<p>My son found out yesterday that he was rejected from Yale. I have been pretty floored by his reaction--I mean, I thought he was well aware of the odds and that he had an excellent perspective on this whole thing going into it. But.....oh my......I have never seen him so crushed, and it is absolutely breaking my heart.</p>
<p>The question: What can I say to him that will do ANY good at all? And how can I get him to refocus on working with the positives and not dwelling on the negatives? He needs to complete a few more apps., and I want him to LEARN from this experience, not drown in it.</p>
<p>Thank you soooooo much. I feel SO helpless right now! ~berurah</p>
<p>{{hugs}} berurah... I'm not aisforadmission obviously but I'm so sorry that you and your kid are going through this. I think you need to give him some time (a couple of days) to grieve and then get angry (because he will). Then you can try to focus some of that anger in a better direction. He will learn from this and be stronger from it, too. But it is heartbreaking for you.</p>
<p>Hugs to you too, Berurah. It hurts the parents a lot too. The problem with the early scene is that kids tend to overly fixate on that one school. The fact that this whole process would be over is a very strong reason for wanting that acceptance as well. They are then pulled out cold turkey from that fixation which really hurts. At least with RD, there are chances for a number of acceptances and the attention is spread among a number of schools, though these days I am seeing an overfixation throughout the whole process on the "name" schools. </p>
<p>I was getting concerned about my son who was overfixating himself even though neither his Dad nor I ever brought up his long shot. Even with a couple of early rolling accepts, he was getting tunnel vision, in part, by the activity at school where this was becoming a frenzy as each day brought another college's acceptances. You just try to keep the hype down and the perspective in place. Hard to do as kids are jubilantly celebrating as they got in and so despondent at a deferral or rejection.</p>
<p>Thank you SO much for your understanding and support! I so appreciate your posting! </p>
<p>momof2...I sooooooooooo agree with you! I am accustomed to his handling minor defeats with anger and determination. I WELCOME the anger because he has always directed it in a positive way. What I am having a hard time with is the sadness...even my 16-year-old daughter was crying because she is not used to seeing her older brother be so vulnerable. I think you are right in that time will bring the changes I seek. This morning, I think I saw the beginnings of the anger! :-)</p>
<p>jamimom--you are a very wise woman with an incredible amount of perspective. Would you mind if I pm'ed you about some things? Thanks! ~berurah</p>
<p>berurah... I too thought I was completely prepared for rejection. I knew the odds against getting in were so slim... but there's always hope. I thought that maybe, just maybe I'd get in. Since I wanted it so badly maybe it would all work out. But when I received that rejection letter, that cold, unforgiving letter, it was as if I had expected 100% to get in all along. That letter was like a ton of bricks falling on me... crushing me to death. To have hope taken away so quickly is debilitating. He probably felt the same way, that deep down inside he had that chance.. that slight chance for his wildest dream to come true. To see the hard truth probably crushed him like it crushed me, even though we were prepared for it. To make it even worse was a rejection rather than a deferral. I find myself envying even those who got deferred because they still have that chance. The worst part is knowing NOW that I will never go to Yale. Give my my regards... I know what he's going through.</p>
<p>My prediction for you, berurah, is that your talented and wonderful son will use this denial someday as the catalyst for great things. Sometimes the most disappointing moments of my life (or my kids' lives) have prompted me to move in directions I never would have considered or with a determination that could not have been born through a positive outcome. In the meantime, just allow your kid to be sad. (And I know that is NOT easy for us parents!) Soon enough he will pick himself up... maybe with a fire in his eyes that will surprise you. By the way, your family sounds remarkably close and sensitive... to have your 16-year-old D so affected, wow, good job raising kind kids!</p>
<p>You are a very wise and eloquent young man. I honestly couldn't have described it more precisely myself. I think that you and my son, Logan, were identical in your beliefs---that you THOUGHT you had it in perspective until the instant appearance of that decidedly unceremonious rejection. In short, it was a major "dis". Especially the part mentioning that they hoped we had other applications in the works! <em>lol</em> </p>
<p>I guess I hadn't fully comprehended the difference between rejection and deferral. Now, I fully do.</p>
<p>All I can say is this: You seem like an amazing guy Nick. Logan is in exceedingly good company, and I wish the absolute best for you both in the coming months. PLEASE let me know where you end up, O.K.??? ~berurah</p>
<p>I so completely agree with you! I think I was just having a hard time giving him that time to grieve. It felt soooooooo WRONG to see him that way. His sister, too, had difficulty seeing him vulnerable and hurting. Neither she nor I were crushed at the rejection...only crushed at seeing him so fragile at the moment.</p>
<p>He seems to be doing a bit better now. And I think that you are right in that he will turn this whole experience around to his advantage. That is how he's gotten this far! I am very thankful to you and to this whole forum for the support you've shown. In fact, I'll tell you a secret--the first smile he's cracked in the last 24 hours was a few minutes ago when I showed him Nick's and your posts. For that alone, I thank you deeply! ~berurah
p.s. I thought you might enjoy this little gem. As I was waking up the little kids this a.m. (we have 5 younger than Logan), his 9-year-old sister, barely awake, uttered these words: "Mom, you know what happened to Logan? He just got a bad dementor! [creature from Harry Potter]" <em>lol</em></p>
<p>A dementor! How funny! That's just what he has. Well, the only thing for Logan to do is to outwit it (by turning his rejection into new passion and getting into the school that he is truly meant for). From what little I know about your son, I can practically guarantee that he will be thankful someday that he and Yale did not work out because he will be so happy with his friends and life elsewhere - friends and a life that he wouldn't have had otherwise. Better days are waiting.</p>
<p>You are, of course, right again! There have been so many times in my life where I've looked back and said to myself, "If things had worked out any differently, I wouldn't be where I am now, have this or that person as a friend, have gained this perspective..." etc. Without the benefit of a crystal ball, it is hard to have appreciation of this concept. But I KNOW that what you are saying is true! Your kindness and wisdom are so evident in all of your posts. I really appreciate your having supported us at this difficult time. ~berurah, whose son will get those dementors yet!</p>
<p>You are welcome, berurah! And I may need to be reminded of all of this (either today after S's UofChicago decision comes in the mail) or in the spring certainly when his other decisions arrive.</p>
<p>Berurah, AisforAdmissions has a good post--not the most recent, before that--in the Yale "Good/Bad/Ugly" thread.</p>
<p>My D was among the Yale EA rejectees last year. I think it helped that she had had years of ballet auditions...sometimes the Casting Fairy was kind, sometimes it was not.</p>
<p>If you haven't already, you might find the thread in the Parents Forum, "Outcomes After EA/ED Rejection/Deferral" to be of some comfort.</p>
<p>As for refocusing on the other apps...last December 27th at 2:40pm was one of the happier moments of my life, when I slid all of D's remaining apps across the counter at the Post Office. Procrastination seems natural.</p>
<p>Oh, you BET I'll be here to remind you--after all you have done for me!!! O.K., Have you heard yet?!?!?!?!? Oh, I can't WAIT to hear!! Here's hoping good news is coming your way today! ~berurah</p>
<p>Thanks for the post! I will go and look at the thread you referenced. I guess I wasn't in the mood for any more "bad and ugly" after that letter on Wednesday...</p>
<p>Yes, if your D. is in the performing arts, then she must have a great deal of experience with both acceptance and rejection. My own three daughters all participate in musical theatre productions, and though they are not on the level of your daughter in their art, they are very well aware of the fact that rejection is not a personal issue--just part of the nature of the beast.</p>
<p>I, too, look forward to the day the last app. is safely on its way. What a joyous moment that will be...the most joyous one until (hopefully) an acceptance or two makes its way to us in April.</p>
<p>Procrastination is my son's middle name....and MY first! <em>LOL</em> ~berurah</p>
<p>Hi berurah, I hope you and your s are beginning to feel better. I have to say that even though my s was "only" deferred, that were we to go thru this again, I would never recommend that he apply EA. It was a total brain drain and a waste of time and energy. Way too much attention was put into one single school and the build-up until the 15th was bound to let most of us down with a huge painful thud. At our school, 5 were deferred and 1 rejected. That poor kid didn't even come to school the next day! Had there been other apps in the works, this kid would most likely have had some positive news to balance things out. Also, I have been looking further into the actual "meaning" of deferred. First I was told that it meant that the kids were potentially accepted but that they wanted to build the class with the right mix and would pick and choose after they received the other applications and then I heard that there are schools that defer students that they know they have no intention of accepting. It builds up their RD application numbers and makes them look more selective. I don't know what the truth is, but I do know that it doesn't benefit the kids who are applying.</p>
<p>My sentiments are with you on this one! If we had this to do all over again, we WOULDN'T!--for the exact same reasons you listed. The toll it has taken is not worth the cost, even though my son is doing much, much better now. It just wasn't worth it. For your son's sake, I hope that Yale wouldn't defer for such selfish reasons, but I can't say that I have much faith. ~berurah</p>
<p>I heard that there are schools that defer students that they know they have no intention of accepting. It builds up their RD application numbers and makes them look more selective.</p>
<p>This doesn't really make sense to me. US News & World Reports defines the acceptance rate (one of the factors that goes into its determination of "student selectivity") as "equal to the total number of students admitted divided by the total number of applicants." The total number of applicants wouldn't rise because some students were deferred until the RD round.</p>
<p>Having lived through a deferral with my daughter last year, I don't need convincing that it's an excruciating process. But I do think the other explanation of the meaning of deferral is basically correct--"that that the kids were potentially accepted but that they wanted to build the class with the right mix and would pick and choose after they received the other applications." Michele Hernandez, the author of A is for Admission, had a post here the other day about "polite defers"--in which a school might try to let certain candidates (e.g., legacies who aren't genuinely in the running) down gently by deferring them rather than rejecting them outright--but I hadn't heard of that before.</p>
<p>Maybe, and this is a big maybe (based on what I think could happen), by deferring candidates, colleges get to count them twice and therefore artificially inflate their selectivity....just maybe....</p>
<p>What editrix said makes sense to me. If that is true, the same applicant would NOT be counted twice. I think that in your son's case, it is probably a "legitimate" deferral so that they can look at his application in the context of the rest of the apps. they get. To me, it seems like if two were equal in standing, and one had applied early (and thus shown that interest), the school would go with the deferred early applicant. I really hope so for your son's sake! ~berurah</p>
<p>to berurah:
i know a lot of people don't post on this thread anymore.. but i would like to extend my sympathies to your son. i was also rejected from yale easc; it was strange at first though, because i couldn't stop reading my rejection letter. i couldn't believe it. i kept reloading the page because i didn't think it could be true. i knew the statistics. i knew that the odds were stacked against me. but i thought i could do it. my classmates believed i could, and i mistakenly started to believe it too... i think the worst part about rejection is that you feel like such a failure. you feel like the past four years has meant absolutely nothing, that all your work, your blood, sweat and tears has not helped you achieve anything. in the long run, it does mean something, but at the moment all of us rejectees feel incredibly raw. call it "bruised egos" if you will. it just takes time, i guess. i know it'll be a while for me. best of luck to logan. and to nick as well.
-ann</p>