<p>Good wishes going out to her-and to you ~~~~~~~~~~~ (those are good wishes)</p>
<p>This is a tough, tense time. Yes, falling love with one school wasn't the greatest approach. Fine. But it happened. She'll get into choice #1 or she won't. Deep breath. Then she (and you) take the next steps. I think that the stresses of this month tend to magnify responses. If your D is disappointed, there is a very good chance that she will pick herself up and move on pretty quickly.</p>
<p>(BTW, I loved U of M! Of course, dinosaurs were walking the earth at the time, but I loved it nonetheless.)</p>
<p>abric, ED is a tough balancing act. Kids are told to love their ED choice with all their heart and soul but also to be resiliant and practical and if things don't work out. It would be hard for an adult and for a teenager, it's an especially trying situation.</p>
<p>I know it's a bit late to comment on your daughter's list, but I'm not quite understanding her preferences. You say she wants small, but her #1 choice is Penn. This seems contradictory.</p>
<p>I'm a graduate of Michigan and my son goes to a small LAC. From my vantage point, the difference in education and environment is considerable. I would think that she would find more overlap between Penn and UMich than between Penn and, say, Barnard and Wellesley.</p>
<p>My guess is that she'll have some fine choices in a few days. Hang in there and let us know how she does.</p>
<p>abric, "fit" works both ways, I think. Sometimes a student develops a deep interest in a school that isn't necessarily the best fit, and at those times it seems to me that the school itself realizes the two are not a fit. After all, that is at the heart of many rejections: not that the student couldn't succeed academically, but that they are just not made for each other. </p>
<p>There was a young poster on this board last year who was dying to get into Kenyon, and felt there was no place she could be happy except that one school. She was devastated when she got denied. She ended up at her second choice, and applied for a transfer at her first opportunity. </p>
<p>Then lo and behold, she got into Kenyon as a transfer. But by that time, she'd fallen in love with her second choice, and ended up staying there !</p>
<p>Re: ED deferrals: I've also heard of some kids who actually get turned off of their ED schools after a deferral ("if they don't want me, to heck with them!") which can be helpful when it comes time to branch out and give their other choices a closer look--</p>
<p>I know two girls with great stats who went to their last choice (out of 8 and 11) schools. They were both up against incredible talent in their elite high school classes--where more than 50% of the class had NM standing of one sort or another. It happens and it's tougher for girls. i've never known a boy IRl with great stats to be left with his last choice out of 11--except andi. </p>
<p>Both girls made the best of their options--one by going abroad three times in the four years--and one by taking up all the outdoor activities that were offered by her safety school location. One is in law school--with a dream job lined up for June graduation. The other will start teaching at a rural East Coast boarding school this fall.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Bloom where you are planted
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is the message that should be coming out of your lips--while you vent your rage online, of course, ;) .</p>
<p>FWIW, my DH and I had doubts about our son's EA choice. We thought it would have been a great fit for him as a junior but we knew he would struggle to keep up as a freshman. This estimation gleaned from several hours of sitting in the lobby cafe of the EA department. Now that he is a junior, we see that we were right. He would have knocked the socks off the EA place--as a junior. Nevermind, he's having such an incredible intellectual experience now, made all the sweeter by the somewhat unexpected nature of it.</p>
<p>^^Cheers, this is a bit off-topic, but in my opinion there is very little good reason for anyone (girl, boy, in between) to be forced to go to their last choice out of many colleges. A well-chosen and well-researched college list should not include 1 safety and 8 reach schools...there should be some target schools in the middle of the list where acceptance is likely though not guaranteed. I suppose theorhetically one could be rejected by all of their reaches and squeezed out of all of their target schools and be left with only their last choice, but I really believe that with a well-planned list and properly completed applications (effort put into the targets...doesn't always happen) this is highly unlikely. </p>
<p>Of course, your point is still valid--close to worse-case scenario of only being admitted to a last choice can be turned into a fruitful college experience.</p>
<p>Abric, my sympathies. I don't have any advice for you but your case illuminates some of my harshest "tough love" bits of advice to applicants: "If you get a deferral, "Possible" (Wellesley), or are waitlisted, treat it from that moment as a 'rejection' and start engaging with your other options. If you get admitted to your original first choice after all, then treat it as a happy surprise and celebrate." I have seen far too many students running off the road on this issue. It's one of the relatively few that I would be like a Marine Corps D.I. about.</p>
<p>advant...if your child attended a private elite school where 50 % of the students were NM recognized, all of the students applied to 10+ schools and they applied to the same top 50 schools-- you would know more students like these two.</p>
<p>These girls had an absolute safety--and they got into that one. One of the girls had a 1490 SAT btw--790 on Math/ 3.8 GPA with the hardest course load in a Harkness school and a good EC done at a city wide level for years and years. Unfortunately, there were so many other girls with her stats applying to the same schools.</p>
<p>I understand that there was tough competition at these girls' high school (which they assumedly paid big money to get into...not sure how sorry I'm supposed to feel for them), but if their lists were well chosen, it is my opinion that they would have found at least one other school where they could have been admitted and been happy. </p>
<p>One of the strategies that I have read about in college advice books is to avoid the cluster effect. If you go to an elite private New England school and apply to the same New England schools as your equally or more qualified classmates, you will have trouble with your college list. If this same applicant expands their list to include Western, Midwestern and Southern schools, they are likely to have a much better result at a similar level of school. For a kid like me, at a school in metropolitan Chicago, the opposite is true--if I had my heart set on WashU and Northwestern, along with 50 other kids from my school, I'd probably be rejected/waitlisted, along with 45 of those 50 kids. Admittedly, there are tons of great schools in New England/Mid-Atlantic area and fewer around the rest of the country, but I still think that the strategy is sound. </p>
<p>I won't say that it is impossible, but I find it tough to believe that these girls had schools like Rice, Northwestern, WashU, Pomona and Carleton, to name some top schools from around the country, on their lists and still faced numerous and stiff competition from their HS classmates. </p>
<p>I'm not trying to get into an argument with you over it, but I just find it strange that these girls' lists were well-constructed and they still only got into one school each.</p>
<p>abric, our legacy son also applied to Dickinson to appease his parents. (I understand 1000% why you treated it as your D's safety, even though she showed no interest. Our thoughts were, "I don't care if you don't like the shool, it is a fine school and you will love it if you go") We thought he would come around and like the school.... but he didn't !</p>
<p>Although also a U of M legacy, we couldn't convince him to apply (too far away), but your D may love it. Ann Arbor is a great college town. </p>
<p>Although a Penn double legacy, we couldn't convince him to apply. Visited, toured, just didn't like it. </p>
<p>But he has some great choices and waiting to hear from a few more. You will get through this!</p>
<p>To OP, It is okay to feel heart-broken over a first choice ED school. Otherwise, what else is passion for. Young people are resilient though. They will get through it. Stand by her if it is indeed a rejection (not a certainty by any means) and share her grief. What else are parents for. </p>
<p>You do know yourself that your D has a great list of colleges. These are the best colleges in this nation, and she will be well educated in any of them. Any student will discover that in time. My personal experience is that sharing such thoughts with a disappointed child wasn't useful at all. Best wishes.</p>
<p>Hopefully you have been using the term "denied" rather than "rejected" in your household. As in, "My/Her application was denied" rather than "I/She was rejected." Though the situation is the same, there is a big difference in feeling oneself to be a "reject" and believing that a school simply did not select your particular application (i.e. being denied an offer of admission) out of an oversupply of qualified applicants.</p>
<p>Students with ED deferrals have several more months to become more emotionally invested in the ED school while they wait for the final decision. It's easy to latch on to the hope represented by the the stats of ED deferrals that ultimately become admits, even if it's a relatively small percentage.</p>
<p>I hope that the sun shines on your daughter's application to the school she wants. If she receives good news, the celebration will take care of itself! In the event that her "application is denied," you might want to give some advance thought to how you will handle your own reactions as well as help your daughter deal with the news. Long term she will be fine, but the short term is emotional.</p>
<p>I got waitlisted at the school I had considered my number one school. I was a little disappointed. But I have also been accepted at some other very good schools as well. I'm still waiting for one more school. Like most others I will be waiting on full financial aid information before I make my ultimate decision. I'm trying to keep an open mind. Because of the initial disapointment over the waitlisting, I'm trying not to fall in love with any one school as finances will play a big part in my decision. I have four schools I'm considering the most (in at three so far, one waiting). I am also in at my two schools that are not in the top range, but given finances could rise up.</p>
<p>I can only hope that this is the worst disappointment most kids have for many, many years. In the broad scheme of things, it's really not a big deal.</p>
<p>Yes, but as we know, most teenagers aren't real good with the "broad scheme of things" concept. What's happening in the here and now is 98% of the emotions of the day, as far as I've been able to tell.....</p>
<p>I have been hesitant to post on this thread. DS is still waiting for a positive grad school response. Disappointment does not end with undergrad admissions. He was not accepted at two schools and is waiting for others. In the end, I know he will do what he needs to do to get where he wants to get....but the sting of not getting accepted when one has worked hard, is very tough.</p>
<p>thumper,
o sorry to hear about the grad school...hopefully the next bit of news is good. It's amazing how fast the time goes--my D will be a senior in college this fall and will be applying to grad school as well, going through all the same agonies once more. It's hard to believe we're going to go through it all over again--I'm still not over the undergraduate admissions angst. </p>
<p>I wish your son the best of luck. My philosophy is what is meant to be, will be, and that the school that is truly the right one for him will soon be welcoming him soon. Please keep us posted.</p>
<p>I have a friend who's D didn't get in to grad school the first time out, in spite of being a great ug student (psychology). She did, however, have a particular program she was shooting for (on the advice of her main ug prof). She took a year off, lived at home working at Limited Too of all places, and did some work the prof laid out for her to beef up her app, appied again the following year....and got in! </p>
<p>This girl went on to the earn her phd from her dream school, worked for a hospital doing therapy for child cancer patients, and is now a professor at U Michigan Medical School. How's that for getting rejected and having to work at the mall?</p>
<p>Thumper and OP - - my heart goes out to you. </p>
<p>I am watching a friend struggle w/ the similarsituation - - her D has rec'd acceptances from only 4 (Beloit, Wooster, Smith, Skidmore) of 10 schs to which she applied. D had hoped for sch w/ more cache (Wes, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Oberlin, Kenyon) and is terribly disappointed, despite having what I consider to be some great options. D, like many strong students, wanted to attended a top sch and thus, was uninterested in "match" and "safety" schools. It breaks my heart to see such a talented student so disappointed - - and unnecessarily so. If only she had aimed just a little bit lower.</p>