I went through this last year with my extremely bright son from an insanely competitive high school. I won’t lie and say the rejections didn’t sting. But I am so proud of my son - he chose one of his safety colleges and went with in a great attitude. After getting together with his high school friends over spring break- kids who are enrolled in some of the most prestigious universities in the US- son said to me: “I feel like I lucked out- I’m the happiest of all my friends in college!”
Your daughter can not be defined by the eliteness of her school. She can be defined by her excellence in and out of the classroom- she can do this at almost any campus. Tell her not to give up.
agreed. that hard work and dedication is what will really help her succeed in life, even more than a college degree. there are many successful people who went to community college, and their success comes from their work ethic as adults, not a degree that they get in their early 20s. however with an education from a an elite school (although it may not be an ivy) that she will probably get into, coupled with her good work ethic she will still be able to do whatever she wants to do with her life.
Yes its indeed very heartbreaking to go thru hs working so hard like i did and not have it materialize into anything,…
amusicmama, multiple rejections are incredibly demoralizing on a kid. When my D opens a rejection letter, she tries to keep a brave face and in her wry sense of humor will borrow a line from Running with Scissors, “I’m going to decoupage my rejection letters as a reminder for when I’m famous.” Then when she sheds a tear, I hug her and repeat the words she’s probably grown tired of, “Honey, California schools are very competitive, it’s not your fault,” etc. Lately, before I’ve finished my sentence she cuts me off by saying, “I know mom, California doesn’t want me.” 
Not the idea I had been trying to convey, but nonethless, the bottom line.
We applied to 15 schools that had her major, about a third are OOS and it looks like that’s where she’ll be going. Does my southern California, sun-loving D hate the thought of leaving here? Absolutely yes, but she is definitely feeling the love from the OOS schools and as the fin aid packages arrive, she’s beginning to see her value to them in numbers.
Good luck to all of us as supportive parents, all we can do is help our kids keep their perspective when they take it on the chin!
Looking back to last year with my son, I remember all the rejections and acceptances. We spent more time celebrating all his acceptances and that was how I found CC, when we were trying to make a decision. Somehow, my son caught on my enthusiastic mood. He was my first in college and I was feeling very proud of him because he got admitted to at least one of his schools. He chose the schools and those that accepted him made the journey worthwhile.He got into his preferred major, In the end it was very hard to turn down his other acceptances. I thank God somehow that I was not a CC addict back then because at CC sometimes the expectation is so way out there. His college is the one of the top three for his major, what more can I ask.
My advice to you is to make a big deal of her acceptances, hammer on the good points of those colleges and allow her to make the choice. Tell her you are very proud of her. Looking back now, my son told me that he was happy not to have been admitted to his ED school because he would have gone in for the wrong major just because he wanted to so badly go to the school because of their sports program. Hugs
Parent also have to have fair assessment of our children and realistic expectations of their chances with selective colleges. While it is only natural that we believe our 4.0/2200/loaded-EC kids “deserving” to be accepted into their dream schools, the reality is that there are many equally outstanding, if not better, kids applying to the same dream schools. We as parents have to be ready to accept the outcomes first.
College admission is not a crap shoot, but it is a stochastic process that is best described by probability. It is thus essential to apply to a range of reach, match, and safety schools to approach probability 1.
I bet your daughter is pretty stressed after this whole college application process. Why don’t you try to distract her or reduce stress in general? I remember that I reacted just like her but it was due to a lot of stress and I was just overwhelmed. Now that I’ve calmed down a little and get more sleep I don’t get irritated so easily. Maybe you should try and ‘fight the evil’ at the root? She definitively would have reacted much calmer if she were relaxed on the whole.
I haven’t read through all the responses and I’m sure there is some good advice on how to console your daughter. The fact is that it has more to do with numbers than anything she has done. I did a little research
According to the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the number of full-time first-time undergraduates (freshman) has increased by 41% from 1990 to 2010. The top twenty universities in US News College Rankings have increased their student population by 20% during the same period. The top 10 Liberal Arts Colleges have only increased by 12%.
…
It’s not just the result of population growth. The general population only increased by 24% from 1990 to 2010. More people are going to college than ever before and more people are applying for competitive colleges than before.
It’s not much consolation now but your daughter will find that her hard work has paid off, just not in the immediate way she had imagined.
I’m sorry to have to say this but the only way to win is to not play the game. Seriously, universities are thriving and making lots of money on the stress that parents/counselors are putting kids through to get into name brand colleges.
The best way to de-stress is to simply not play their game in the first place. Apply to and go to the lesser name schools, smaller colleges, community colleges, good state schools, or even good schools overseas and don’t fall in love with any one of them. It’s a product, just like any other, with plenty of good choices that don’t necessarily make the Barron’s/CNN/Forbes/US WR Top 10.
Once you get past school and onto your work life, not much attention is paid to your degree anyway, particularly the bachelor’s degree. Your child will be fine with their safety school, especially if they’re a top notch honor student today.
Somewhat off topic but…a quick calculation shows approx 600,000 applicants to the UC system. This includes those applying to multiple campuses. At $70.00 per application this brings in a nice cool $42 Million. Our kids have been swept up into participation in a nice money making scheme. The greater the hype, the more applications, the more application fees. This is business…and BIG BUSINESS at that.
If all are equally likely, and it is random which of the 30,000 get in, then that is a crap shoot. But, it is not random which of the 30,000 are selected. Ergo, not a crap shoot.
Just because it is based upon intangible, subjective factors beyond the control of the student does not make it a crap shoot. Just because the child is brilliant (which, BTW it not under the control of the student either) is not, in and of itself, the standard for admissions. If a child does not have a “hook”, something that distinguishes the student, the crap shoot was in the student’s genes/environment/upbringing, not in the admissions process. If a child does have a good enough “hook” , it is a crap shoot whether that year there is someone else with the same hook, but better (which has everything to do with the quality of the applicant, but that year, it is just not good enough). That is not a crap shoot in admissions, it is a crap shoot in the child’s comparison to the 30,000 other kids, which the child never has control of for any school.
It may seem like a crap shoot to the outsider, because the outsider does not see the 30,000 applications. Even schools that have “objective” standards, it is a crap shoot to the outsider where the line is drawn (SAT 1800? Why not 1790?).
If a child gets in then their parents want to believe that there was no randomness. If they don’t then they want to believe it is a crap shoot.
The reality is this, too many well qualified kids are applying to too few schools. Thanks USNWR for perpetuating the myth that these few schools are the only way to get a good education.
I was just told by a member of an Ivy admissions department that of the 30,000 applications they got last year, 25,000 were very well qualified and would have thrived there. They were able to offer spots to only 10% of them. What distinguishes an admit from a reject can be as simple as geographic representation or niche special interest. It can be as “unfair” as being an athlete or a legacy.
In the end, one thing is certain, virtually NO ONE can assume they’ll be admitted to schools that admit less than 20% of their applicants.
My son hit it on the head. He said, you look at 10% admit rate and quickly assume that since you are in the upper echelon of your class that you’ll be in the upper echelon of applicants and that’s just wrong. Nearly everyone who applies is from that upper tier and only 10% of them get in.
He’s still applying, so no acceptance, no rejections. I still vote crap shoot and do so because so much of the process is random and out of the control of the applicant. It may not be random to the school, but it certainly is to most applicants. The best they can do is to have a good r
I honestly believe you get in where you are meant to go. I know several friends/family friends who had their dream school reject them. However, they absolutely love the school they ended up going to and most have actually said they are glad that they didn’t get into their dream school because they couldn’t imagine not going to the one they got into. Tell her to keep her head up and everything will work out for the best. And worst comes to worst, take a year off, travel (keep a journal), get some research or work experience, and apply next year with an even strong application.
Yep - that’s it. At competitive schools almost all are upper echelon. My d applied to programs that take only 25-30 students. So we anticipated it was going to be a rough year.
My advice - find a cheap guilty pleasure activity and use it to do something joyful. A cheap weekend excursion, a night of favorite movies and a bowl of popcorn, whatever.
Life is too short to mourn over opportunities lost rather than see the adventure ahead. Good students are still amazing even if the colleges weren’t able to find space for them.
Colleges don’t make or break a student. Students take their potential and defy the odds by turning that energy into something memorable.
It is difficult and painful for a parent to watch his/her child hurting from any rejections. For many top students, this may be the first time they are rejected from anything. One of my sons’ classmates’s moms was telling us that about her talented, academically strong daughter, who had always worked very hard at school made it a top priority, and always snagged the rewards for those efforts. Her ED rejection from Dartmouth was such a slap in the face for her, and it really put her into a depressive funk. That she was told it would be lottery with tough odds for her did not really sink in. Yes, she was definitely a good candidate, in the upper quarter for academic stats and wonderful ECs and everything else but so were kids who had been turned down in the past from her school. Hurt the mom and dad too, since watching your child suffer is torture.
@OperaDad: The point isn’t that it’s random as a matter of process but that an applicant can’t accurately predict what will be wanted.
"The point isn’t that it’s random as a matter of process but that an applicant can’t accurately predict what will be wanted. "
Very true.
Meanwhile, many if not most applicants (parents) do not have a realistic assessment of themselves, as compared to other applicants.
First of all, don’t go down the black hole with your child or let her wallow there for long. It’s okay to acknowledge her disappointment without resorting to silly platitudes, but then you have to help her get her humor back.
My daughter wrote a very funny parody of her Pomona waitlist letter: “Dear Abigail, we regret to inform you that we made a paper airplane out of your application…” It goes on to detail her future life with 50 cats, etc. She plans to send it back to Pomona declining a place on their wait list as soon as she figures out which school she will accept. I think this is a very healthy way to deal with disappointment.
One of my friends, also the mom of a high-achieving senior, suggested that the kids have a rejection letter read-aloud at school, just for fun. They already post them up in the senior hallway, and students and teachers can write encouraging things on them.
This is sucky, painful time for most students, even those who end up getting into a top school, but it is not the worst thing they’ll ever face, so if they can learn to deal with it now, they’re going to be better grounded when the next drama hits.
OperaDad,
If a university’s two shortstops on the baseball team are both seniors, then the school will be looking to accept shortstops. A person who pitches will get rejected even if that pitcher is an amazing pitcher, has better grades, SATs, and AP scores than the shortstop who will get the acceptance letter.
There comes a point at which the university has a thousand students and will take five - a dancer, a stage director, a person who formed a non-profit, a sailor, and a linebacker. Oh, all of them have to want to major in some form of foreign languages, because the stats so far seem to indicate that the class is low on students who want IR or language majors. So they will toss out anyone who wants to be a bio or an art major or whose ECs aren’t among those five things - no matter how spectacular they are. THAT is the crapshoot aspect.