<p>D2 came home from school last week full of righteous indignation that a classmate she respected was denied by Stanford EA, while one she thought inferior got a yes. Last year she watched one friend be rejected by every school except her safety, and another have to turn down her dream school acceptance due to insufficient FA.</p>
<p>A few years ago D1 was mildly disappointed to have a friend get into her lottery school #1 choice, while she was denied. More difficult was moderating her joy at an acceptance to the school she now attends, because three of her close friends were all denied.</p>
<p>I just keep saying that everyone ends up at a good place for them, and if they dont they can transfer after the first year. My Ds know this on a rational level, but like most teens their friends are their world, and it is hard not to take their friends results personally. </p>
<p>So, what words of wisdom do you offer your student? How are they coping with the results of friends and classmates?</p>
<p>My oldest is a Freshman straight A student at one of the top HS in the country. My wife and I are thankful that she handles the pressures there with great aplomb. I’m an HYP alum and families around us just assume she’ll get in. I’ve had the ongoing conversation with her that nothing is guaranteed and that, as a family, we’ll work to see she loves wherever she attends. We’re trying to buffer her from some of that craziness from students around her. I know we haven’t covered everything but we’re trying to do our best to keep her from undue expectations.</p>
<p>Words of wisdom I share are: if a student gets rejected by a college, it is a pretty good sign that the student would be unhappy there anyway, perhaps struggling for four years to keep pace with his peers.</p>
<p>I wish these selective schools would choose a Friday night 9 PM EST notification date to ensure that this drama occurs outside of school and with the comfort of ones family. It is painful for me to read of kids shrieking with joy in the school library as they check their status while others sob uncontrollably. My DD will be away from home on a retreat when results are issued and we have encouraged her to check her results when she returns home days later rather than on a cellphone surrounded by her peers. My DW wants to be there for her in person when she hears the results and I’m not sure how this is going to play out yet. On a rational note I can imagine this as an important learning experience in dealing with disappointment and accepting that life does not always play fair. As a parent, of course, it is painful to watch this lesson learned.</p>
<p>Coping with adults is almost as bad! My s seems very philosophical about it all, and doesn’t have any friends applying to the same schools. He wants them to go where they want, and he wants to go where he wants.</p>
<p>He wouldn’t think to check his status at school, and I would strongly discourage doing so. </p>
<p>I totally agree with the Friday night thing - maybe 5pm so I’m not up all night from the result. In fact I wish there was one universal email that got sent where you saw your own personal list of admissions and rejections.</p>
<p>And - in my fantasy world I wish the number of applications a student put out were limited so there weren’t so many kids applying to so many schools, particularly safeties, taking spots from kids for whom that school is a match, not safety.</p>
<p>I don’t really agree with this part of your statement. We know that the ivies have stated that they can fill each class several times over with qualified applicants. Our D was rejected at HYS and waitlisted at PCDP and a couple of other super-selectives. She chose a highly ranked school and is doing exceptionally well just like she did in hs – straight As/very challenging major, athlete, sorority, volunteering, etc. I have no doubt she would have been fine and done well at the ivies as well. The ivies don’t have a corner on rigor – other top schools will offer every bit of a challenge. </p>
<p>As for friends/parents and reactions to acceptances/rejections, this is something I’ve found that has the potential to bring out the worst in people. The only advice I can offer is to put things in perspective and rise above it. Remember that college is such a short time in a person’s life, and the school one attends does not define who he/she becomes. Think back to your high school reunions…sometimes the kid everyone thought was going to be a huge success isn’t and vice versa.</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily believe this, either–certainly not with respect to Ivies, Stanford, Williams, MIT and similarly selective institutions.</p>
<p>But I don’t necessarily have a problem with the notion of lying to my children, either, so I might still say it to a disappointed 18-year-old who needs consoling more than reality.</p>
<p>I’m guessing…Princeton, Columbia, Duke, and (what’s the other P)? </p>
<p>I agree with Yale dad…the results should come on a Friday eve…around 5pm PST…8 EST. Can’t believe that colleges are so thoughtless as to post results during the M-F school hours. Ugh!</p>
<p>9pm Friday is great, as it’s after the school day on the west coast. D had kids in physics class receive email from Cornell Thursday 2pm (5pm eastern time) and the other ivies will likely be the same situation in a day or 2. She got her Stanford “no” on personal device at tutorial after school. Little Brother is now not allowed to play “All Right Now” on Rock Band. He is a freshman and is so oblivious that he doesn’t realize why.</p>
<p>Of course, the instant public knowledge has that ripping the band-aid of fast benefit. Everyone knows and it’s over rather than people asking in a drawn out way that makes the initial rejection last longer.</p>
<p>I guess it’s too late for some kids, but this is one reason why it’s a good thing to play it kind of close to the vest about where you’re applying. No one has any expectation because no one knows.</p>
<p>jc40 and Sikorsky – the word “perhaps” was shorthand for exactly what you two said. I agree completely with respect to the highly selective schools. Not all rejectees would have struggled; perhaps some would.</p>
<p>YDS…EXCELLENT advice! Our D didn’t share her list, and we will encourage our S to do the same. As far as the Friday release of acceptances/rejections – great idea as well. Our D applied EA to one school and was accepted in Dec. All of her others came in during March/April 1. She chose to have us get any letters that came through snail mail, and she refused to check her college-specific email. She waited until she knew all responses were in, and then opened each in one swoop rather than dragging it out throughout the month of March. She likened it to pulling off a band-aid. PCDP = other ivies; sorry for the confusion.</p>
<p>This is the big drawback to uberselective college admissions…it is impossible not to take these rejections personally no matter how much “love thy safety” advice is given. Let’s be honest these are 17/18 year olds; their parents most often also take the rejections personally. I will admit I’ve taken friend’s children’s rejections personally…nothing is worse than having to show up at school after having been rejected by a school when everyone was certain you would be admitted. And everyone knows within minutes of those emails going out. The saddest essay I ever read was on the NY Times Choice Blog one August a few years ago. Everyone was leaving for their schools – all but one essayist were thrilled with their results and looking forward to the next phase - attending college. The outlier wrote about how she only got into her safety and all enthusiasm for the next college phase was missing from her experience. She found it painful to be around her excited peers for the rest of the school year/summer and even in August had no excitement for attending her college. I always wished a followup essay would be forthcoming to see how she felt a year or two later.</p>
<p>A few years ago, D applied to a college on the East Coast that she hadn’t visited, so we arranged to visit at the last minute - spring break of senior year. As the decisions came in at 5 pm on the first day of our drive, we drove past the campus on the way to a motel with wifi and hit the motel room at 4:55. She opened her computer up and starting going through her various portals. First one she could log into, waitlist at the campus we were sitting outside. Second up, acceptance to first choice dream school, followed by another waitlist and another acceptance. When we woke up the next morning, we drove right past the campus we had driven more than 10 hours to see without bothering to go in. (I actually wanted to see the campus anyway, but daughter felt rejected by them and was all gungho about her dream school and H was defensive that they had not accepted his little girl.)</p>
<p>Two of D’s friends also got into her dream school. What was really hard for her was seeing her best friend choose another school purely for financial reasons. Ouch!</p>
<p>^^I’d like to see that followup essay too. I’m betting it would show young adult thriving. </p>
<p>And I hardly think a rejection is a sign that a student would struggle at that school-- top schools can only take a small fraction of well-qualified applicants, and plenty of rejections and waitlists are based on yield protection. </p>
<p>Kids at D’s school talk about it all a lot-- and I think that may be the best solution. This is a year of learning how capricious life can be, and how unfair. The valedictorian doesn’t always have the best choice of colleges— sometimes its the football player who gets the plum. Sometimes the quiet kid in the corner has qualities that colleges find more attractive than those of the big man on campus. And sometimes a really wonderful person gets a raw deal. There are plenty of places on earth where even the brightest kids are making do with a sixth grade education. </p>
<p>So you fall back on knowing your own goals and working toward them no matter what obstacles you meet. Nothing is more satisfying than that. And being grateful to be healthy and safe and surrounded by friends. We want so much for them to be appreciated by the world, rewarded for their efforts. But they’re learning to make their own success through this process.</p>
<p>I think this goes lots of ways - and it’s very nice to have a chance to talk about it.</p>
<p>Two tidbits I’ll share from D2’s experience last year:</p>
<p>1) She was on a 4-day choir trip when many of the decisions came out. She wisely decided she would enjoy the trip and check results when she got home. Why ruin a fun experience, when the news would wait? (And yes, she came home to learn she had been rejected at her first choice.)</p>
<p>2) On that choir trip, kids were talking a lot about their results. I have to say that it did help her perspective, as Gwen says, to hear this discussion. She had been WL’d at a school just before they left. She found out that of the 3 other girls who had applied there, 1 was accepted, 1 was rejected, and the other was also WL’d. She had decided against this school, so her own results weren’t important. But as all of these girls were very good students (stats higher than my D’s), she got a really helpful lesson on how you can never know what will happen in this process.</p>
<p>I was along on the choir trip, and I was very touched when she said this, and also at her compassion for the girl who was rejected - since of the 4 of them it was that girl’s first choice. I was also grateful my D’s dark fears that everyone else got into any school they wanted were alleviated. Kids this age are so often sure that they are the only people who are “failures.”</p>
<p>We never shared information with people outside our household. So SAT scores were not shared with friends nor were college visits or where they were applying. With all 4 of our children we did this & we avoided a lot of drama. If their friends asked about applications, or test scores, my children just told their friends that is was a “personal family matter” and they were not going to discuss it. Relatives were also given the same answer, (in-laws, cousins, etc) When May 1st came around then my kids could say where they would be attending in August/September.</p>