I’m looking for some encouraging advice on what to say to my son. He was rejected from his dream school of MIT, but a boy he tutors in math and science was accepted.
We know there are thousands of high achieving, high stats kids who are rejected every year, and that the admissions decisions of colleges seem random to outsiders like us. Yes, my kid has much higher stats, scores, grades, and rigor than the other boy, but I don’t want to turn this into one of those how could this have happened discussions. I’m simply saying this for context. As for extracurriculars, we feel my son’s are much stronger, but obviously MIT disagrees. Regarding the essays, well, my son helped this other boy with his essays too. At my son’s school they have a program of writing mentorship. My son is one of these writing mentors and helped a dozen kids with their college essays, including spending hours helping this boy.
Both my son and this other boy are nice, kind boys who are crazy about all things science and math.
However, my son currently feels that he is being punished for being a good person and helping other people. He is 17 and his dream was crushed, so it is understandable that he feels this way.
It is even more difficult because these boys are friends, so it’s not as if he can graduate from high school and try and forget about it. He will be hearing about MIT stuff for years.
We’ve obviously talked about this a lot recently, but I could do with some other parents words of wisdom to help. Thanks!
I think you go out for ice cream, tell your son that you love him for WHO he is, not what he accomplishes in life or whatever external validation he gets, and that he’s going to blow the cover off the ball at XYZ college where he’s going.
I HATE dream colleges. There are no dream colleges, there are no dream jobs, there are no dream houses, there are no dream GF/BF/Spouses. Life is filled with compromises and the transition to adulthood means learning exactly how to handle that. If you run your own race, you don’t have to look behind your shoulder or in front of you to see who is doing what.
Will the friendship survive? Who knows. But that’s nowhere near as important as reminding your son that this is a blip in his life and once he’s happily challenged at XYZ college he will have let this go.
Nobody is punishing your son for being a good person. And his dream is not “crushed”. MIT doesn’t promise ANYONE that there is a seat with their name on it.
There is something off to me about HS kids mentoring OTHER kids with their application essays. But that’s neither here nor there; it’s over and done. There are a lot of ways for your son to be a good person going forward (reading to the blind, collecting coats for the homeless) that don’t have the blurry ethics of one kid “helping” another kid with their essay (do HS kids know where the line is between a helpful “this passage could be stronger” vs. actually rewriting which is unethical?) Don’t know.
But move on. Ice cream, a big stack of twizzlers which he doesn’t need to share with the rest of the family and then- onwards!!!
^^^I was going to say almost the same thing. The colleges that accepted him are the ones to focus on. He should actually feel proud that his helping someone ended up with good results. I am sure he is going to a great university. Focus on that. If it’s been discussed already I would just move on. If he brings it up focus on something great at the university that he will actually end up at. It’s a great life lesson though. We don’t always get what we want in life. But we adapt, adjust and make the most of the next opportunity. Let him do that.
It may be helpful to let him know admission teams are fulfilling their institutional priorities and not rewarding merit when they build a class. It feels personal but it is not.
I think everyone’s advice is good here. Of course, he is sad, but now that it is many weeks past the admission announcement dates, it is definitely time for him to pivot to being excited and happy about wherever he plans to matriculate as well as looking forward to graduation and summer.
Personally, I would probably just tell my kid how delighted I am that he is such a good friend and try to help him be happy for his classmate. I admit that advice is easier said than done in the early days when the news might still sting, but I am glad that my D22 and her classmates were able to be happy for each other despite many of them applying to the same schools (some faced disappointments and others did not). Now, nearly a year later, as far as I can tell, none of them care. They have settled in at their various colleges, made friends/connections, taken great classes, and moved on. Since many go to school with 1-6 hours of each other, they enjoy visiting each other on their respective campuses without thinking about what might have been.
Lastly, if he is ready to hear it, I would talk to him about the value of the friendship. Is this one that he hopes to maintain? If so, I would talk about how important it is that he not let this issue get in the way of that friendship. Sometimes in cases like this, it might mean needing to back off from spending time together for a bit until he feels better. If so, I would tell my kid that I hope he doesn’t give the friend the cold shoulder or communicate anger or jealousy. I think there are usually ways to get some distance in the short run in order to preserve the friendship in the long run. In two weeks when everyone has committed, it will get easier.
If his friend needed help in math and science, I wonder if the kid will struggle at MIT. This sounds like a case of MIT filling a demographic or other need, and setting academic chops aside to make that happen.
On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine MIT admitting someone they don’t think can handle the rigor.
Regardless, sometimes admissions decisions do not make sense in terms of scholastic achievement/academic strength and preparedness. You should be proud of your son. I’m sure he’ll kick butt wherever he ends up.
If you look at Section C7 of the MIT Common Data Set, there is only one factor – academic or non-academic – that has a “very important” weight: character/personal qualities. So perhaps there is something in the friend’s background that struck a sympathetic chord with the admissions office; and this factor is inherently going to be a subjective criterion, not an objective one. So the fact that your son was denied admission but his friend was granted admission may likely depend on something that your son had absolutely no control over. This may be small comfort to your son, I know; but it is not a reflection on him at all.
Each of my children failed a class in college; and each of them had varying levels of distress over those failing grades. I told each of them that failing a class was not as important as how they responded to failing a class. Perhaps you can let your son know that the important lesson here is how he responds to MIT’s decision; and who knows, in 4 years he may look back on this as the best thing that ever happened to him.
It’s simple…
Most kids who goto MIT eventually develop an unhealthy competitive spirit that restricts them to collaborate and team with their peers out of fear of someone outsmarting them…
If your son helped others to an extent that they could get into MIT (notwithstanding with your son’s rejection), your son really thrives where collaboration and team work is rewarded (like GaTech).
I honestly believe that it’s a blessing in disguise for your son that he was rejected at MIT.
I’m sorry to hear about your son’s disappointment. Please remind him that a single college admissions decision is not a life defining moment, nor is it a reflection of his worthiness. A student like him will be successful regardless of which college he attends.
I have two immediate reactions. One is with regard to your son. The other is with regard to the other boy.
With regard to your son, this reminds me of what happened when I was applying to graduate programs. I was turned down by my “dream school”, but accepted to my second choice. I attended my second choice and LOVED IT (and did very well). It was only years later that I realized that my second choice had always been a better fit for me. The admissions staff at both universities figured this out long before I did, and they were both right – especially the “dream” school that rejected me. Your son hopefully has acceptances at other very good universities. He is likely to go to his second choice and similarly do very well.
There are a lot of universities where a very strong student can get an excellent education. MIT is one of them, but there are many, many others. Your son will do very well wherever he ends up. Take him out for ice cream and celebrate his acceptances.
Regarding the other boy, I am concerned. MIT is a tough university. It is only appropriate for very strong students who want to work very hard. I cannot imagine anyone who could possibly have needed tutoring in mathematics to do well there.
My first semester at MIT, I got to show up a few days early as an international student. They gave us a tour of Boston and MIT and we (a group of international students) got to have dinner at Durgin Park. It was a quite pleasant introduction. It was also an opportunity to meet students from all around the world. However, being there early, at one point we ran into a different group who had been invited to come in early and get tutoring to prepare them for MIT. They had been admitted based on something other than straight academic ability. ALL of them were gone by Christmas. I thought that this was horribly unfair to them. MIT was not the best fit for them. They would have found a better fit at any one of 100 or more other universities.
“Most kids who goto MIT eventually develop an unhealthy competitive spirit that restricts them to collaborate and team with their peers out of fear of someone outsmarting them…”
Despo-Dad-- This is an absurd comment-- and frankly, not healthy for the OP’s son.
My MIT kid did nothing BUT collaborate while there (group assignments, group projects, even a group final exam which had the entire study team relying on each other to an extraordinary degree) and his career since then has proven the value of learning to collaborate-- big teams, small teams, huge, global teams.
Have you ever seen the lists of the people who have launched new and disruptive technologies, products, companies, entire industries? It might be one or two people who dreamed up “what if” but it took an entire village to make it happen, to launch, to be distributed, to become profitable.
I guess you don’t know any MIT grads if you can post something like this. And it’s not helpful for the OP’s son to have sour grapes.
I find this very hard to believe given MIT has such a high retention rate. For that matter given the first semester is P/F. I can’t imagine that they were all gone by Christmas.
I am guessing that the poster might be talking about students who attended a program like Interphase summer or Interphase Edge. I guess it is possible that the poster ran into a couple of kids at a dinner who left MIT within the first semester, but that would be a big coincidence or fluke not a pattern of students who attend such programs.
It was a small group. You weren’t there and didn’t know them.
I was there and saw it happen.
Really, MIT is a university for very strong students who excel at math and science. If you are the #1 top student in your high school in math, you become average the day that you show up on campus. There are some advantages to this. But MIT is not a great fit for every student.
My son is like yours. He tutors kids at his high school in math and has high math grades and test scores. I actually counseled him not to spend his energy on highly rejective schools because I really just don’t want to deal with the emotional fallout. These schools accept one student per high school or one student per region sometimes. Other highly rejective schools will only accept a cadre of top students from one high school in the region, and I wonder if this is why.
He will get over it and he can be just as successful at another school.
Actually I can say with certainty that many students at MIT do well and thrive there without being the top math student in their high school, and I can also say with certainty that most students who attend summer tutoring programs at MIT before their freshman year go on to do very well there. Since I believe that you have no reason to lie. I have to conclude that it is a fluke that you happened to run into a handful who didn’t that summer and that handful that you happened to meet left by Christmas.
But yes, no college is a great fit for every student. And all colleges have students who don’t graduate. MIT has very few such students.