Phew. I asked mods to move this thread to UChicago.
Ohhhhhh. I take back a lot of what I said. Chicago admissions is a whole other thing and means very little IMO. For that young man to be flat out rejected from Cornell made some flags fly up.
UChicago has a very unusual way of doing admissions and for them to deny anyone sends up zero flags in me. I’ve seen some great prospects denied at Chicago for no reason that anyone could discern. I also now think they play games with their EA using it to parlay with ED2 and that makes ED acceptance more difficult too as your son was compared to all of those EA prospects they are hoping to snare. JMO here , but I’ve known both Cornell and Chicago admissions for a long time and have a track record of seeing some blip in the pathways.
I’m sorry your son is upset and still have no advice in comforting him But I don’t feel uneasy about the rejection at all as I did if this were Cornell
One common theme that we see frequently on this web site is that admissions is very unpredictable at Ivy League and equivalent schools. NO ONE can count on admissions to Cornell, or Chicago, or any equivalent school unless (i) they have perfect stats, AND (ii) The parent is the popular leader of a friendly nation, or either the parent or the kid is a Nobel Prize winner. Assuming that the OP is neither Justin Trudeau nor a Nobel Prize winner, this should have been predictable.
There is NOTHING that you can do to make admissions to Cornell likely, even in the ED round.
There is a small additional issue that in another thread OP says that their child was rejected from Chicago ED. If you apply to both Cornell and Chicago ED, then they will notice and both applications will be rejected. Of course if there are two children and one applies to each of these schools, that is another issue and is permitted but it is still likely that both would be rejected.
When I applied to graduate school Cornell was my dream school. I was rejected. I went to my second choice (which was actually higher ranked than Cornell), did very well, and loved it. I had a great time at my second choice school. In fact, by the time that I was attending the first class on the first day, I had completely forgotten that it had not originally been my first choice.
What you do after being rejected ED is you find at least two safety schools and make sure that you applications are in. These are schools that you know you will be accepted to, that you know you can afford, that have a decent program in your major, and that you would be willing to attend. There are hundreds of great universities in the US and someone with such strong stats should be able to find very good safety schools. For us our in-state public flagship and schools in Canada were safeties (we live in the northeast of the US).
Once you have applied to at least two safeties, then you can apply to other top schools.
You do not need to attend a top 20 school to do well in life. You do not need to attend a top 20 school for undergrad in order to have a decent chance at a top 20 school for graduate school.
If you had encouraged your child to think of Cornell as a safety, then I think that you apologize to your child and admit that you messed up.
OP said she put in wrong school place and the ED school is Chicago.
OP said son accepted to other schools and this was not considered a safety. As with many kids it became the holy grail and kid got too emotionally invested
No matter what, kid is upset. Will likely move on and do fine, but hurts right now. OP wants advice on how to alleviate this pain
Thanks. Exactly, we wouldn’t have applied to three safeties if we thought it was a slam dunk.
And of course I can look my kid in the eye and have. And have spent countless hours speaking to him about where you go to college doesn’t define you. And you will end up in the right place.
But like I said when I was telling him let’s get the essays complete and you shouldn’t go out with your friends in the summer. And then his friends who didn’t work their butts off get accepted to the same safety schools he didn’t, it hits hard. My point is I don’t want him to get disillusioned and remain optimistic and positive.
Your son did not get accepted to safety schools where his friends got accepted? Now that again makes no sense to me. Your son has great stats. Unless these were selective schools, I don’t see how he was denied. UChicago is a whole other story. It’s no one’s safety school and being denied there is highly likely even for top stats kids.
Safety schools are those where it’s nearly a certainty for acceptance.
Sorry typo again. They got accepted to the same safety schools as my kid.
I’m a little bit confused by this thread after seeing conflicting information posted by OP in prior threads. Is the OP a parent, posting about a son or daughter, or is the OP actually the daughter? Is the SAT score 1480 or low 1500s? Other inconsistencies as well…
Regardless, absent an extremely strong institutional interest in an applicant (legacy, donor, recruited athlete, diversity, notable national or international level achievements, etc.) admissions at highly selective schools are a crap shoot.
With an even higher bar, an Asian STEM focused applicant with lackluster STEM standardized testing (4s in science APs, no BC Calc, no SATIIs) and no Intel, no Regeneron, etc., despite multiple reported research internships is unlikely to be a compelling ED applicant at the most selective schools.
I have friends who still get visibly angry when discussing their (near perfect stats) son’s rejection over a decade ago at an Ivy where he was a double legacy.
Don’t take admissions decisions personally, and probably not a good idea to premise your authority as a parent on your expertise as a college admissions advisor.
Of course, they would ! They are safety schools.
Assuming that the safeties that your son got accepted to includes good schools, then I think that you focus on the great opportunities that are going to be available at these schools. Ice cream and/or chocolate and/or pizza might be a good idea also.
You might also think about revisiting the schools where your son did get accepted to help decide between them. Often you can arrange a tour and a meeting with a professor. Seeing that the schools have great professors should help.
Another thing that might be worth mentioning: The extra effort that your son put in while in high school means that he is showing up at university better prepared than the other students. University is a big adjustment. Coming in academically a little bit stronger will make this adjustment a bit easier. The effort that you put in to get ready for university is not a waste, and is not a waste even if your friends who put in less effort are going to the same schools.
Hard work that is applied to productive activities is hardly ever a wasted effort.
“Of course, they would ! They are safety schools.”
One kid’s safety school may be another kid’s high reach or dream school. I have known students who had McGill as a safety, and students who had McGill as a dream school that was a high reach for them. The same could be said for U.Mass Amherst or UVM or any one of hundreds of other schools.
@tdy123
I’m a parent. 1480 was original, then second test got it to 1540. Taking BC Calc now. Obviously it would have been better to have it in the Junior year.
BTW, please don’t judge. You don’t know all of the facts. These threads are filled with people who make assumptions of the situation after a few short comments. You have no idea if I as the parent was the only advisor or if we actually had a professional college advisor.
I was looking for feedback on how to deal with my child. Instead I got a bunch of comments on how stupid we were to think we would get in. Where were you when I posted chance me?
From your other threads, it seems like you have a daughter who scored a 1480 and a son with a l540 on their respective SATs, and both are applying to colleges this year ?
I think people on this thread are generally supportive. There wasn’t a lot of feedback but some told you that your chances were slim. I think you need to be honest. I give you a story my daughter told me yesterday. There was a kid in her class that was always bragging he was going to get in all these ivies and Northwestern. He got rejected at all. The kids in her class gave him no sympathy after listening to him all semester. I go do my daughter why do you think he’s like that? She goes his parents. It seems to me You may have been a bit pushy through the process. I would suggest telling him to move on there is many other quality schools he can go to. Remember it’s his future not yours
@Wjp007 , I have no words or advice on how to help your son and you feel better because it is so determined by the person. He’s lucky to have a parent like you who feels so much for him. I have a lot of kids and they vary on how they react in various situations. What comforts one is like nails on a chalkboard to another.
I can honestly say, Chicago is a crazy wild card of a school and trying to make rhyme or reason of its admissions policies would is way beyond me. Because they use on custodial parent financials for financial aid purposes, because they are one of the very few most selective schools to give out merit money, because they are test optional, they get a wide range of applicants and several matrices to cull the herd to a manageable size. So getting rejected there is not unexpected.
OP- I think the best way to make your son feel better is to remind him that he IS going to college next year, and he IS well prepared to continue his education at the university level due to his hard work, and he WILL find a home at one of the excellent colleges where he’s been accepted/will get accepted to. And then make sure that on his list (there’s still time in 2019) there are a couple of places that he’d be genuiniely excited to attend. You can spend 24 hours mourning-- but then you need to get cracking. If his list is Chicago/Similarly tough schools stats wise/safeties that he hates, this is a problem you can fix. There need to be at least a couple of options that he doesn’t hate that are not as tough to get into as Chicago.
I haven’t been following your story so I don’t know the background- but if what your son loved about Chicago was the intellectual/egghead kind of vibe, make sure you guys have looked at some of the Catholic schools (even if you’re not Catholic) and the Quaker schools (Tremendous respect there for the traditional liberal arts/scientific enquiry). If he loved the quirky piece of Chicago, there are tons of U’s that attract those kinds of kids. And of course if he loved “Where fun goes to die” there are a bunch of colleges where you could reasonably say that!
You need to shift your focus away from his stats and towards what he’s looking for. The stats are done. His GPA is what it is, his scores are recorded. However hard he worked to get there- again- it’s in the past. Move forward- what is he looking for- what does he want to study-- what was it about Chicago that has him so heartbroken? We can help you.
I know kids who did not get into Chicago (and a few who did but couldn’t afford it) who ended up happy and thriving at Brandeis, Lawrence, U Michigan, Binghamton, Holy Cross, Earlham, Haverford, Fordham. Tell us what he loved and we can help you do a quick and easy deep dive into two more schools where his stats put him in the upper quadrant of admits- but won’t feel like sloppy seconds.
So first off, yes, it’s a huge bummer. The reality, though, is that it is pretty much impossible to engineer a slam-dunk at any of these highly selective schools so while it’s a disappointment, it shouldn’t be a surprise.
As for what to say – in life, we do things to create and preserve options. This could mean that in college, he’ll try to get a decent GPA just in case he wants to go to grad school. Or in the event that he’s interviewing for a job that has a GPA requirement. But it’s quite possible that his GPA will not come into play at all as he considers his future options and that it won’t matter.
So at some level, hard work and knowledge and accomplishment need to be their own reward. If they aren’t, the energy for them won’t be there. And as life play outs, which you know, there will be fewer and fewer opportunities for your efforts to be rewarded and validated by others.
While it may be too late for your son to put this into practice, high school should not be an extended exercise in college admissions. It should be its own experience. (And sure, if you want to focus on grades so that you have a shot at “top” schools, you’ll need to do that to preserve that option, but not solely for that resason. If he wasn’t loving the effort he was 'forced" to make, perhaps it came through. He can do the work, but he doesn’t really want to.
He still has time to send in RD applications to other schools that might appeal to him and he has the stats to get his application seriously considered. The fact that Chicago didn’t see him as a fit doesn’t mean that any number of other excellent schools will reach the same conclusion.
I realize that as a parent, it’s easy to feel that you let him down by promoting a world order that simply isn’t. But you can also support him in realizing that event when things don’t go as planned, you just need to pick yourself up and get on to the next thing. And be glad that you’re so well prepared for it.
@Wjp007 - I was straight up rejected ED from Amherst last week. Yeah, it hurt, but my parents were there for me and supported me. My dad shared my disappointment with me, but there was no blaming. We huddled together to discuss my options. The college admissions system is uneven and tough, but it is what it is, and I knew that going in.
Please try not to be hard on yourself. Take your son to lunch, just you two, and discuss Plan B. Your son can still land in a top school. He has great stats, so I bet he gets offered admission to several great schools. Best of luck to you both!
Your real question seems to be how do you deal with your child after this rejection because you were the one encouraging him/her to forgo some of the high school social experiences to focus on school grades and what’s good for college apps? If that is what you’re asking then I have some very basic advice. Please let your son/daughter drive their own train at this point. As parents, obviously we want what’s best for our kids. But it seems part of what bothers you now is that maybe you were the driving force behind the process and making sure your child was on task. That’s OK and no judgment. That is something a lot of us can relate to. But now that the rejection happened your child is totally free to drive their own process from here. The grades and scores are in. The hours they put into everything, especially at your encouragement or maybe even at your insistence, are done. Honestly, just support what he/she wants to do now. Support where they want to apply. Take a real backseat in the process. This college process is nutty. I think this college process makes kids and parents focus solely on getting in but the real focus should be where our kids can actually be successful on their own once they are in! Once a child is in do they have the self-motivation and self-determination without their parent’s constant oversight to actually be successful? Can they manage their own time own their own? Will they forgo a party so they can study without their parents’ oversight? A distant acquaintance kept her own calendar for her high school junior’s homework, tests and quizzes. She constantly reminded her son of what was coming up. He never even had to think about it because she would lay out his week for him. He got into one of the UCs and really struggled because he didn’t have his own way of managing his time. He left the UC went to community college then attended a small Catholic school and thrived.
Best of luck to you and your child. They will land on their feet.
I was wondering why everyone was talking about Cornell!
You didn’t do anything wrong, nor did your son. He will find his place and bloom where he is planted.
Awww… when our kiddos suffer, we parents suffer even more. So sympathies to you, OP! These days it’s hard even for the top students to get into the highest ranked schools. There are too many high achieving kids applying to too few schools. Your son will be OK, trust me on this. His friends will likely have their rejections too, and they will commiserate together, and feel better too. Your high stats son WILL have good options if he applied to the recommended spread of reaches-matches-safeties. At this time next year, you will be getting ready to welcome your son home for Christmas break after his freshman year at a very good school where he’s likely having a very good time. In other words, this too shall pass. Now go hug your boy, tell him you’re proud of him and his application and that he WILL FIND HIS SCHOOL. Wishing you the best!.