@3sonsmom There are definitely people here (as in life) that like to reply harshly, assume negative things, and/or respond to folks with a know-it-all manner. There is an ignore feature I found comes in handy for such folks. 
Most posters here are great and genuinely helpful.
@SwimmingDad I think the issue is with people who âhang outâ on these boards long past their kids going through the process themselves. I came here in 2013 when my eldest was going through it, left, came back with my son going through it now⊠lots of the same names. Nothing wrong with community and wanting to help those going through it but seeing the same questions year after year is going to make a person jaded. Being in a community that doesnât grow with you⊠just resets every year with a newbie membership has got to be frustrating. Plus, The farther you get from the experience yourself, the less empathy you have.
Personally, I feel for parents and kids when things donât go their way. Itâs nerve wracking in even the best of situations.
Probably not too many questions that have not been asked and answered already. lol I still remember thinking that with NMF status, I could get some merit money from UCLA or Berkeley and then finding out there is no money from UCs for being a NMF. Looking back, I think one of the reasons I had my kid apply to 2 Honors Colleges is to see if these schools really would give free rides based on just a NMF status. At the end, our kid didnât get anything out of being NMF except maybe some dose of confidence that he wasnât so bad in standardized tests after all.
@websensation âI am often surprised at some posters who are so sure the kid will not get in when to me, the kid has a definite shot.â
Me too! Thatâs why I left cc for a while. Just seemed like people are out to put each other down.
Completely agree with OP. Thank you for this post.
ahhh tried to edit my post and lost it, ugh.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, to the OP.
For a few years running, I suggested âCelebrating Our Common Humanity Day,â because posters in some of the CC forums were using the terms ârobots,â or âmachines,â or something similar, to refer to students who had outstanding objective qualifications (GPA, course rigor, standardized test scores, EC involvement), but whose applications were declined by their preferred schools. They are every bit as human as anyone else, and it is not right to distance them by regarding them as ârobotic.â
But of course, the issue of reactions on CC is much broader than the reactions to that group. As the OP suggested, it is important to bear in mind that many of the posts reflect the emotions of the moment, when a student has just discovered that he/she has been rejected. The great majority of these students will bounce back to normal in the matter of a few hours, or a day, or at most a few days. There is no need to trample on their immediate reaction of disappointment, even if they did not appear to have much chance at the âdreamâ school (or strike the reader as having arrogant assumptions).
Reaction posts that suggest "Well maybe you shouldnât have . . . " or "Well maybe you should have . . . " are really not welcome after the fact! The suggestions can be extremely helpful while there is still time to implement them. If the situation just kept repeating itself for a given individual, then after-the-fact comments might be useful. But hardly anyone applies to colleges for undergraduate work more than 2 or 3 times. If the strategy did not work the first time around, the students may take a gap year or go for the back-up plan (if there is one), and then reapply. But they know at that point that they need to do something different, and there is always the opportunity to provide advice in the next application season.
One of the comments that I used to really dislike was âItâs all about fit!â, a comment usually made exuberantly by a student who had been admitted in preference to other students with better objective qualifications (and no, I havenât read any of the essays!). They may be right. However, this comment for some reason always comes across to me as very close to âWe donât want your kind around here.â I am sure that is not actually the intended message (well, most of the time); and one needs to be as tolerant of in-your-face exuberance as of disappointment.
Good to see some consensus. I have to admit I think the âdose of reality is neededâ approach is the problem, not the solution. Once decisions are out, unless these kids get reincarnated it will not help⊠I know there are differing opinions on that, but I hope this thread throws some light on the kind side.
Turtletime- guilty as charged. Iâve been hanging out way too long.
But every time Iâm ready to finally quit I get a PM from a parent (a few times from a student) quoting something I posted and telling me how it helped/changed their trajectory/kept them from a ruinous financial decision/saved them from themselves.
So yes- Iâve been on too long. I hope it hasnât eroded my empathy but I imagine that it has. But honestly- there are some mis-truths and falsehoods that just wonât die, and if I get to help someone fix that, I guess theyâve got to put up with the occasional snark (but I try to control myself).
And I can definitely say from my perch as an old person who is done with the kids at college, grad school etc. that the choice of college is nowhere near as important in the grand scheme of your kids lives as other decisions they are going to make. So-- perspective. Keep it in perspective. A kidâs decision to have unprotected sex at age 18 is WAY more important in terms of âLife and Consequencesâ if it goes badly than the decision to go to Bucknell vs. Lehigh.
Great advice. My son is waiting for a decision from UMich, his dream school. I hope he gets in but you never know. We have been talking the whole time. I have reminded him that he needs to remember that the school isnât going to determine who he becomes as a person. He is. He wants to ultimately go to med school, no matter where he goes, he will learn what he needs to learn. He will determine what kind of doctor he is, not the school he attends. I am proud of him no matter where he lands up.
My neighborâs son went to Cal State at San Obispo, did well and went to an ok medical school and got an offer from a top hospital in Southern CA to do residency. For medical schools, doesnât really matter which school you go to. But a lot of politics involved in getting residency. The important thing is getting into any medical school and getting residency in a field you want to go into.
I am definitely guilty of hanging out here way too long. I try not to be mean to students, especially high schoolers, and especially high schoolers who have just been rejected someplace they cared about, but there are some things that occasionally get my back up and provoke a response that others may consider harsh.
The one that sometimes comes up in post-admissions threads is different versions of âI didnât get in because Iâm Asianâ or âI didnât get in because Iâm whiteâ or âAn unqualified minority took my place.â Those are constant themes on CC, and they are highly toxic â to the people who feel that way, to future applicants and their parents reading the threads, and of course to applicants who are minorities, both those who were admitted (who feel that their classmates wonât think they belong and will assume their lack of qualifications) and even more those who were not admitted (âHow bad must I be to get rejected despite my âhookâ?â) I understand that these posts may be visceral reactions from young people who are deeply hurt, but if they are not challenged they sit there long past the initial moment of pain, and they are building blocks of a false, destructive narrative.
@JHS , I understand most of your points, but of course I was not referring to racist posts, so those are not really relative. Let me reiterate I am referring to posts where the kid is, simply, wrong. I donât think that matters.
I believe there are ways to be thoughtful and provide good information without kicking these kids when they are down, and I think there is a far greater risk that a student will be scared away and get no information than there is that someone will adapt the false narrative from an obviously emotional post. Thatâs much worse, IMHO.
My draft of the OP had specific quotes from ones that bothered me â I took those out because they are easily searched and I donât want anyone under the bus. But you are for mare experienced here than I, and I am certain you know exactly what I am talking about. Donât you think it is worth a little examination and thoughtfulness?
Absolutely! I completely agree that we need to be sensitive to the fact that there are (presumably, at least) real kids with real feelings behind these posts, and that the next few weeks are likely to be a lesson in powerlessness and disappointment to many of them. I donât think any of us adults would want to change places with them right now.
Tomorrow being Ivy Day, I think this idea will be most important as it seems like embittered Ivy rejects are the most frequent victims of scorn. Letâs take it easy on them!
I do think I have seen less of the shaming this year so far â although in the last few days there have been a few âEverything you did was bad, let me demonstrate my mastery of reading a common data set to youâ type comments, which, again, do not help the OP.
As for the idea that these comments help future applicants â there may be some truth in that, I concede â but I speculate that for every person a post like that helps, several will be scared or turned away from the community.
I have seen a few which say âyou did get accepted somewhere great, have a short pity party for yourself, eat some ice cream, and then go kick butt at stateU, it is awesome thereâ. IMHO, those are exactly the kind of realistic, practical, sensitive advice posts these kids need, and in fact deserve. Itâs both hard truth and useful counsel.
Posted with best intentions always. Have a great day, and good luck to those awaiting decisions this week!
Thanks for the warning. I have found this site to be extremely helpful.
I think thereâs a big difference between scolding in an untimely way for not having created a balanced, ârealisticâ (prudent) college list, and criticizing a student or parent for a sense of entitlement. How many times does it have to be said that no one has a ârightâ to a particular spot in any particular 4-year university or college, including (even) a member of a Special Category? The only post-admissions kinds of results which I find disturbing â and justifying a critical response â are the posts which assume that students who are complete strangers to the poster did not âdeserveâ to be admitted or âmustâ (somehow) be inferior to the poster. And you know that how, again? Disappointment does not justify cruelty and arrogance but deserves to be called out for what it is.
Of course, the other often predictable accusation is AA. (Yes, itâs always race; only an idiot doesnât understand that itâs always about race.)
If itâs sheer disappointment, confusion, and hurt â thatâs another matter. That calls for compassion, yes, and patience with the venting, as long as the venting doesnât spill over into destruction of others, especially entire groups or an entire applicant pool whose file is unknown to the poster and posterâs family.
As a counselor, Iâve already been disappointed in 2 rejections Iâve heard about, and Iâm sure Iâll be disappointed again in a few days. Thatâs life. Hopefully, sheâll accept one of the offers sheâs already received or one she might yet receive. I think she was beautifully suited to JHU in every way â grades, scores, major, research, community service, outside accomplishment, and essays â all of which I saw. But I trust that JHU made the decisions they needed to make. End of story. Whoever got admitted deserved to get admitted. Yes, deserved. Thankfully, the student has already shown herself mature enough to understand this, too. That makes me more proud of her than an admission would have.
As someone who got into college admissions blogs on the old Princeton Review site â the true wild west of discussion boards, where one personâs favorite school might be disparaged as TTT by someone else â I find this site to be very civilized. Thatâs a credit to the sponsors and moderators as well as the poster-participants.
I continue to post here b/c I think I can provide useful advice. My two kids are done with college(s) and have had interesting transitions into work and life. I like to tell stories about early and later career choices. As a university professor I have some insight into curricula and student experiences and outcomes. I also enjoy learning from what others say here.
One area where Iâm least up-to-date is the financial planning and financial aid side of college. We put our kids through college at a time when 529 plans had been operating for only a few years. It was our own âpassbook savings,â some help from the grandparents (EE bonds), and our current income that allowed our kids to get through their undergrad years without debt. What happened after they graduated, however, was a different matter, as they found their way into the working world, and in one case back to school for advanced training (and serious indebtedness). I try to provide insight on this kind of post-graduation move.
Good luck to all who post here, as well as to those who learn from or depend on them!
I feel like as adults we can use our own judgement regarding the input that we choose to provide to students . No need for reminders or admonishment.
I want to wish everyone best of luck today.
@carolinamom2boys said: âI feel like as adults we can use our own judgement regarding the input that we choose to provide to students . No need for reminders or admonishment.â
You can use your own judgement, of course. No one can make you not behave in a way you are determined to. Itâs an open forum.
But I am sure you are not suggesting that some get to give input to posters, but others should not, right? All posters â parents, students, and all â get to add what they think makes this a more valuable community. In that spirit I will continue to, with good intent.
Sometimes people just donât realize the effects of their words, and other times folks here take joy in kids disappointment, which to me is very sad. The former is easily resolved by pointing it out â the latter deserves to be criticized.
I echo Oldfortâs wish for the best for everyone today!