get shot down in college admissions than it is to fail three of your courses in your first year, it's better to be upset by a tough boss during an internship than at a firm where you've locked into a contract and you end up having an emotional breakdown, etc, etc. God bless someone who gets into their 40s and has a few kids before they finally hit a wall, they're the people that off themselves.</p>

<p>The reality is that the kids who are 'wonderful' and 'special' have been told that they are wonderful and special, and great extremes in talent and capability don't exist as much in childhood so it's kind of... questionable. People get upset when they see kids with 2050 SAT's and a 3.7 GPA get accepted to Harvard while their kid with a perfect 2400 and a 4.0 who was an IB student and ran a business gets rejected, without realizing that once you reach a certain threshold statistically luck is all that matters, and arbitrary decisions actually are the best way to choose a diversified class from a large pool of people that have proven to be able to produce academic work at a certain level of quality.</p>

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<p>Does anyone remember where that thread is about how to get off the waitlist? I can't find it. Thanks.</p>

<p>P.S. Agree with above comments, keep in mind the IVies want a diversified class, with different backgrounds and experiences. Thus, once you are in the ballpark with stats and scores, it's just whether they need the type of student that will further diversity their class. This gave me the best understanding about the whole process. It's not about who has the highest scores and highest grades, once you achieve a certain level.</p>

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<p>I think the statistic is something like only 1% of the entire world's population will ever go to college. That means even if you go to your community college in podunk, you are an academic elite in this world. </p>

<p>How many college graduates have you heard of that end up living in a box on the steet? My guess is none. </p>

<p>If life doesn't turn out the way you planned, that doesn't mean you are a failure. It just means are succeeding at something else.</p>

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<p>
[quote]

[quote]
For most people this is the first moment of honest judgement they have ever faced in their lives and it is incredibly stressful. Your parents tell you that you are wonderful, and many teachers/schools promote self-esteem at the expense of honest but unpleasant feedback. Finally you have to lay your cards on the table when you apply to college, and you know the adcoms are not going admit people just to avoid hurting their feelings.

[/quote]

I still don't know how to quote. Maybe someone can tell me.</p>

<p>This is the only part of the post that I don't agree with. This year the competition was so tough that kids who really are wonderful and special got the rejection letter also. Kids in the top 10 of my son's graduating class were rejected from very good (not Ivy league) schools which seemed to me as an outsider to be a good match for them.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You quote by enclosing the text in [ quote ] and [ /quote ] - remove the spaces, which I had to put there because otherwise it formats it into a quote :/ Replace 'quote' with 'b' for bold text, 'i' for italicized text, and 'u' for underlined text. You can probably also do different font sizes and colors, but I don't know the syntax for that.</p>

<p>Anywho, about the competition this year, it was unusually tough. I think the real lesson learned is that life isn't always fair and that no matter how hard you try, there are always things out of your control. In this situation, the things that were out of the applicants' control were factors such as the increase in applicants due to the birth peak around 1990, the ease of applying online, and the ending of Harvard and Princeton's ED applications, which caused more people to apply to all the Ivies in RD, etc., etc. It wasn't the applicants' fault that these types of things happened, and they had no way to control it.</p>

<p>However, I do feel that many (not all) of those rejected applicants could have worked harder and gotten in. For example, while I was accepted to my first choice university, I wasn't selected for the merit scholarships or direct acceptance to medical school program I also applied to. In hindsight, I can see several factors that I could have improved upon that could have changed the course of events. What's most important is to identify these factors, and the reason why you didn't do the things you needed to do to get the results you wanted, and strive to change that in the future. It's not enough to realize your past faults: you have to explore the reasons for your actions, and then determine how you can change those root problems. Of course, those problems sometimes can't be fixed, or you may not want to fix them, for a variety of reasons.</p>

<p>The reason why, as mikemac stated, it's possible for the "branches" of life to converge in the future, is often the realization of these factors and the alteration of one's behavior. Thus, rectifying the rejection to your dream college is most certainly not impossible; however, you must be willing to work harder and smarter than you have in the past if you hope to get back on track in life (if you feel this rejection has derailed you).</p>

<p>/me gets off his soapbox</p>

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<p>exactly, Harvard is no 'magic door', life doesn't magically dissapear.....</p>

<p>Bill Gates did not become a billionare because he went to Harvard...</p>

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<p>Great post by mikemac.</p>

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<p>Look when push comes to shove you all have to grow up and realized that you are not special. Your generation has grown up with the idea that everyone is special. Your schools required everyone to be invited to everyone's birthday party, everyone got a medal for little league, everyone won some kind of award, and your parents doted on you constantly. The reality is, that you are all alike. You have good SAT scores, gpa, and class rank. There are over 10,000 high schools in America making over 100,000 top 10 in their class students, about 30,000 varsity sports captains, over 10, 000 class presidents, etc. etc.</p>

<p>On top of that, many of you are all "all around good kids," so it is that arrogant jerks that stand out. </p>

<p>This is the time to accept that you are not special. You may be special to your mom, your dad, and maybe even your grandmother, but to the wider world...not so much.</p>

<p>Get over it now, because there is nothing as terribly as an adult who expect special treatment.</p>

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<p>

I like this.</p>

<p>Great thread.</p>

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<p>Great thread. People need to realize it's not the college you go to that matters, it's what you do with your education. I know people who have gone to no-name schools yet have done more with their education and made more money than those at ivy-leagues.</p>

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<p>I really needed this. Thank you.</p>

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<p>I resent those who say my daughter needed this lesson of rejection. My daughter HAS been rejected in other ways. Not all the time, not in every situation, but plenty. Her excellent work academically will earn her a spot in a good college program, but having a 4.0 UC GPA after taking AP & Honors classes her entire school career & then getting rejected by a school that is not "top tier" seems ridiculous to me. We didn't have her apply to Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, etc., because we knew the competition was stiff. Yes, she will move on from the disappointment, but I don't think she "needed it". That's simply elitist.</p>

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<p>08mom - I totally agree with you and resent the implication in mikemac's post that everyone who was waitlisted or rejected grew up a spoiled brat! This is not the year for this post. While there is some merit to the contents about getting to your goal in many different ways - there is no recognition that this generation was required to work their butts off just to have a place at the table. The kids who did not make the cut this year would easily have gotten into these same schools 5 years ago. This year's disappointments have more to do with demographics and societal changes than they do with everyone earning a trophy for soccer. This is a big group of kids. If the colleges had more beds, profs, and facilities, I am sure they would have accepted more of them but they are still accepting the same numbers they accepted years ago when there wasn't a baby boomlet. How does that make this year's rejected students spoiled or blind to adversity and rejection?</p>

<p>Take the excellent points from mikemac's post - that you can achieve more through your effort and resiliency than from a brand name college (or shirt, for that matter) but ignore the part where he says you have just been deluded by your parents and your teachers into thinking you were special, unless you did not earn your grades or accomplishments. </p>

<p>If we really want to get the message across that most kids aren't deserving of a top tier college then let's ask the colleges to stop mailing to our kids, stop buying their names and "stats" from the collegeboard, etc. </p>

<p>Aye - see - you got me started. This is not a transparent process. That is the biggest problem here. Kids should not be faulted for believing in the message they are being giving - straight As, leadership, good SATs, etc. Sit in a few admissions sessions - they don't really define who is special and they wouldn't have many applications if they really did. Just MNSHO!</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I resent those who say my daughter needed this lesson of rejection. My daughter HAS been rejected in other ways. Not all the time, not in every situation, but plenty. Her excellent work academically will earn her a spot in a good college program, but having a 4.0 UC GPA after taking AP & Honors classes her entire school career & then getting rejected by a school that is not "top tier" seems ridiculous to me. We didn't have her apply to Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, etc., because we knew the competition was stiff. Yes, she will move on from the disappointment, but I don't think she "needed it". That's simply elitist.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Special is relative.</p>

<p>4.0 GPA in all AP/Honors is not special. I got that and I doubt I would have gotten into HYPS (I EDed elsewhere) if I had applied. Nowadays, the competition is indeed fiercer and the colleges definitely should increase their class size, but that's not happening, so stop thinking about what "should" be. The fact is, you need exceptional extracurricular accomplishments to get into HYPS. If you don't have those, well, too bad. This is good preparation for the job market - no matter how good you are, if you're not a relatively attractive applicant, you won't get the job, because of all the people better than you. They're not looking to take everyone that meets a certain qualification - they have a fixed number of people they will accept, and have to cut off the acceptances right then and there, because there's simply no more space. It's time to stop looking at admission to top tier colleges as absolute, because they're not - they're all relative, and fluctuate dramatically each year. It's unfortunate, but like so much else in life, that's how it is and you can't change it. You have to play by other people's rules and hope for the best.</p>

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<p>
[quote]

For most people this is the first moment of honest judgement they have ever faced in their lives and it is incredibly stressful. Your parents tell you that you are wonderful, and many teachers/schools promote self-esteem at the expense of honest but unpleasant feedback. Finally you have to lay your cards on the table when you apply to college, and you know the adcoms are not going admit people just to avoid hurting their feelings.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This comment about "HONEST judgment" really bothers me. It assumes that the most worthy candidates were selected by the adcoms, and I just don't agree with that idea. It completely overlooks the fact that a lot of the time, out of the "qualified" applicants in a pool, selections are made not for relative merit, but to foster the college's own internal goals: geographic, cultural, ethnic diversity; honoring, or distancing, those with prior connections to a campus; athletes; the proverbial tuba player, etc. </p>

<p>It also overlooks the fact that the individual admissions director at a school, can set the tone for admitting, or rejecting, certain types of students, and for frankly some really manipulative selection criteria. For example, one midwestern U routinely waitlists all high-scoring, high GPA students who apply from our high school because they are so focused on their ranking and their yield. Were those kids less qualified than the lower-scoring, lower GPA kids who showed ostensible interest in the school by demonstrated interest? Absolutely not: they were more qualified, but weren't admitted. In another case, a new admissions director has stated publicly that he wants to decrease the number of students from a given geographic area; thus, the admissions results from that area, from the old admissions officer to the new one, are radically different. Were those kids admitted under the old director less qualified? Or were the ones rejected under the new one less qualified? No: it was just a change in the college's policy. </p>

<p>It is not fair to be lecturing kids on this board by suggesting that they should deal with their rejections and waitlists by accepting the fact that they didn't measure up and they should just make the best of it. The college admissions process, at some level, has nothing to do with merit. </p>

<p>I do agree with the idea that you should focus on how to capitalize on the opportunities you have, and not to waste time regretting the ones you don't have. I just don't like the implication that somehow the applicant wasn't good enough. In some cases that is true but in others it just isn't, at all.</p>