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<p>A few years ago S1 was either wait listed or rejected at every one of his match schools only to be admitted to both of his reaches. I knew then that none of this makes any sense, and cannot be predicted with anything close to certainty.</p>
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<p>Thanks. I just finishing explaining to son how arbitrary some of this can be. He still can’t understand why he was deferred but we looked at Naviance and nearly everyone who was deferred at our school in the past was accepted in RD.</p>
<p>On the plus side, the acceptance for his safety came an hour ago. At least he’s got one under his belt - even if it’s not the one he wanted.</p>
<p>ugh, i sleep in my parents room every night cause im so so so worried. its really hard to fall asleep. im not even applying “high up there” but all of the kids at my school… we are all competing against each other for spots, because im sure colleges wont accept everyone who applies.which just makes it so much worse. </p>
<p>and our school PUBLISHES where each of us get into, so that we can show our parents, who discuss with everyone else who applied where, and who got rejected so basically the whole world is going to find out eventually. ugh.</p>
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I really think that in today’s competitive environment, the idea of a “match” school is a myth. A school is either a safety (99% sure to be admitted) – or a question mark (significant possibility of not being admitted) — and for students who are not at the top end of the scale academically, a school can be an impossibility. In other words, either there’s no chance at all, some chance, or a sure thing. </p>
<p>But as a parent who experienced the same thing (kid waitlisted from schools thought to be “match”, admitted into “reach” schools) – I think that we get into trouble when we start looking at strong “chances” as something to bank on, especially when high-end students are looking at schools that now turn away the majority of their applicants as being a “match”. </p>
<p>I also think that the tendency to look at schools through a hierarchy of reach-match-safety might lead students to better target their reaches, and to expend more energy on the applications to those colleges- while taking their applications to the match schools more for granted. In any case, I’d advocate looking at the process as being divided simply among safeties & possibilities. It doesn’t matter whether the “chances” for “possibility” are 10% or 50% – as long as there is a significant chance of not being accepted, there is no particular value in applying unless the student strongly wants to attend that school and ready to put in effort into the application.</p>
<p>Song of the day . . . </p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Chic with Nile Rodgers - Le Freak](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsKPPL-j6kE]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsKPPL-j6kE)</p>
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<p>I agree with the above statement. Last year, in the Stanford forum, someone posted that one Stanford Adcom said he like 6 out of 10 essays he read. But there is always somebody who claimed he/she got into Stanford because of his/her essay. So it’s hard for people to figure out the truth without seeing the whole picture.</p>
<p>For Bumble,
It is helpful to take a tape measure and lay it out on the floor. Roll it out to 84 inches (typical life span these days). That published list of where students are going to go to college (well, at least where they will START college) fits in the teeny 1/4 inch between 18 .5 and 18.75 for most kid’s life timelines. For a couple of months of your life it will be a big deal. Not before then. Not after. </p>
<p>We have a junior in college this year. In the past two years, several of his friends have changed schools. You would think they would all be “upgrade” transfers. Not so. Several have had a go at a big name school and are ready for something different. For some it is something smaller – or warmer – or closer to home — or with a specialized major. The glue is barely set on the bumper sticker before some students are ready to go elsewhere. </p>
<p>Think of that published list as a two week fashion that fascinates everyone — and then nobody cares. Think of your top dozen favorite adults. Do you really EVER think about what college they attended??? Good luck!</p>
<p>I think that going to a really good prep school probably was a disadvantage for the OP’s daughter. The Ivies are looking for socioeconomic diversity- a really big topic every time we hear one of these college’s presidents speak.</p>
<p>At a more elite school, more kids apply to the same schools, and the competition is brutal. The more selective colleges are only going to accept a few from the same high school, no matter how rigorous and excellent that school is.</p>
<p>Now, if she had the same stats, rec’s, EC’s and essay but went to a low-quality urban or rural school, her chances might have been better.</p>
<p>I do hate to read a parent’s critical comments about other students who got into the desired school, in place of their own. Conveying happiness for others and acceptance for oneself is the ideal goal, I think. There is no reason to be bitter, and things will work out fine: try to get that message across by feeling it yourself!</p>
<p>Olymom: thank you <em>so</em> much for your post! yeah, the tape measure thing was quite eye opening. i still wish our acceptances werent so public, but i think when the time comes, ill find a way to get rid of the butterflies. [ive started sleeping better lately, haha, in my own room too!]</p>
<p>but the fact that college still holds the key to our futures… it might take me sometime to get over that one ;]</p>
<p>College does not hold the key to your future bumble, nor to anyone else’s future. You alone decide whether to wake up in time for your 8 am chem lab or sleep through it; you alone decide whether to spend an evening playing beer pong or studying for your Russian Literature mid-term; you alone decide if you’d like to spend Spring Break on a study/service tour of New Orleans or Haiti learning to build houses, or in Daytona Beach learning how many jello shots you can consume without passing out. You get to be the person who decides if they’d like to try out for a play, audition for a poetry slam, or organize an eyeglass drive for a village in Africa. You can spend your vacations “chilling” or working as an editor or research assistant for one of your professors; you can show up at Office Hours to ask your professors or TA’s questions or spend the afternoon texting your friends from HS.</p>
<p>You have the key. You can do all these things at every single college in America. It is sad that most kids do not take advantage of most of the fantastic opportunities that are available to them (how many kids post here that they’re flunking Freshman bio but they’re not sure why since they’re only a few weeks behind on the reading and have showed up at lab once or twice and surely that should get them a low C, right?)</p>
<p>There isn’t a college in America that doesn’t have professors who care about their students, or libraries with books and scholarly journals and helpful librarians who would love to show you how to use all the fantastic knowledge that is sitting right there at a computer terminal or microfiche reader. Every college has an internship/fellowship office where you can get applications to study all over the world, or volunteer to teach English during a summer in a country where the academic resources are only available to the wealthy. And every college would love to boast about having a student like you who shows up prepared to take on the world.</p>
<p>So go finish those applications. What you do when you get there is so much more important than the name on the diploma.</p>
<p>Thank you, Blossom. Ur post really humbled and inspired me to take a step back from everything, and just look at the big picture. I am so glad that you posted it… feels like I have more control over whats to come. </p>
<p>You are so right. I think I’m going to take a print out of ur post and olymom’s and stick it on my notice board.</p>
<p>This is a good post so I am tagging it. I am the mom and I’m the one freaking out. I bought a giant bag of chocolate covered peanuts yesterday and have the bag holstered around my waist. No a good idea. I think my DS’s college application process has caused me to gain 5 pounds. I should really move a lifecycle into my kitchen to work off my nervous energy. Good luck to everyone and and I feel for mimikat and her DD. Disappointment after so much hard work in any area is tough.</p>
<p>I bought a giant bag of of chocolate covered peanuts yesterday and have the bag holstered around my waste. LOL.</p>
<p>I have nobody applying this year, but I have a bag of peanut M&M’s on my desk and I am steadily proceeding through them at a really rapacious rate…I have no excuse, so now I’m just going to be eating chocolate in empathy. </p>
<p>Good luck to all. And Bumble, you’re going to do great!</p>
<p>I understand a kid eagerly anticipating an admission decision, but freaking out seems strange to me. I would think that, once the application is submitted, a kid would think, “Well, I’m glad the hard work is over. It’s out of my hands now. What’s in the fridge?”</p>
<p>On the other hand, freaking out as a parent…that I can relate to.</p>
<p>MS,
I am hoping your S gets in to one of his reaches if that is what he really wants, but I am also glad he has some excellent choices already. He is a great kid!</p>
<p>I have been the freaking out mom, but my daughter got her acceptance to her ed school yesterday–I almost feel let down that the excitement is somehow over! My d is so afraid of freaking out other kids that she is not even mentioning it to most people so she doesnt upset them while they still freak out</p>
<p>Your D is a ‘good winner.’ It is so important to know how to be a good winner…no? congratulations.</p>
<p>I just ran into a thread from the UChicago rep beseaching students not to send PMs to him/her. Sounded frazzled. Had to laugh. Are they allowed to disable thier pms? Maybe I should PM them about how to do that??? NO? :)</p>
<p>Blossom what a great post. My kids don’t “feak out” but I thought your comments were a great message to parents as well as kids. Well done, especially the opening sentences. We’re heading to the airport shortly to pick up our college junior son. I remember stressing about the entire process, worrying that he wasn’t picking a “good enough” college, wondering about whether he could “do it” or not, - get up, go to class, manage his life etc. He did and is more than half done, but he did it…we didn’t do it.</p>
<p>I’m mostly worried that it’s going to be a very different experience for D2 vs. D1 last year. I’m afraid that D2 will take that hard. </p>
<p>D1 intentionally applied places where she’d be an academic standout. There were no real reaches on her list, just matches and safeties. So she ended up with 1 waitlisting and 7 acceptances. Whereas D2 has <em>several</em> reaches, a couple of matches that are very competitive places, and two safeties–one of which she’s lukewarm about. The odds that D2 will get some outright rejections are much higher.</p>
<p>So I’m braced to help her deal with not only disappointment, but with those feelings of not measuring up to her big sister. I try never to compare them to one another, but inevitably they do it themselves.</p>
<p>I’d just like to say that Blossom’s post is fantastic.</p>
<p>I have a son who’s been out of college for 2 years. One thing to ponder over this college season is: all this will matter so very little once you (or your kids) are in college. And that’s just a matter of a few more months! Once you have made your decision and are in college, life just goes on. You then study, participate in college activities, graduate, get a job, or go to grad school and move on. None of this pre-college stress and all that matters. Who got in where (and you did not), who was rejected from where (poor thing), is a thing of the past…it is extremely insignificant. I know this does not lessen the current pain you feel.</p>