"It will all work out in the end": reflections from experienced parents

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Tiz that time of year that our dear Ds & Ss have hopefully gotten in somewhere. Perhaps not where they originally desired, and now we parents are fretting over their decisions where to attend and whether they will fit in.</p>

<p>So, as the thread title alludes, I thought it would be good to share some stories from the parents who have been through this 'phase' that, indeed, things do really work out in the end....or at least that's the perspective I now have.</p>

<p>In my own case S1 graduated HS in 07 & now attends Colgate....wasn't his first choice, but he now loves the place, and we do too. Hard to imagine him anywhere else. D, a current HS senior, is weighing her options, none being her ED school, but she has since 'matured' and is very excited about her possibilities. I was a little surprised to hear her say, recently, that she knew the fit thing was as much the school's determination as her own, so she is at peace with her many rejections! As she was #2 in our family, we were much more laid back about the whole process, and I think that helped her realize that it would all work out, as her parents have confidence that it will.</p>

<p>So, please share any snippets, pro or con, on 'it will all work out in the end.'</p>

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<p>DS1 who wanted to go to MIT all of his life was rejected. He went to CMU with a heavy heart, excelled, and in now in Grad school at MIT.</p>

<p>DD fell in love with Amherst. Again, it did not happen the first time around. Went to good state school, did very well, transferred in.</p>

<p>We thank higher powers that DS2 got into his ED school. We were tired by that point…but it really is all about the happy ending and I’m convinced the lessons learned and the perseverance gained are invaluable.</p>

3

<p>S (UCLA’05) was rejected by CMU ED and RD. He didn’t visit UCLA until he was accepted and immediately fell in love with the place. Looking back, even he admits that UCLA was a much better fit for him in terms of the design work that he does. Plus, he’s had a lucrative career since graduation, even in this economy. Of course, he was going through all kinds of angst between December and April! :)</p>

<p>Fortunately, D was accepted by her ED1 school and will be graduating next month.</p>

4

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<p>PC, in my humble opinion, Chicken2 has discovered the secret of the application/admission process, if not the Holy Grail to happiness. Despite all the talks of discrimination by colleges or adcoms, crapshooting decisions, and outright mistakes, when looking around me and reading stories from people I do not know, I tend to think that the very selective schools do a VERY good job in selecting their freshman class. Obviously, considering the number of transfers or dropouts, there are exceptions. </p>

<p>I believe that students (and their families) tend to focus a tad too much on the high reaches and reaches, not enough on the matches, and definitely not enough on their TRUE safeties. Years ago, I started posting about the need to build an application from the bottom-up and spend MOST of the time researching schools in identifying the safeties one would be happy to attend … and be able to afford. Unfortunately, I often see the opposite, because most prefer to discuss (and research) the schools that are on almost everyone’s dream list. </p>

<p>When early and regular decisions come out, it is obvious that many dreams are shattered. What else could happen when schools accept 7% of their applicants, including a good number of hooked ones. When schools that some describe as excellent but hardly elite (as in a post about my alma mater yesterday) are rejecting (or not accepting) every FIVE out of SIX applicants, it’s a given that students who develop a sensible list of reaches, matches, and safeties SHOULD get a fair share of rejections. </p>

<p>However, if the list was composed with that elusive idea of “good fit” the applicants WILL start notice how much BETTER the schools that extended an invitation DO look. An additional visit where other admitted students show up should also reveal how nicely one fits. On the other hand, the schools that were not as debonaire appear less interesting, all the way to force students to ask themselves, “What was I thinking?”</p>

<p>On a personal note, I had the great fortune to attend a school that seemingly had been built for me. I really believe that there is such school for everyone, despite that in April and May of one’s senior HS year many students feel shortchanged by a process that is unjust and blind. </p>

<p>X</p>

5

<p>So far so good. Son had MIT as a first choice, but ended up at CMU. He had two good safeties, so it didn’t really matter that all his reaches (even CMU since he only applied in computer science) were quite reachy. I think he would have been fine anywhere, but I actually think that in many ways CMU may suit him better than MIT would have.</p>

6

<p>Yes, all too often kids pick schools on who they’d like to be, get rejected and end up going someplace where they don’t have to live up to that image and become the person they truly are. Happiness is so much easier when you don’t have to worry about what to do when you do get that first choice.</p>

7

<p>My kids are both happy at USC. S had considered it his safety and got great merit aid, for which we parents are extremely grateful. He has had some amazing opportunities there and made some great friends. He will be working at NASA this summer, an internship on robotics, which I believe is partly due to where he’s currently attending school.
D had a much more meandering path–she was forced to graduate HS a year before intended by getting a GED & then entering CC. She was accepted as a transfer at USC thru her grit & determination, & is very happy there. That was her one & only college application!</p>

8

<p>I wrote this for my older daughter:</p>

<p>Fencing Was Her Downfall</p>

<p>Northampton Gazette – January 27, 2013</p>

<p>Northampton, MA: Smith College graduate Myrtle Sligh remembers the day that she began her long slide down to homelessness, alcohol and drug addiction, and despair.</p>

<p>“It all began with my B minus in fencing,” she said, clapping her gloved hands together in an oversized black down jacket, and rocking from leg to leg trying to keep warm in the sub-zero temperature. “If only I’d taken it pass-fail.”</p>

<p>Sligh, a 2008 Smith College graduate, seemed on her way to a brilliant career as a musicologist and composer. But the seed of her destruction was planted with the B minus she received in the second term of her first year at Smith.</p>

<p>“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she shivered in the icy wind, “I was always pretty klutzy, and I had just gotten my first pair of glasses.”</p>

<p>Sligh maintained virtually a straight-A average during the rest of her career at one of the nation’s leading women’s colleges. Her choral piece “Arut Perum Jyothi”, a setting of a Tamil religious lyric, was even nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. But the B minus in fencing destroyed much of her inner confidence, even as she received praise from all of her teachers.</p>

<p>“I really didn’t believe them,” said Sligh, “I thought only the fencing teacher was really being honest with me.” Sligh became addicted to herbal anti-depressants, and later, a penchant for cheap red wine that she picked up at the Smith College Center in Florence, Italy, where she spent her junior year.</p>

<p>Sligh’s cumulative grade point average left her .000027 from being named valedictorian in 2008. Her graduate school applications, however, betrayed her insecurities, and she was rejected from each of her top three choices, ending up with an acceptance to Muskogee State University in Bilgewater, Oklahoma, where she spent only one semester before the trauma caused by her B minus got the better of her.</p>

<p>“I had nightmares every night about being stabbed in the eye, and the foil going straight through and scrambling my brain cells,” she stated. “Still do. And it gets even worse when I try to work. I hear voices singing, “You are not worthy. You are not worthy.” And I think they are right.”</p>

<p>Sligh returned to Northampton, where she was employed briefly by Pioneer Valley Transportation Authority to compose music that would drive loitering teens away from the transit station. Sadly, they seemed to like the music, causing the PVTA much grief, and eventually earning Sligh her pink slip. She has lived under the overpass in downtown Northampton for the last three years, which she shares with three dogs and a stuffed goose name Tegucigalpa. She says she and the goose have seen better days together. “I really was once a very happy person,” she stated, “but look at me now.”</p>

<p>Reached for comment, her mother Marjorie Finkelbacher, R.N., noted, “I told her to take it pass-fail, but she just wouldn’t listen.”</p>

<p>Now Sligh spends most of every day at the corner of Pleasant and Main Streets in Northampton, watching new generations of Smith students pass her by. In front of her on the snowy pavement, she keeps a little tin cup, and a sign scrawled in green ink on cardboard, reading, “Please help. Will compose for food.”</p>

9

<p>DD is at Rice which was not even on her radar until I suggested it. It did not make her #1 until we eliminated previous #1 for financial reasons and she went to visit… She fell in love with it and cannot see herself anywhere else right now, including former #1…</p>

10

<p>Another MIT undergrad rejection here. S1 wanted MIT but went to Case WRU instead, graduating in a few weeks. Who would have thought how involved he would become on campus teaching, leading an honorary fraternity, growing as a young man? Major disappointment that MIT said no, but got over it. Did apply to MIT for grad school with the hopes of telling them NO this time. That was his “revenge.” </p>

<p>Am hoping S2’s choice works out as well for him. Will find out in 4 years!</p>

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<p>I’m not a parent, but my parents have really toned down the pressure for me the past 4 years. My brother didnt get into his top choices, and they have learned that anywhere is really good. That said, I find that though parents may be relaxed, its usually the kids who give themselves the pressure.</p>

<p>Also, even though my brother didnt get into any Ivies of Ivy equivalents, he’s happy as a pig in **** in his college and has grown to love his school.</p>

12

<p>I agree that is does all work out in the end, but I think that’s because we humans have a great ability to rationalize and made do with what we’ve got. After all, what choice do we have? The alternative is to be miserable for four years and then also, for the rest of our life, be embarassed or resentful of where we went. The alternative – acceptance (or resignation?) – is much easier. </p>

<p>I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, simply that our mind does what it has to do in order to be satisfied.</p>

13

<p>These are great to hear!</p>

<p>Any stories of parents who ‘stretched’ to co-sign some high, undergrad debt & it all worked out in the end?</p>

<p>That would help w/a few of my sleepless nights!!</p>

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<p>Two years ago, my S did not get into any of the three schools he applied to. He went to a nearby college for a year, got a 3.8 GPA and started a business.
I have to say if he went to one of these schools I don’t think he would have start his Co.
He is now at one of the school that rejected him and is doing very well.
He is going to intern at a major Co. this summer, and plans to freelance in his free time.</p>

15

<p>“All works out in the end.”</p>

<p>Yes, CC experiences are rarified air indeed! Actually I agree with Papa Chicken’s premise, as supported by responding posters. The offspring of CCers are incredibly fortunate to have smart, knowledgeable and supportive parents. It’s not surprising that these kids tend to excel. But there are plenty of kids in the third and fourth HS deciles who get bad advice (or none at all) and suffer for it. My D has two classmates whose lives look nothing like my D’s. I don’t know which is the sadder story; the classmate whose (single) mom convinced her she shouldn’t go to college, or the classmate who got such lousy advice that she chose a wholly inappropriate university and promptly flunked out.</p>

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<p>My B/C+ child with two ecs(German and Anime Club) was in his junior year agonizing over whether he could possibly get into his dream school. (Vtech). A wise older college buddy of his put his arm around my son’s shoulders and said, “Dude, you’re gonna be happy whereever you go; you’re not gonna be living with your parents!!”.</p>

<p>With that advice, my son applied and got into 6 out of 7 schools. He did not get into Virginia Tech, but by the time the rejection came my son could have cared less. He picked one of the six and is doing just fine. He loves his classes and clubs and is very happy to not be living with us anymore!</p>

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<p>Well, because D was forced to apply as a transfer to expensive private U since her HS grades were so poor, she saved us enough money so it wasn’t as huge a hurdle to pay for her U–hopefuly 2.5 years instead of 4 & no HS tuition for her senior year. CC was so inexpensive it was nearly free–books cost more than tuition & fees. S chose the U that gave him significant merit $ & a campus job for junior & senior year to help him earn spending $. We think of her transferring as similar to a merit award in that it reduces the total cost of her college ed.</p>

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<p>S1 got into his dream school w/merit $ (<em>my</em> dream) and he’s a freshman there and loves it–but the school he attends was not the highest ranked of the schools he got accepted to. He knew exactly the program he wanted and he has been extremely extremely happy with his choice. When I mentioned over the weekend, how lucky he was to be at his great university–and as happy as he is, could he imagine if he had gone somewhere else? he replied without one second of hesitation: I’d have been really happy at any of those schools.</p>

<p>I think he’s right. We build up the anticipation of experiences, fantasies really, and give them all sorts of weight, but there isn’t a black & white answer. I just hadn’t realized he was more mature than I am already.</p>

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<p>My daughter is in a bind. She can’t choose between two schools, and I don’t know how to help her. She’s choosing between a campus she loves, where she feels safe, happy, and will fit in well, but it does not have a nursing major (she may want to be a nurse), and a school that has a nursing program but is busy, loud, crowded, potentially dangerous at night, and not so peaceful. I suggested that she she could go to the campus she loves, get a BS in biology, and get a second BS in nursing locally upon graduation (lots of schools near home offer such programs) i.e., an extra 15 months of education. She has to choose soon. What do other parents think – campus safety vs. good programs? This was not an issue with her older sister.</p>

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<p>vaparentoffour–I would go with the “experience” as she has a plan (the extra 15 months) that could work should she stay with her potential plan to be a nurse. She could change her mind and want to be a PA or an MD and the biology major could be an asset for any of those choices. The everyday experience will matter and contribute to her growth for the next 4 years.</p>