<p>Six applications, six wait lists... finally all the decisions were in by late Monday. It was heartwrenching to watch DD in pain, tears and self doubt over the weekend. This was her first real defeat in her short life of 13 years.</p>
<p>DD had well-rounded and outstanding credentials, and we really believed that at least one of them would accept her. In the end, FA barrier was too tall to overcome, and I made it worse by asking significantly more aid than EFC indicated. (It was not a greed but for good reasons, but now I keep kicking my stupid self.)</p>
<p>Spent the morning busy calling admission offices to let them know that DD would want to remain on WL and be considered with or without FA to get off WL. The former was no brainer but the latter was not the decision we made lightly. Right now DW and I don't have much idea but we're resolved that somehow we'll find a way if she gets eventually accepted.</p>
<p>Sharing, it’s a difficult time for so many. </p>
<p>SO sorry to hear about the WLs, but it sounds like you did the right thing for your family. If ChoatieMom is out there, perhaps she can share with you some of the things her family did in order to pay for her DC’s schooling (full pay, though they initially thought they could not do it). There may be other parents as well, with similar experiences.</p>
<p>Good luck to you and do let us know if there are any late-hour acceptances!</p>
<p>I wrote a long post on WL strategies on the Wait List thread, in case that might be of some use to you. Good luck. It is terrible to be in limbo --I hope good news comes quickly!</p>
<p>Thank you all for your support. I will share a fuller story of what happened when it’s appropriate.</p>
<p>etondad: Last night I read whole 20 pages of the WL thread, including yours. Thanks for your contribution. I clipped out some encouraging posts and gave them to DD to cheer her up.</p>
<p>ChoatieMom: I really appreciate your sharing of personal story. I think we have similar attitude to money and debt, but let me PM you later–I have to run for the concert by DD.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear about your DD, SharingGift. Lots of good advice here. I will just add - don’t beat yourself up about asking for more aid than the EFC indicated. We asked for more aid than the EFC indicated too and all of the schools my son got into gave us more than we asked for. It actually made me wonder if they even look at what we offered to pay because they asked us to pay less than we said we could. So that’s probably not the reason, or at least not the only reason she was WL’ed. My guess is too many great applicants like your DD and not enough spots to take them all.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing this SharingGift (well named :)). I am sure there are many more reading this than have replied and are grateful they are not alone. As I’ve said before, I wish people had been this candid when we were going through it.</p>
<p>Sharing, I am so sorry and my heart aches for you and your DD. Try not to blame yourself as I have heard of a lot of families that, like Taurusmom, asked for a certain amount that was less than EFC, and got what they asked for or even a bit more. I hope she gets of WL!</p>
<p>I know it’s heartbreaking now but in the long run BS decisions are not going to ruin a kid’s life. Your child should be proud of those wait lists even though it’s not the desired outcome.</p>
<p>Those on the WL may yet come off. Yes, I know the chances are slim but there are wait lists because they do sometimes actually need to take someone from the wait list. I would think that six wait lists increases your chances of finally getting an offer.</p>
<p>And whether it’s a FA issue, or some other thing that you’re sure you did wrong or could have done better, don’t go there, unless it’s in the context of how you may do things differently next time, if there is a next time.</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that what you put for your expected contribution is why your child was not accepted, but I have absolutely nothing concrete to base that on. Only the admissions committee really knows, and if your child is on the WL it’s an indication that the school feels that they would be a good addition to the student body (at six different schools!). There are not enough places for everybody.</p>
<p>Out of six schools, when you called and said you were interested even without FA, none of them said she could get in? I assume you know that if you forego FA this year, you’re giving it up for all subsequent years?</p>
<p>My experience with waiting lists has been a positive one. I’ve been on three, and received and accepted offers of admission from two. The first was for graduate school: WL at one school and accepted at the other. I called the school where I was wait-listed and asked where I was on the list, I was number 2, for a program that had five slots in total. It seemed unlikely, so I went on with my life wondering how I was going to come up with the tuition for the other program, and still cover my living expenses. I came back to the city from a weekend away and there was a letter, I’d been accepted to the school I’d been WL at, with a full tuition scholarship, and a stipend. I would have to relocate to another city, but a free graduate school education at an Ivy League college. Not only was it a blindside, it was a no brainer. Ironically, it was the same school I was WL’d at as an undergraduate. At 18, I didn’t know how to advocate for myself, nor did I realize that I could have lobbied for deferred admission, which is what I found out when I was teaching undergraduates, later on. There were many transfer students in my classes who’d been on the WL and negotiated with the university for admission, a semester later.( Times have changed, and this may not be an option anymore.) I also received a fellowship after being wait-listed initially, I’d almost forgotten about it. One evening near the end of July, I came home, and had a message on my answering machine. I was offered a residency in NH for the rest of the summer, another blindside.</p>
<p>My son has been WL at two schools, rejected at two. I knew this was coming. He needs FA, but that’s not the reason he was WL. Nor is it because he can’t do the work. I think the schools got it right, and that the WL’s are generous, based on his performance throughout the application process. He was ambivalent, and made choices that directly influenced this outcome. If you want it, you’ve got to chase it, the applicant does, not the parent – that’s one thing I’m certain of – the more initiative the child takes, the better the outcome. </p>
<p>Confidence is attractive, desperation is not; it’s not productive to be overly attached to a result, or have high expectations in the WL game. Both my brother and his wife were WL’d (he may even have been rejected) at the boarding schools they attended – back in the dark ages (the eighties). Neither of them went to Ivies or Grad School and they’re living the dream. It happens.</p>
<p>@allooknac’s post bears repeating. We’ve all seen parents come on the boards who got a shock the second year after they chose to forgo FA during the application process in the hopes of having a better shot. They didn’t realize that FA is often budgeted by class and that if you are a full pay the first year, you are accepted on the basis you will be a full pay in all subsequent years (unless there is a drastic change in family circumstances that didn’t exist at the time of application). </p>
<p>So tread carefully. Offering to come up with $50,000 really means for every year your child is in attendance. If that’s out of the question, offer what you really can stretch to pay per year for four years because the “incidentals” and unstated costs (airfare, school trips, books, etc.) add a lot on top of that initial tuition bill.</p>
<p>One thing that I like about DD is, however difficult a period of cry and misery is, she gets back up right on track and starts to deal with the new situation. I have to give the credit to my better half for this trait;) While we still try to navigate this new chapter, I wanted to make a couple of clarifications.</p>
<p>First, I understand if we forego FA this year, we wouldn’t be placed back into FA pool for the second year. No, we don’t have Aunt Tilly nor a pile of cash under the mattress nor a winning lottery overnight, but we are willing to make drastic restructuring of family finances and retirement. Believe me and this decision was not made lightly. However, it was a matter of how far you’re willing to go after your priority.</p>
<p>The reason that I thought FA made the difference was because we happened to have a “control” in this cruel experiment. The control was another applicant from DD’s current school to the same BS, the same grade and the same sex. We knew a lot more about this student than those strangers asking for chances on this board, and I can tell you that she was at least a notch or two below when it comes to academics, EC and recognition. But she did have richer parents, didn’t applied for FA, and got in. It was a painful moment for DD to learn a real-life lesson about the real world.</p>
<p>First, your daughter sounds like a great kid…faced with disappointment, dust off and keep moving. Kudos.</p>
<p>Second, my son was placed on a WL for boarding school (entering 9th grade). When we didn’t hear back by mid-late April we wrote it off…only to get a phone call in the middle of May with news that he was in, and with enough FA to make it possible. It does happen.</p>
<p>Three, I wouldn’t feel badly about your FA estimate. Who knows exactly what was considered? You may be pretty confident that this peer in her school was “a notch below”…but for alot of these schools it’s not all about cherry picking the “best and the brightest”. Sometimes (dare I say I hope more often) it’s about putting together a class of students that represents a wide range of skills and talents and characters.</p>
<p>Agree with others that the EFC estimate almost certainly does not make a difference. I’ve never seen even the remotest connection between what we’ve said we could pay and the final FA offer from schools. I don’t even give it much thought at this point, to be honest. Obviously, though, there is a big difference between asking for FA and not asking for it, and I agree that that probably made a difference. </p>
<p>I agree with Exie about proceeding carefully. It’s so hard to not make the big sacrifice in the midst of the heartbreak. Another option is to wait out the waitlists, with the option of applying again next year. Sometimes a year less of FA commitment seems to produce a more positive result–or means three rather than four years of full pay.</p>
<p>I have also known a few families that were waitlisted, all needing FA, who received news in April thru August that they now had a spot and with aid. Do NOT give up hope!</p>
<p>I am trying to write this without coming off as cold or hard, but if you have the capacity to renogotiate your finances to contemplate 4 years of full pay, I think most schools expect you to make those changes ~ however “drastic.” And I think you would be shooting yourself in the foot if you called and asked them to reconsider DD’s application as a full pay.</p>
<p>This is coming from someone who had to usher her DD through an “accepted but waitlisted for FA” situation. It was crushing, but she learned a lot from the experiece. She applied again the following year and was accepted, this time with the FA we needed. </p>
<p>Hard as the initial few months were, we would tell you it was absolutely worth the wait.</p>
<p>My heart is with you and your DD. It is not a failure. Help her take it as another experience. Whether or not she is accepted later, she will have become a much stronger person.</p>
<p>Look, if you can afford for your daughter to enroll as a full pay student, then she can most certainly find a spot for next year, either at one of the schools she’s already applied to or at any of a number of other schools you haven’t even considered yet. There is ALWAYS room at the table for full pay kids!</p>
<p>So, did you “shoot yourself in the foot”? I don’t think so. It was your best shot at finding a space for her. But while you’re waiting, you should seriously consider if there are other schools that you might be willing for her to apply to, in the event that none of the WL schools pan out.</p>