This is gonna sound really awful, but I felt the need to just unleash it because it’s really bothering me. So, throughout the whole college application season, I had to meet with my guidance counselor at least once a week and he would email me and it gave me so much anxiety because we’ve talked about the colleges that I want to apply to and all of my college plans, but he refused to listen to any of them and thought I was just insane. Fast forward to after I finished submitting in my application, I ended up forcing myself to tell him that Cornell was the school I could see myself belonging in (I had to say this because, frankly, this was the only Ivy League school he thought I might even have a slight chance of getting in) and I ended up applying to it Early Decision and I got accepted. I’m very grateful for the acceptance, but it wasn’t what I wanted at all; I wanted to apply to my dream schools (Harvard, Yale, or Princeton) and, honestly, these were the schools that I spent so much time researching and watching videos on my free time so see how residential life is like and how the campus vibe is and everything. However, my counselor never believed I would be able to get into any of these schools (even for RD) despite me knowing that I, at least, wanted to give it a try and see what happens. The thing that I was lacking was a great SAT score, but I figured that if the dream school I decided to apply to would reject me, then I would work harder to improve that score and my entire application for RD. No matter how much I tried to advocate for myself, I just felt like crying everytime he kept making me feel awful and emphasizing that my family doesn’t have a lot of money, that I need to find a school that’s guaranteed to accept me and will offer me great aid, and that it shouldn’t be a school that’s impossible to get in. Heck, he was ready to force me to apply into a state school near us if I didn’t say I wanted to try with Cornell. Eventually, I just became tired of it all and stopped convincing him to letting me try for my dream schools. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Sometimes, I wonder what it’d been like if I had a counselor who was supportive of me and listened to the intent and reasoning of my plans. I crafted it in complete details and spent so much time on it and it was just disregarded immediately. Having accepted to Cornell on a binding agreement, I feel like I’m forcing myself to feel excited. Don’t get me wrong; I truly believe Cornell is a great school and can offer me a great education, but all I wanted was to try and take a chance because it’s what I’ve worked on my entire life. Things change and I know that, but it hurts. It hurts that I never could’ve known what the outcome would be. What hurts even more is learning that he has let a fellow classmate apply to a plethora of competitive colleges without any question and doubt.
I know that Cornell will be great, but something inside me just wants to show my counselor that I had the ability to get into my dream schools and prove him wrong. Maybe I’ll transfer or do it for graduate school; however, what I do know is that I will be so glad to finally get out of high school. Can any of y’all relate? Also, some of you may say that I’m overreacting and being ungrateful and I completely understand that; however, I just wanted to express my genuine feelings about the situation I faced with my counselor and how personally miserable it makes me feel right now. The problem here is not that I got into Cornell, but that he didn’t listen to any of my suggestions (which made me feel alienated and disrespected) and wanted me to do everything his way. Being the timid, anxious, and depressed person that I am, all I wanted to do in the end was just get over it already. It didn’t even matter where I got into anymore; all that mattered was that it was over.
Well, you could turn down the ED and apply to other school next year. No one can force you to go to college now.
But do it because you want to go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton, not because you want to show your GC that he was wrong. You’ll be applying on your own because you’ll have graduated and your GC will have moved on.
My kids didn’t meet with their GC once, not once, about college selection. They applied on their own with nothing from the guidance office (we ordered transcripts and picked them up to mail in). You, your parents, and the GC had to sign the ED application. You didn’t have to apply anywhere ED if you didn’t want to go to Cornell.
I’m sorry about the situation with your counselor. Though it is his job to keep you advised what schools he feels are realistic choices for you, the bottom line is that he should not have intimidated you into not listing all of the schools for which you wanted to try for admissions.
Let me explain what could possibly be the situation here. For the very most selective schools, admissions is difficult even for the very top applicants, even with hooks. I’ve seen legacy, athletes, URMs not get accepted. I’ve seen the very top students with the top test scores rejected.
There are certain things that pretty much have to be in place for even that small chance of being accepted. On an academic basis, one has to be top 3 in the class at most schools, be taking the most difficult courses, have very high test scores, including SAT2s, have top recommendations fro the counselor and teachers. Certain phrases like “one of the top students I’ve ever had” or “ unusual intellectual curious it’s” that make it clear that the recommending teachers and GC think you are the best in school are nearly always necessary to gain admissions.
Your GC controls the school REC and it’s very clear he does not think you should be going to those top schools. His relationship with these schools, any sway he might have got future students is at stake here in terms of the recommendation given. So it can become a self fulfilling prophesy when GCs steer kids from certain schools. It ain’t gonna happen.
All of this is a lot more subtle than the way I’ve described things, but yes, the LORs are very important in the selective schools admissions.
I do not know if Cornell allows a student who takes a gap year to apply to other schools during that time. You need to check that if you are considering this option. But realize, that you may still have to funnel any apps through the GC’s office when you applying
Yes, you can apply to transfer. You certainly can apply to grad school at these top schools. Two of my kids are getting masters at Harvard and they were not good students in high school or college. There are all kinds of graduate and certificate programs at many select schools.
YOU are the one who filled out your applications. It was YOUR choice what schools you applied to. The only role your counselor had was to attach a letter of recommendation and the guidance office needed to forward the transcript to the admissions offices to the schools you applied to. Your guidance counselor may have been counseling you to apply to more realistic schools but at the end of the day, it was YOUR choice to apply where YOU wanted. Chances are he would have written one letter of recommendation that would have gone to all the schools you applied. Very few guidance counselors have connections with the tops schools so they don’t have the ability to influence admissions.
Let this be a lesson for the future to move forward with what truly is in your control and what YOU want.
Personally I think your counselor was giving you sage advice. We often tell kids, “you can do whatever you want” when in reality, you can’t.
@twoinanddone I don’t think I’m allowed to turn down ED because it’s a binding agreement and the only way I can turn it down is through financial aid that I can’t afford, but Cornell gave me really great and affordable financial aid. I don’t know what kind of record that will give me as well if I decided to back out from the binding agreement and applied to other Ivy League colleges. Also, in my school, there was no option not to meet with my GC because it was a requirement (since I guess he had no faith in any of us to do it by ourselves) and he would literally schedule days to meet with each of my classmates like every month. He had to be involved (which I honestly hated) and that’s why this happened. I’m honestly so sad about it because Cornell is such a great school, but I just can’t bring myself to be happy when I’ve imagined myself applying to other schools first. It’s heartbreaking.
No, it is not heart breaking that you will attend Cornell, so a major attitude check is in order. You would have had a 95% chance of being rejected by HYP, then get stuck in the RD pool at other schools including Cornell with a low likelihood of acceptance and perhaps not as generous financial aid. If you need aid, ED to Cornell and a state school make a lot of sense, which your counselor and parents must have agreed upon.
As noted, you signed the ED agreement and part of growing up is taking responsibility for your actions. You have been highly privileged to receive counseling and a great admission with aid. Be grateful.
@roycroftmom I don’t know if you read my description thoroughly, but I’m ABSOLUTELY grateful to be accepted to Cornell. I know not a lot of people can say that and may not even have the opportunity so I’m incredibly grateful for being able to acquire such achievement and attend such a wonderful institution. Also, when I said “heartbreaking,” I wasn’t referring to my acceptance to Cornell; I was referring to the fact that my counselor never even once listened to my suggestions and the plan that I worked so much on over the summer. I have friends whose counselors allowed them to apply to their dream schools through Early Decision and I was so happy for them, I have friends who have such great relationships with their counselors, and I have friends whose counselors aren’t really involved in the application process besides writing the recommendation and sending the transcript and they can carry on with their plans by themselves. My counselor was insightful and I know that he just wanted the best for me; he knew my family situation, my financial situation, and my test anxiety (I literally took the SAT about four times), but I don’t like how he made me feel so anxious every single time I conversed with him about college (everytime he asked me about college and I would mention an elite university, he would laugh at me) to the point that I even tried to avoid him. I know he has a lot of wisdom and experience, but I just don’t understand how a classmate of mine is able to apply to her dream schools when I didn’t have the chance. Maybe it may just be jealousy or regret that I’m feeling that I didn’t speak up a lot and that I just capitulated and wanted to get everything over with so I didn’t have to meet with him anymore. However, I just want you to know that I’m so grateful to be accepted to Cornell and I never expected it and this thread is not meant to be a way to undermine the magnificence of Cornell. This isn’t even about Cornell; this is about my experience with my guidance counselor and how he exacerbated my anxiety.
Also, you may say that my parents should’ve stepped in, but I’m a first-generation college student and my parents don’t know anything about how university works so I had to do everything by myself. Therefore, as a nice gesture, my counselor offered to help me the most, but it wasn’t assistance at all; it was just dictations. I would’ve been fine doing everything by myself since that’s what I’ve been used to, but he insisted to help. I also didn’t like how everytime I would mention an elite school, he would literally judge me with all his might and I could tell from his expression that he was thinking: “You actually think you can get into that school?” I’m surprised I didn’t burst into tears at every encounter with him, although I did when I got home.
Do you know how many applicants would appreciate the chance to meet with any counselor, to receive any guidance at all, but have to navigate this process completely alone? You didn’t have a perfect counselor. Few do. Your classmate may be more qualified for elite schools, hence the support for such applications. His guidance apparently worked for you, as you were admitted to Cornell, so put aside whether you had the perfect teachers or the perfect counselor or the perfect high school and move on to college. Maybe your regret will motivate you to self advocate more in the future.
You learned something from this. I get where you are. You should have pushed something but you were too intimidated to do so. You should have pushed it because it has become THAT important to you that it’s bothering you terribly.
It’s very late right now, but yes, you can tell your counselor that you cannot accept Cornell’s aid offer and that HPY look like they can give you the money you need so you want to apply there and turn down Cornell, and go to a safety school (hopefully you have) that if you do not get accepted. Understand you have let go a bird in hand , but I’m sure you will get into other colleges, but the chances of getting into a school more select than Cornell are minuscule.
You then proceed to send your HPY apps out. And see what happens. All you do here is lose the Cornell option. If you can’t get hold of your GC, then do it yourself. Reject Cornell. For insufficient aid and get those HPY apps out by 12/31 and have your counselor send your transcripts and LORs already in file when you get back to school next year.
I cannot tell if your counselor was a bully in this or not. Sounds like it could be typical and you were not assertive enough. When I was applying to college, I had to push , beg, cajole, remind , check up on my GC every step of the way. Back then, everything had to be redone by hand—copy machine not prevalent and I applied to a half dozen colleges that required personal work on the teachers’ and GC’s time, when applying to 3 colleges was a lot. My kids GCs had to be pushed and directed. My son lost out on a scholarship when a teacher didnt get LOR out in time. Son needed to be on top of it and he wasn’t. I still burn over that one
The TLDR is that you feel you could do better than Cornell.
Sorry, but your guidance counselor did you a favor by not letting you waste money and probable fruitless dreams on something incredibly unlikely to happen. Read posts #2, 3 and 5 again.
Your high school quite likely has some kind of relationship with Cornell. Cornell considers test scores VERY important. You can look at section C7 of their Common Data set yourself. That they took you without stellar test scores means that they trust your guidance counselor’s judgement, regardless of your high school’s connection, or lack of, with Cornell.
I just worked with two ED applicants to Cornell. Both had lowish test scores. One was a great applicant and was deferred. The other was rejected. Your guidance counselor deserves a thank you card. You were indeed very lucky and you’ve been given a gift. But instead you’re complaining. Rather than dwelling on what probably would have not happened, focus on all the great opportunities you will have at such a fantastic school.
@cptofthehouse , she can’t turn down Cornell’s offer unless it is financially unviable. She can’t LIE. If she can afford Harvard, et al, she can afford Cornell, surely. ED is binding. There’s a reason why she, her parents, and the counselor agreed to it. Trying to get out of the ED agreement is dishonest and reflects very poorly on the school. Bottom line, she applied ED of her own will. She needs to honor the agreement.
@galaxygirl , it sounds like you’re looking for a reason to be upset.
The great news is you were accepted into a GREAT university. The great news is you are a first-gen college student. The great news is you had a GC who was willing, able, and diligent about working with you on a regularly scheduled basis to get you accepted into a GREAT university. The great news is this GREAT university awarded you a fantastic financial aid package without which you would not be able to attend college at all maybe. And before all this happened, the great news is you proved yourself to be a great student through your high school years.
There are a lot of great things in the preceding paragraph.
Yet with all the great things that are happening to you, you choose to chase unhappiness. Instead of chasing reasons to be unhappy, embrace the many great reasons you have to be happy.
And for your own sake, if you find you can’t let go of feeling sad about how your GC helped you get into a great university, I hope you seek counseling. I want you to be able to fully enjoy the great things happening in your life right now. You deserve to feel good about what you have accomplished and feel good and excited about the things to come.
I’m sorry that you are feeling this way. Seems from your other posts that you are experiencing a lot of anxiety about many different things.
In terms of your GC, the fact that you go to a school with such an active and involved counseling department means that they are knowledgeable about the process. Remember, your GC sees the bigger picture from the applicants from your school. They know who is applying where. My D’s GC also steered students in one direction or another because they have a more complete picture of the competition from the school. From your other posts where you included stats, I think your GC was spot on and you should be rejoicing about your Cornell acceptance, not second guessing.
Go get some Cornell swag and join the accepted students pages on social media.
Celebrate that you are going to one of the best schools in the country.
It sounds like you want to stick it to the GC. What is the point in that?? Venting here is fine…but wanting to prove you were right and the GC was wrong is beyond ridiculous.
Oh please. My older kid’s counselor actually told him he wouldn’t get accepted to the school where he got his bachelors degree with significant merit aid.
You filled out the application. You were under ZERO obligation to apply ED to any college. If you are smart enough to be a Cornell accepted student, you should be smart enough to understand this too.
No counselor can force a student to apply ED to any college…that is a student decision first and foremost. Your parent had to agree to this application ED as well…and they could have refused.
If you hate the idea of attending Cornell, decline the acceptance. They aren’t going to force you to attend. Take a gap year and apply again next year to Princeton, Yale and Harvard. But do keep in mind that their acceptance rates are in the single digits…which means greater than 90% of applicants do not get accepted and many of those rejected students have outstanding applications.
Or go to Cornell, and love it (surely there were reasons it was on your list beside it being an Ivy). If you hate it…transfer someplace else.
If you were able to decline Cornell, and aren’t accepted at your dream schools, is there an affordable safety? I.E. if you have to attend state school, is it as affordable as Cornell?
If not, there’s no way I would let go of a great deal on the tiny chance you might get another.
I can understand feeling railroaded into one option. My DD’19 felt that way when there was pretty much only one school that fit budget/major/other priorities and she didn’t want to go there. I felt bad for her but knew it had everything she wanted and needed so I didn’t let her dismiss it as an option. Eventually she decided to try to change her attitude. She visited a few times and had great visits. Loved talking to the professors she met. She looked through the course catalog and got excited about her options. She talked to alumni. She joined the FB and IG groups. She felt better, but she still wasn’t “all in” till she got there. Now she’s loving it and thriving.
Now that you are where you are, try some positive thinking and look for the good in Cornell.
I think the OP just wanted to vent, not necessarily to decline Cornell b/c i am sure she/he understood very well the risk of doing so.
@galaxygirl I feel you. I too share your frustration with GCs. My daughter and her classmates had the same horrible experience with the GCs last year. The GCs spent way so much time convincing the kids to apply more safeties, cut back on reaches, and that they should be okay if they go to safeties, that people do have successful career going to safety, and that they themselves went to safeties and look at their lives now, blah blah blah. It was a total dumping down approach. The GC specially told my D to cut out some schools b/c “oh it’s so far away are you sure you want to go there?” and “I heard it’s really hard to get in”. My D said, mom, I wanted to shake her, i don’t even know why she got this job, she projected her own feelings on everything instead of looking at the individual student’s profile, it was a waste of time. We obviously didn’t listen to the GC, most students at our school didn’t either.
Anyways, Congrats on your acceptance - let all other stuff go. Don’t “should have, could have”, it would just drive you crazy. Vent away, but move on, the sooner the better. Best of luck to you.
If OP and family decide they do not want to pay Cornell’s price at this time , OP can decline the acceptance. There is a stiff price for doing that in that it could be the best deal in terms of selective college and price. I’ve seen people lose out that way.
Financial aid at HPY does tend to be more generous.
I agree with most everyone here that the OP has a sweet deal and the GC was what one gets with GCs. That’s the way they act regarding selective college applications. They have a good idea who is going to be accepted and in fact control a part of the process.
Having only read half the answers - it’s a great opportunity, and one that you absolutely may not have been able to replicate at one of the other schools you wanted. Go along with a great attitude, and if you hate it, put in for a transfer.
Oh, I’m sorry you had a poor experience/relationship with your GC. I especially don’t like that your GC laughed at you. But try to give benefit of the doubt that you may have misunderstood what he/she meant by that, perhaps they were trying to keep things upbeat—who knows, we weren’t there to see just how condescending or intimidating your GC was. But regardless, it is too bad that you two didn’t feel like a team working on this.
However, as pointed out numerous times, you ended up with a fabulous outcome! Acceptance and strong enough financial aid to make one of our country’s best universities affordable is fantastic.
Yes, backing out of an ED-affordable acceptance to chase a dream school does not seem like a legitimate option (both unethical and also extremely, extremely risky in terms of outcome). It sounds like you are grateful for Cornell, so that is good news.
HIndsight is 20/20 and college admissions is so unpredictable. I sympathize with you that now that you are into Cornell you have a case of the “what ifs”. But realize that the odds of HPY were so skinny and your GC probably was using their knowledge of your classmates, your school, your own record, etc to point you in the best direction. There are times when it makes sense to just “go for it” and chase your dream, but many many people face the same dilemma as you, even without a pushy GC. Many kids struggle with whether they should use their best shot (EA/ED) on their dream school, or take a step down for something more sure, since a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. The bird in the hand is often the wiser choice, but may not feel as exciting. This is not an uncommon feeling, so you are in good company.
My advice: try to understand that the GC was probably looking out for your best interests (even if they had poor bedside manner). Their guidance may be the reason you get to go to an elite school that you clearly care about. (If you had EA-ed to Harvard and hadn’t gotten in, the chances of getting into Cornell or equivalent would have been significantly lower RD, so you may have ended up at your state school, which may or may not have made you happy). Try to be forgiving and generous in your view of how they guided you. But if you think they did anything truly reprehensible, if they crossed any lines and did anything unprofessional that you think would hurt future students, you might take a week or a month off of this topic and then consider offering the GC or your principal some feedback). But mostly, as others said, try to rejoice in your good fortune!