Early Decision Stress

<p>Thanks Researching for posting the link from Neurotic Parent, I’m so proud of me! And, I’m signing H up…
For anyone who didn’t see it, here is the link again:
[THE</a> NEUROTIC PARENT? : Rejection Rehab for Parents](<a href=“THE NEUROTIC PARENT™”>THE NEUROTIC PARENT™)</p>

<p>5 boys - our experiences are eerily similar as well as our reactions. Ds was waitlisted at a school that seemingly lets in a lot of kids, and he was also asked to move his ea to ed. I’m hanging onto any insight anyone possibly has about this. I nearly sent the ed application in with a threatening letter - lol…if you defer or reject this kid after this I will hunt you down myself. </p>

<p>Well meaning people in my inner circle - I only tell a limited amount of people irl - keep saying, of course he’ll get in, he’s such a great kid and so smart. I want to scream… do you know how many smart, great kids don’t get in!!!</p>

<p>WordWorld: I’ve taken great consolation fron your story. We’re moving on, but didn’t have the legacy connection so it’s much easier to let go. The only problem, though is little brother still tries to play “All Right Now” on rock band. He was given a stern glare by D and told to find a different song. We got a nice, cathartic rendition of “Holiday in Cambodia” instead.</p>

<p>I have posted this before. My nephew was rejected from Stanford (double legacy) EA. My sister panicked at the last minute, added JHU to his list. No, she actually applied for him because there was no extra essays. When the RD results came out, he was rejected by most schools, except for JHU. He is there now, loving it, and doing very well academically. </p>

<p>College application is like job application, you only need that one Yes, can´t go to more than one school.</p>

<p>I can attest when I started CC I had a way different attitude. In fact I joined CC as a pretty dissapointed parent.But it really turned out fine. I hope I can maintain my composure for next week, we shall see haha.</p>

<p>S deferred by Brown - UGH! Feeling sick…</p>

<p>Why must we be tortured this way??</p>

<p>megan, i know exactly how you feel. my S was deferred by brown on this date last year. despite experiencing a tough several days (thankfully, he heard back from 2 EA schools at the end of that week which admitted him), in the end, it was the best thing that happened to him. he had the rest of the year to think about his schools and by March, he was accepted to 12 of his 15 schools, including brown. don’t let this deferral do to you what it did to us – we began questioning his application, his stats, whether his list needed to be adjusted. as long as your S has a list that includes safeties/matches that he likes, you’re fine. and this deferral sheds no light on whether he’s a competitive candidate at peer schools. My S was accepted to other competitive schools RD, including another ivy (penn). hang in there. april will be here soon and before you know it, you’ll be dropping him off at college. look, a year ago today my S was deferred from Brown and today he took his first final there.</p>

<p>Megan, I am so sorry! My S was rejected outright at Stanford last week and that stings, but in many ways it is a relief not to be kept hanging. That being said, a deferral is a kind of backhanded compliment, your S is close enough to what they are looking for to keep around! Good luck in the Spring.</p>

<p>megan – so sorry about the deferral. I have heard of many kids who were deferred and wound up being admitted in RD. There is good advice on this site about things a student can do to boost their chances once they have been deferred.</p>

<p>DS rejected from his top-choice ED school exactly a year ago - he seemed like a great match; his GC was very enthusiastic about his chances…and the envelope was skinny. I hid it for a day because of exams! Initially, he was enormously disappointed and hurt, and I think it’s important to honor those feelings. A few days later though he bounded down the stairs and said that the the school’s decision was “obnoxious” and then he plowed into the rest of his apps. Handled it far, far better than I did! Ended up with many choices and is at the school he added last to his list and turned out to love the most. Things work out for a reason; just hang in there!</p>

<p>

Quite the contrary, at most schools (Georgetown is the only exception I know of), a deferral means you were a competitive candidate. If you hadn’t been you would have been rejected outright. It’s no fun being deferred, both my kids had deferrals and neither got into those particular schools in the regular round, (but one was Georgetown which doesn’t reject anyone EA.)</p>

<p>mathmom, given the eventual outcome today I guess you’d think that your DS1 ended up at the best place possible. At the time though, did he send in anything to update his application (the school in CA or another one)?</p>

<p>Yes, he (older son) stupidly hadn’t gotten around to getting his two outside recommendations. One was a professor for whom he’d written a program that was acknowledged in a paper and the other was from the computer company he worked for. His immediate supervisor kept dragging her feet, eventually the company president wrote the letter! Also both MIT and Caltech had a later deadlines for deferral updates than the regular applications so he waited until the end of January and told them about the results from the state level of Science Olympiad. In the end none of it was enough to tip the scales at the two EA schools, but I expect it was a good thing he got the extra recommendations for the other schools. </p>

<p>I don’t know if CMU was the best place possible, I think he’d have had a similar outcome at at least half a dozen places. In any event he got exactly what he wanted a very challenging, very focused education.</p>

<p>Younger son didn’t do anything. He got one EA acceptance from Chicago along with the Georgetown deferral and figured his application was good enough, and that it was much more about the culture of the school and the extra-selectivity at G. He didn’t really expect to get into Georgetown, and he wasn’t at all sure it was a good fit anyway.</p>

<p>My daughter told me that Georgetown actually sent out rejections this first round as they had so many EA applications. They could not pass all of them on to the RD round. wonder if this is true or rumor?. She has a friend who got deferred. another friend got deferred from his ED school and was in tears. he is a wonderful kid, great student, who has over come some major physical disabilities. This makes me so sad Admit him already!.</p>

<p>Congrats to those accepted and my sympathy to those rejected or deferred. My daughter was deferred and so the wait continues. Don’t know why the stress gets to me so much but I guess it’s about not wanting to see your child disappointed. I know she is sad, but I was glad to see her come down the next morning in a sweatshirt from her second choice school. We hear about that one (EA and not a sure bet) next week. Our coping strategies include watching many episodes of “Modern Family.”</p>

<p>I’m trying to look at the positives: she can now compare programs and offers from the schools where she does get in, and applying ED shows her first choice school that she has serious interest. Not looking forward to figuring out what else we should send them, though.</p>

<p>I know there were some excellent suggestions on this site (maybe the Ask the Dean section) in 2010 when our daughter went through this process. I know we followed them to the letter -
1 - Called each school and talked to the admissions dept counselor (often available online) for your region or portion of the alphabet. “Really excited about attending XYZ because of blah blah blah. Can you help me understand my deferral? Are there any items that you recommend I resubmit or enlarge upon?”
Based on these conversations, we
1 - Resubmitted much higher SAT scores from October, which were not available yet at the November 1 deadline for EA
2 - Dropped one school from our list after hearing that the average GPA had gone up substantially and it was now a reach - we still allowed them to consider her for regular decision, but withdrew our “psychic support” and withdrew from consideration completely when her first choice came through before the decision from the other program.<br>
3 - Submitted a recommendation from her main EC supervisor, which was not allowed/requested by the Common App forms initially
4 - Sent a letter to each school carefully highlighting experiences, attaching the SAT and EC recommendation letter, and reiterating her interest and why she wanted the school.<br>
5 - Applied to an additional safety school in December</p>

<p>Some schools were very forthcoming - one said simply “We do not comment on deferrals other than to verify that we did receive all your information.” Definitely worth a shot - the end result was that she got into her first choice school in RD, which was one of the most forthcoming on calling. I think that call and resulting materials may have been a tipping point, but it definitely took courage. She literally wrote out a script for each call, and sent the material directly to the person she talked to . When you take a broader life lesson view, she learned that although things don’t initially work out in your favor, positive constructive action can make a difference. </p>

<p>Make sure you carefully reread the deferral materials - several schools asked that a specific action be done (e.g. a form, an email) to indicate that you wanted your applicaiton reconsidered. If you did not resubmit by a (relatively rapid) deadline, you were not considered in RD. It would be easy to miss this in the frustration of the moment.</p>

<p>D heard from her first EA school, yes inhonors program. she is so glad to be in college one of her top picks</p>

<p>DS was accepted to his ED. It’s such a relief. It is tempered by the wait of one of his friends. And to all you parents on here who are dealing with rejections or deferrals, I’m thinking of you…I still have 3 more to go through this process and I know it won’t be this easy each time. I really do enjoy all the advice & support everyone gives. I always try to take pieces & store them away because I’m sure I’ll need them in the years to come! I have a junior now who is going to get my full attention (not sure he wants it!) So, thank you all for being so open. Good luck to all your kids!</p>

<p>S got into one of his EA schools. It’s so hard to decide how difficult admissions is because engineering is always more selective and very hard to find out specific information. The relief in this house is palpable!</p>

<p>Next up is the ed school, but with this in the bag it feels way less life and death now.</p>

<p>We are very fortunate D2 applied to 8 schools, we have heard from 4 and accepted to all. 3 honors admissions. so she had a stress free Christmas she knows she is in to some great schools. Wishing you all good news and happy kids!</p>