@saphireny The people in front of me are getting into UCSD, MIT, UChicago, UPenn, Columbia, Notre Dame, Stanford, John Hopkins, Cornell, Harvard, etc (thats what my smart friends and peers have gotten into when they applied ED/RD and some got likely letters). People who have lower GPAs and SATs are also getting into better schools than me, like BU, UCSB, UCSD, etc. A lot of people applied to the selective schools in the East. My parents are tax payers in California. I understand that I am not the strongest applicant in the world and I did not expect to get into ALL of the schools that rejected me, but I thought that I could have been able to get into 1-2 of them.
@123wombat I am going to try to figure out what happened as soon as school starts( spring break just began). When I asked for a letter of rec from a teacher, I actually gave them all the data from my common app and my essay and they thought that it was fine, but they were not happy with my original SAT score ( I didnt think it was awful).
@96blue I am going to take the next step and I will try my hardest to figure out what happened. I am not going to sit here and just get a string of rejections. I want my younger sibling ( who is applying is 2 years) and my extremely intelligent junior friends to be able to go through the process without getting the results that I am getting.
I would start involving your parents if you take the next step and talk to a GC or Principal. It seems your GC was intentionally blowing you off when you asked, and having parents involved could prevent that. Show them you’re serious.
@irlandaise I will try to figure everything out myself for a few days when I come back and if I can not find anything, then I will definitely bring my parents. Actually I was in a bad situation this year when one of my teachers was SUPER mean to me( she/ he would curse at me when I asked a simple question, like can you repeat the question). That teacher purposely was failing half of my reading quizzes, EVEN THOUGH I was correctly answering all the problems (she/he would take ridiculous amounts of points off for misspelling something, etc). My parents came in and they wanted to know why she was grading me the way she was and they talked to her for 2 hours straight and I ended up getting the lowest A- possible. If I dont get answers or any help when I come back after spring break, I will definitely get my parents involved.
Rejected from Vandy:( It was my dream school. They had a very nice rejection letter, so I am not super crushed by the decision. I guess it was a long shot school for me anyways. I will try to get into Vandy for grad school 
@coffeelife Dude you can always go to UCI, work hard for a year, and transfer to some even better college if you wish to. This is not the end. And who knows you might love UCI. And all the best the other decisions.
In any case you are in a much better place than me, wait listed at UIUC and Purdue for CS , rejected at Georgia Tech, UCLA and Caltech. At least you have somewhere to go. Cheer up.
@michaelite I am really really sorry about your position. Before I got into UCI, I was very upset, but I am not that upset anymore, since UCI has a nice Econ program. I dont know if you are waiting for colleges, but I wish you good luck!!! 
@coffeelife I am waiting indeed. UMich, Swarthmore, Cornell, Dartmouth and Stanford. In short, pretty much all my high reach schools except for UMich I guess. I was wait listed at my safeties, though now I look back at it, which fool assumes UIUC and Purdue to be his safeties. Anyway, all the best.
May I interject, fellas? I was recently rejected to Purdue (Originally waitlisted…) I feel your pain, as I’m still waiting on a couple of schools, but only got into SUNY Binghamton…
@coffeelife I decided to put my 2 cents here. I would strongly advise you not to go to the principal’s office with and/or without parents. I would also recommend not to complain to the counselor or about the counselor. If possible, try to be super nice. The counselor will never admit any wrong-doing and can possibly still hurt you even more. HS college counselors are very inept bunch and are out there with a sole purpose of doing as little as possible for their students .
I volunteered at my kids counseling office for 6 months, specifically because my kids could not get anything resolved (schedule, classes etc) and what I witnessed there was just shocking. I was frankly stunned to see how counselors cover up for each other, how they use parents help, choose favorite students, disappear from their office for hours and even go as far as to let parents take official PSAT exam copies, which must be guarded at all times.
HS guidance counselors are worse than useless, they are dangerous!
They complain all the time about workload and lack of resources, but there are countless first hand accounts of failure to guide students. In states like California students have some of the worst counselors: student ratio, heavy administration… There’s serious miscommunication between departments and offices. Counselors apparently don’t know to obtain easily accessible information.
Do not go to the principle’s office! The principal is a head of heavy administration where students are a mere afterthought. Nothing will be done…
@coffeelife As for Vandy, it’s considered a “Southern-Ivy.” I think they had the lowest acceptance rate this year, so don’t beat yourself up. I wish you the best of luck, and keep us updated! 
@collegeplease123 I thought that the Purdue rejection decision was the worst and that one made me feel awful for a loong time! I am ok with Vandy, since I knew it was a long shot! I have a few more decisions and I will definitely keep you guys updated!
@lanaana I will probably talk to a teacher or go to someone who is not the GC, since I am suspicious that they are a big reason that I was rejected. Actually, my GC also refused to write my friend a letter of rec and my friend finally convinced her by crying, like I did. Another example of my GC being extremely unhelpful was when my friend asked a question about her Dartmouth application, since she needed help with the “outside” letter of rec( coach, instructor, etc) and our GC responded to her and said “Sorry, please ask someone else for help” and then she basically shut my friend down. She also refuses to talk to students, unless they make an appointment WAY ahead of time ( min 2 days, if you are extremely lucky, then 1 day) and she is just rude. I actually had a very nice counselor before this and last year she called me in just to tell me I was a good student and she told me to keep it up. Its so sad how I was left with such a rude GC right when I was applying to college 
@coffeelife Also, I think I have the same type of GC as you… Never helpful, always rude, and yells at you whenever you have something to ask. You know what I did? I requested that I change counselors, along with the complaint of my parents. I highly recommend you do that, since my new GC is trying to do everything she can to get me into schools I might get rejected to, like NYU! I’m rooting for ya, girl! 
@coffeelife I am sorry to hear all that, but it sounds very typical. I think your previous GC was more of the exception - try to reach out to her and see if she can help or give some advice. But be careful how you phrase it. It is awful that students are helpless and are at the mercy of their counselors and administration. Not much you can do right now, but for some of your friends and relatives, who are still at school, my advice is to have a parent volunteer at the GC office. It almost like a miracle - kids of such parents get ANY schedule they want, any help they need. Also, students can come and offer their help - sort things out, for example. Counselors LOVE this kind of help, because they don’t want to do it themselves and they get to know and remember you. Sorry, I know it is not a pretty advice, but it is the one that works…
@collegeplease123 Most schools would never let ANYBODY
change counselors. If you were allowed to do so - highly unusual. Once you start asking to change the counselor, the relationship with the present one is ruined forever. Got to be smart about it.
@collegeplease123 THANK YOU!! I might request to change counselors after I hear all of my college decisions. I remember 3 years ago, I was switching school districts and I was switching from a pretty bad one to an amazing one, since my mom got a job in that city. I lived in a worse city, since my parents were extremely poor most of my life and I could not afford to live in the nice city, since the houses were extremely expensive there. The district that I lived in had a lot of highschool drop outs, drug usage and the scores in the district were SO low! I was the polar opposite of the stereotypical person, since I was concerned about my grades and I never, ever was involved with bad people (the bad people actually made fun of me). So I got a little off track, but what happened was that I met the counselor at the school before I started and I started picking my classes. I picked AP Art history, English Honors, Pre-Calc, AP chem and the required classes. She said “oh I am sorry, you can not take those classes, I dont think you can handle them”. She put me in Avid ( I dropped it later), English, Algebra 2, Chem Comm ( easier version of chem, basically chem for slackers). I begged to be put in normal classes and she finally said “Sorry coffeelife, YOU ARE TOO STUPID”. That crushed me and I wrote a HUGE letter to the district, along with other kids who were harassed by her and she was fired ( she really deserved it). I am sooo unlucky with counselors LOL.
@lanaana I will ask other students to see how hard it is to change counselors. Well I guess I will think about the GC switching thing over break, since there are some risks to it.
@coffeelife I am rooting for you. From a fellow senior, good luck!
@college123 Same here!!! Good Luck!!!
I had no idea you had a younger sibling. You have to be more careful then, should not burn any bridges especially as she is already in your school
I do not buy the short straw, sure with reaches but not with ALL of schools that should have been targets
The kid that got into all Ivies was an URM who played a musical instrument and got a 2250 and was from a disadvantaged school district. Not that surprising
@saphireNY the damage has been done, so there is no use to complain about her. My sibling has a different GC, but I know that they talk amongst each other, so starting an argument would be bad. I am from an advantaged school now, but the schools see that I was at the disadvantaged school for a year. I will still try to find out what happened, but I will be careful, so I wont hurt my siblings chances.