SDSU, CSULB, U Oregon, ASU, and U Colorado Boulder.
She got into some great schools - and tons of kids (both of mine in fact) choose their safeties.
You’ll find kids who play chess on Friday night at SDSU and kids who get drunk on Friday night at Stanford.
I keep reading stories on the CC of kids in at the UCs (and not just UCR/UCM) but rejected at SDSU. I’ve read similar about Long Beach too.
So I think your daughter is misguided in her comments.
But frankly, all her “safeties” are great schools - and she was accepted.
Love those that love you.
On the flip side, I’d ask - and this is more for others - why did she apply? If you think about it, it’s ridiculous that kids are applying to places that they eschew when it comes to decision time. If they were good enoguh to apply to, they should be good enough to attend.
Was your daughter admitted into the Webers Honors College at SDSU? Have her look that up.
I attended SDSU more than 40 years ago, and there was a huge party reputation then, and those that partied, didn’t stick around to graduate.
Now, it’s really tough to get in. I don’t know how her classmate got in unless he was a recruited athlete or musician? They make accommodations for kids that they need.
Also, have her look at the SDSU thread, on this site, and note all of the disappointed students, who were rejected with 4.0’s, in tough academic majors. It is not fun for those kids who had their hearts set on SDSU.
Would she prefer some of her WL schools? If so, she can try to get off their WL.
My older daughter was in the same situation when she applied to schools. She was only admitted to her safeties and one target. We did quite a bit of work and she did get off 2 reach schools. We knew it wasn’t certain, so I did help her to move on by getting excited of the schools she was accepted to. Yes, there was a lot of “why did I work so hard in high school if I am going to a school this idiot kid is going to.” (A lot of anger and venting)
D1 didn’t go to her top choice, but it turned out to be a very good fit for her.
Forums such as this are difficult because the rest of us don’t know your child or your personal circumstances. It sounds like there might be other areas to work on, and conversations to be held, before choosing a college.
One of my kid’s friends a couple of years ago turned down Berkeley to go to SDSU. Our neighbor’s daughter was dying for a SDSU acceptance. She was waitlisted and never got the nod. She’s at U of Oregon and loving it. I would be nudging her to think independently about the schools she has an option to attend, rather than make decisions based on what every one else is doing. It’s a good time to set goals based on what she wants and not what every one else wants. Good luck!
SDSU is starting to become a pretty desirable school to attend for OOS students.
you can’t beat the weather. Seriously.
Weather at SDSU is way better than ASU.
Some schools never shed their ‘party school’ reputation. But even kids at Harvard and Dartmouth party. But every ‘party school’ has plenty of kids who don’t.
Go look up some info about LLCs at SDSU (living learning community). Maybe if she was in a dorm that had students interested in her realm of major, other interests, etc., that might help a bit.
Refusing to consider a college because of ONE loser student from your HS is foolish when there’s, literally, 10s of thousands of other students at SDSU.
On the “Your College Bound Kid” podcast awhile ago, there was a topic discussed re: whether a student should do a gap year and re-apply to their reaches or attend 1 of the colleges they DID get admitted to. The general advice I gleaned from that podcast episode was that: (a) it depends on what the reaches were that the kid got rejected from; and (b) if all you’re going to do in your gap year is work a part time job and hang out, then no…don’t bother with a gap year to reapply to your reaches…enroll now at a school where you got accepted. They DID say, though, that if you wanted to postpone matriculation for a year, THAT is fine…this would mean accepting the ‘you’re admitted!’ offer from 1 of the schools you got into and ask if you can delay actual enrollment for 1 year.
What were her stats? Extracurriculars? What were the reaches she applied to which rejected her?
What was it about the reach schools which she really liked the most? Then do some digging and see if you can find resources at the colleges she DID get accepted to which would approximate that sort of thing.
Re: odds of getting admitted from a wait list -
a college’s common data set will probably have info on # of students who came off the wait list and got admitted. There’s wide variation from 1 school to another for how much (or little) movement there is on the wait list.
But it’s something for the OP to note so one could gauge whether pinning your hopes on a wait list will pan out.
Also, if any of the wait listed schools are also impacted with housing, one could end up later on dealing with a situation in which you got admitted, but now have housing challenges.
If any of the OP’s daughter’s reach schools are in state flagships (i’m going to assume that OP’s family is in CA)…like UCLA, for example, another option is that if the kid really has her heart set on going to UCLA…then attend community college and transfer.
These are not necessarily important indicators - but perhaps these statistics may help alleviate some of her concerns? From SDSU’s 2022-23 common data set:
27% of the first-year students were in the top 10% of their high school graduating class and 64% were in the top 25% (from among those schools who submitted ranks)
41% of the first-year students had a high school GPA of 4.0, and over 70% had 3.75+
Just as an FYI, some colleges are still accepting applications. University of Arizona is one and they offer good (and automatic) merit based on a published chart.
The crazy thing is that OP has a great list of schools - and U of A would be too - but there’s some ego there that is a bit off because frankly, unless OP is off the charts stats wise, there will likely be students at all four of these with equal and much better stats then they have.
SDSU, CSULB, U Oregon, ASU, and U Colorado Boulder.
Give her time to mourn and rant. Let her stay on waitlists if she wants to. Hopefully, she will come around to accepting this as the great opportunity it is, rather than a loss. While random forum folks telling her that there are smart kids there may make no difference, you can try.
She may feel better when she finds out she is not alone at her HS in being disappointed in her choices. And if she wants to, have her look into a gap year, but only if she can defer from SDSU. My nephew is doing a Americorp Gap Year, after a disappointing admissions season last year after deferring and will start college in the fall.
If you need to defer your admission for personal reasons, you can submit an application to appeal on the SDSU Office of Admissions site. Each appeal application will be evaluated on its merit on a case by case basis. International students who cannot be issued a VISA at this time due to travel or country-specific restrictions may also choose to defer enrollment through this process.
Students who defer must maintain eligibility (e.g. first-time freshmen may not enroll at another institution after graduating from high school). Otherwise, they are considered transfer students and must satisfy upper-division transfer admission criteria.
In most cases, we discourage students from deferring their admissions. SDSU has been actively investing in preparing a dynamic and meaningful learning experience that will allow our students to move towards their academic goals without interruptions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. With the benefit of innovative solutions that will provide students a rich experience beyond the classroom we are confident that we will deliver a robust in-person and virtual education experience for our students.
I grew up about 1 mile from SDSU. Went to sports camps and swam in the pool. My elementary school is in the shadow of the SDSU parking garage. The campus from 30 years ago looks nothing like the campus today. The investments in and around the campus are astounding. SDSU would not have been on my radar 30 years ago, but today I would be ecstatic to send one of my kids there. I know a handful of my S21’s friends that went there. None considered it a safety and all were thrilled to get the admission. It’s one of those schools you can party hard, study hard, chill at the beach or any combination.
SDSU is a very big school. There are PLENTY of smart, motivated kids who go there. The private school I work at usually sends at least a couple of kids there every year. From what I’ve heard they all do/have done well at SDSU and go on to have good jobs and successful lives. I haven’t heard of any who’ve failed or dropped out due to too much partying. I would say some are of the “work hard, play hard” type of student.
What about the honors program? That might be a good way for her to find her tribe…
Another smart student that I know who attended SDSU was my nail lady’s/facialist’s daughter. She was in National Honor Society and was a National Merit Finalist. She graduated SDSU with honors. Her mother got remarried and moved away and I lost touch, so I don’t know how he’s doing these days. Plenty of smart, motivated students go to SDSU.
A close relative of ours graduated from SDSU, so I’m biased and I think it’s a great school. The relative majored in biology with an emphasis in zoology and now is a bioresearch lab manager at a university. They really enjoyed their time at SDSU.
All of the other colleges that your daughter has gotten accepted to are also good schools. So it kind of becomes what sort of environment/vibe/place does she want to live for 4 years?
In terms of your daughter’s current attitude about the other schools she got accepted to, some food for thought to consider:
maybe direct her focus away from high acceptance rates to what makes the specific major program at each school slightly different or unique from the other colleges she got into.
does 1 school or another have better or worse job placement for her major after college?
do the colleges she got into have any marketing/comms/media studies special internship programs with local companies?
do the major(s) she got admitted to have a ‘pre-major’ whereas at some of the other colleges she got into, it was a direct admit (not a pre-major)?
does your daughter prefer in person classes or are online/hybrid classes ok as well? If she prefers mostly in person classes, but let’s say, that ONE school has a lot of online classes that her major would have to take, then that might help sway her in a particular direction.
ask her for specifics about what she means by “good sports and school spirit.” Does this = traditional big college football & basketball games to go to? If yes, almost all of the places she got into have that.
Have her look up more of the specifics of the major requirements for the majors she got admitted to. Are some of the required classes really hard to get? Only offered once a year?
Did she get into the Honors college at any of her choices?
UO and SDSU stand out to me, though SDSU is really hard to get into, and if she got into Barrett Honors at ASU it’d beat them both in terms of concentration of smart kids and challenge, but would have sunny weather and big sports (+ better dorms!)
A Gap Year is only useful if it’s stuctured (HS year abroad, Americorps…) and if the student does NOT re apply to the same colleges as before (odds of adcoms saying “oops we made a mistake last year” are pretty low at best.)
OP- I think gap years are really helpful if a kid’s focus changes midway through senior year (thought they wanted graphic design so applied with that in mind- now they want a strong history department and intermural ping-pong). But the gap years for “I hate my options so I’m going to work at Dairy Queen and try again” are of much less value. They don’t help a kid get into “better” colleges than the first go-round; they leave a kid feeling a little marooned socially; it’s much harder to get involved with EC’s that you care about when you are a teenager with a fulltime job and not someone living on a college campus.
I’d put that one aside for now.
I think SDSU represents a terrific option- but I’m not 18 and am not your D. However, there are slackers on every college campus, and kids who go to college to major in beer pong, and kids who sleep all day and play online poker all night everywhere.
in terms of concentration of smart kids and challenge, but would have sunny weather and big sports (+ better dorms!)