I have a little bit of a different take. He must have applied to A LOT of these schools RD, correct? Because a lot of these schools don’t have EA, and you can only apply to ONE school ED1 and ONE school ED2 at most.
In light of this, I feel like it is WAY too early to feel dejected. OF COURSE your son stands a chance with a 1460 SAT and that stellar list of extracurriculars! I am a faculty member at a college that is a rival of Muhlenberg, and I think he stands an excellent chance there. I also think he stands a very good chance of hitting some of these other liberal arts colleges, especially since a few of them get more applications from women than men and try to keep the ratio no more skewed than 60-40. I’m not saying he’s going to get all of them, but he doesn’t need all of them. If he winds up with four solid options, he should feel fabulous about himself.
My guess is that in addition to UMASS, he gets offers a minimum of 3-4 others…and possibly quite a few more. Some of the most likely ones, statistically, are:
Muhlenberg (62% acceptance rate)(student body 61% female)
Union College (39% acceptance rate)
College of the Holy Cross (38% acceptance rate)(student body 52% female)
Trinity College (34% acceptance rate)
*Acceptance rates as of 2018, according to US News.
But given that it is only March 12th, there is no reason to think there isn’t a nice juicy acceptance coming for him even from one of his reach schools. I think it’s hard to feel upbeat at this tense time, especially when also getting a deluge of bad news about school and extracurriculars being cancelled due to COVID 19. (I’m assuming this is happening to many of our seniors. It certainly is happening to my daughter.) Keep hope alive!
And make sure to report back when you get good news. I really think it’s going to happen.