Someday, the students who end up attending their “match” or “safety” schools will be humbled by the brilliant minds attending those same schools.
I appreciate all the wisdom I’ve read here. I just have a couple of points to add:
There are tons of well-prepared young women applying to elite colleges. It’s harder to get into many of these institutions as a girl. That isn’t to say it’s easy as a young man, it isn’t, but it isn’t quite as competitive.
Our kids are competing with kids from all over the world. Many of them don’t need financial aid and have been groomed for years to go to an elite college.
Just like Mahmah’s child, my son didn’t initially get into any of the schools he wanted to go to. He ended up at his safety, a large state university, where he got straight A’s. He ended up applying for transfer to two top tier LACs and got into both. He chose the one he felt would be the best fit and absolutely loved his 3 years there. Few choices we make at 18 are permanent, and our college choice doesn’t have to be either.
I might add, we stepped off the “only a few schools are worth attending” with younger D and the one selected is not the most elite; it’s the best fit as far as major, campus, student body size, city. Much better.
I do think there is so much more hype about getting into college than there used to be. High school seems to be more viewed as just a time for doing what is needed to get into college, than about having a good high school experience to learn and prepare for the next level. How many parents here were thinking about what ECs to do to get into college when they were freshman? Because of all of this hype kids seem to view college more as an end point, than a part of the process of life. When kids have been so focused on college since freshman year of high school, the rejections probably are more difficult to accept.
This is not a reflection on the OP, but on our society as a whole.
I wish the OP’s daughter the best of luck. I am sure she will do well where ever she ends up.
I did not read all of these replies but I can feel your pain as this happened to my son as well a couple of years ago. Some of the bright stars who get into these elite schools on manufactured resumes or who are too immature to handle the pressure have already returned home in our town. The boy who was the apple in the eye of every high school teacher has been invited to leave Yale. Some still cannot pick a major two years in and have no direction. In addition, please consider that financial aid may be the culprit as I believe that the elite schools use financial aid to round out their classes with minority students. They are entitled to do that but we did not fit the criteria. Very few schools can afford to be truly “need blind” in this economy. A directed child in a state school is always to advantage.
The high school years are not simply a prelude to college. Hopefully few kids choose to join various clubs, take particular classes or participate in their community for the sake of college applications. Kids should spend the bulk of their high school years thinking about and preparing for…their high school years. Encourage your kids to “go for it” and to take academic risks for the sake of expanding their minds not their portfolios. Then not so much is riding on the big college application scene. Even though I followed my own advice, I can see that the culture among the kids is one that over values school names and misattributes positive outcomes to the names of those schools. So, yes it is true that kids can be devastated if they are rejected by their top choice school but we, as adults, need to stay above the fray so that we can support our kids and remind them of their achievements and how valuable they are for just being themselves, and that the name of the college has no impact on that. Adults who harbor beliefs that the name of the college is a “make you or break you” factor will find it hard to support their disappointed child.In fact, many times kids are more upset about disappointing a parent who showed signs of wanting their child to go to school X then they are in not getting into that school. In other words, adults need to be very clear about the messages they are sending to their kids. Some of the colleges are engaged in practices that I view as unethical-beating the bushes for applicants that they know will not be a good fit for their school-only to reject them. They are getting kids all frenzied up and then not seeing the impact they are having when they reject the kids who received months of their glossy brochures touting the school and praising the kid. And, some of the colleges with the great names are involved.Now that is a sign they are not so great.
Tell them that’s how it goes sometimes.
I will also add that the best in life is not necessarily achievement.
Let’s face it folks…It’s the IVY’s then all the rest!! Your daughter already sounds like a winner. The rejections will just make her more determined to succeed. college gets you the first job, you get the rest. She’ll be fine. Tell her to put her phone away for a few days to stop seeing all the tweets from her “friends” bragging about their good luck.
Been there done that. It all works out
A few observations - first, I’m an MIT interviewer and I’ve been doing it for more decades than I can count. So it gave me some perspective when my own child began facing this task and we prepped her for the inevitable rejections. Years ago MIT had 10,000 applications for 1,000 spots. A few years ago it climbed to 13,000. Now it is 19,000. The space available didn’t increase, just the applicant pool. So the school is forced to say “no” to highly qualified candidates. The student didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, your daughter did everything right. It’s just become very tough to get into top tier schools that are on everyone else’s list.
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<li>The college doesn’t make the student, the student makes themselves Period. And anyone with amazing stats and extracurriculars will go on to be successful no matter what college they attend. So if the choices aren’t in the cards for this year - she could take a gap year and do something she’s passionate about and apply again. Note a gap year is NOT a year of college somewhere else. That would make the student a transfer and those positions are harder to get.</li>
<li>Love the college that considered her a great “catch.” It is flattering to be wanted by everyone - but students ultimately attend only a single school. Sometimes the college that is flying under the radar compared to IVY’s and other top tier schools is the school that will start the student on an amazing journey.</li>
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P.S. I take exception with @floridadad for this remark:
I hear that so often from resentful parents and students that I just throw up my hands in frustration. It isn’t true anymore unless you’re a top performing URM applying to a state school or lower tier school. Most colleges have so many qualified students they no longer have to “go there.” A lot of those “hooks” as you say are now ubiquitous in the pile and those students are getting declined in droves as well. And - for the record - they’re all academically qualified.
It doesn’t help to tell the mother of a grieving student that her daughter might have possibly been passed over for a minority, jock, hook, etc. it’s the same tired argument as the posts on another thread claiming MIT passes over “qualified white and international males” for girls like the OP’s daughter It’s a lazy argument smacking of sour grapes and self-pity.
The bottom line is - life is getting tougher. And the Common App made it easier for students to apply to large numbers of schools than if they had to fill out individual applications by hand. That increased the applicant pools to levels unheard of at many colleges. The best students can do is apply to a broad range of colleges and then cross their fingers.
@Tigger Free : I loved your message. Great Attitude.
I see kids joining clubs or taking classes that dont interest them much and dropping them after apps are in. Told my kids to do the ECs that they would do if no one watched and to take classes they are interested in (and of course the req ones!) so they took extra science and math and did the engineering challenge competitions.and when the older brother got into VT he is delighted and knows he belongs there and got in for who he is.Other classmates of his bemoan taking certain classes and doing certain activities (I worked so hard on 'x" and didnt even enjoy it and now I didnt get into “X” college - what a waste they say!). Be who you are and then apply to a variety of schools you like and pick one that likes you back:)
Since early high school, a student has her heart set on going to an elite college. Whether it’s a single dream school or a set of good choices, it doesn’t really matter. She decides to work hard to improve her chances of acceptance. This begins with something small, like replacing a class in her future schedule with its AP equivalent. But it grows into an obsession. She involves herself in challenging activities because “that’s what colleges want to see.” She prioritizes quantity of APs over quality of scholarship because as long as As go on her transcript, she’ll maintain a high GPA. By her senior year, she’s losing sleep to fit in long hours of academic busywork and commitment fulfillment.
Then the rejections come in. What did she do wrong? Is she really not as good of a student as she thought? Was there an error in record processing? Is the competition tougher this year? Is she just an unlikable person? Why even put in all that effort if it wouldn’t get her where she wanted to go?
Hopefully, she’s realizing that the problem is deeper than rejection. It’s that she cared so much about a decision that ultimately wasn’t hers. She made sacrifices and effectively shaped several years of her life to make herself a “better” candidate. But in the end, the student’s opinion on candidate favorability means nothing because the decision is made solely on the opinion of people whom the student has never even met. There was no mistake, randomness, nor “bad decision.” There were merely reasons that will never be disclosed to her. She has no right to feel entitled to a spot in an institution she doesn’t own, no reason to be surprised by decisions made for reasons beyond her influence, and no basis to judge herself on whether or not someone wanted her to be a student at some college.
So stop trying to rationalize a rejection letter or guessing who might have been preferred over a given application. You won’t come close to a correct conclusion, and even if you are correct, the knowledge will not benefit you.
When she realizes that, it’s only natural that she feels empty and depressed. At this point, the best she can do is look back on her life and appreciate the things that last: relationships, long-term intellectual interests, life experience gained, money made, etc.
gingersnaps - probably not. If the high school hid the infraction there would be few ways to uncover it unless he/she had an astute interviewer. If the story was on the record, it isn’t likely he would have been admitted.
Like you said - you have your experience, and then there’s mine. A lot of it.
People play games at high schools to improve their admissions numbers. If you knew of the infraction you could have sent a note. It would have been flagged and investigated. MIT is not a “jock” school. It values athletic students, but does not have to stoop to that. The tone of your post and the repetitive nature sounds more like sour grapes. Time for you to move on and not paint a process with such a broad brush. 
ExieMITAlum- “it isn’t true any more unless you are a top performing URM”.
Thank you for saying that. I don’t know why people continue espousing this myth. The URMs of today have to have the same qualifications as their counterparts. There is no free ride in the lottery system of today. Over on another site for URMs on CC, there is a post from a very distressed mother and her daughter who has been rejected from every school to which she applied. I believe she had 28 ACT, decent grades, ECs etc… They had no safety schools and are now scrambling. They bought into the myth of the URM shoo-in.
An interesting article that my daughter’s school just passed along to parents. Might help:
[Tip</a> Sheet: If You Are Accepted, Rejected or Deferred - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/tip-sheet-if-you-are-accepted-rejected-or-deferred/]Tip”>Tip Sheet: If You Are Accepted, Rejected or Deferred - The New York Times)
To the right, there is also a link to admissions stats. A quick look at the 2012 results for select colleges will put things into perspective. A lot of bright, gifted students are struggling to find a perfect match these days. Again - not a reflection of the student, just the sheer explosion in applications. Even locally - colleges are seeing an explosion of older applicants as people attempt to “retool” in a struggling economy.
“After going through RD with my older child I am a big fan of ED for the younger one. I truly believe that ‘matches’ are really only matches for ED. During RD it is the ‘safeties’ that seem to be matches.”
As a senior going through this process, I agree so much! I was waitlisted somewhere even someone who works in the college’s admissions office told me I was a shoe-in at – and I retook the SAT and got a higher score than the one she told me was fine! However, much less qualified people than me got in EA.
Apply early as many places as you can.
For parents that don’t want to see this happen with their kids . . .
what you knew about colleges back then is no longer true . . . and you MUST take the lead in accepting/understanding/educating yourself about the reality of applying to college these days
work hard through the Reaches/Matches/Safeties categorization honestly . . almost ALL the “Top Schools” are reaches for almost everyone
pay attention to the stats of students who are REJECTED from the schools . . many times your student’s stats will “fit” just as well in the denied group as the accepted group; example: Brown . . . it turns down 76% of Valedictorians and 85% of Sals
[Admission</a> Facts | Undergraduate Admission](<a href=“Undergraduate Admission | Brown University”>Undergraduate Admission | Brown University)
remind them that being “qualified” for a school is not just about stats . . . if they were, my 2370 kid (about 6500 kids in the world scored that high or higher on a single sitting SAT) would have been accepted everywhere . . . and now she is happy where she is
remind them that there is a myth of The One True Match . . . in practice there are dozens of schools where any kid can thrive, grow, prosper and be happy (true, BTW)
I take exception to @floridadad’s statement about affirmative action. My daughter is an African-American student with high grades and scores. She has not received any preferential treatment from anyone. I have many other African-American friends who are also in the middle class. They have not received any preferential treatment, either.
@Insidelane said:
Brilliant. Those kids - the ones who joyfully follow their dreams are the most desirable (even if it’s the same activities everyone else has done). Colleges look for passion and depth of character, not a long resume.
And - for what it’s worth - I’m beginning to be a big believer in ED. Although, frankly, that just pretty much kills all the joy from summer and I think students are stressed enough without trying to complete coursework and decipher application supplements in such a narrowed time frame (one of my D’s choices needed materials by August 1, including a difficult portfolio assignment tailored to a school selected topic, then cautioned they only took a few dozen students and we’d have to wait until Spring for the interview of “selected” finalists - we tossed it from the list).
To the OP - hugs and lots of comfort food. We went through this early - for the boarding school phase (escaping a reprehensibly bad school district). In the end, she landed just fine. But when the rejections roll in first, your heart just wants to break. Until you realize - as someone said - that thousands of other students with equally strong resumes had to be turned away too.
Last week we had a “burning” of the college materials in the fireplace. Starting with a school that also rejected a friend with top scores, national debate wins, and other accomplishments. It was very cathartic. Hang in there!