Can we please stop disparaging the friend who got in, on the assumption that seeking tutoring means you are a less talented or less hard-working student? How many high-achieving kids get tutoring or test prep to boost grades and scores? (Answer: a lot of them – relatedly, test-prep is one reason why many people believe standardized tests to be an inequitable way to compare students.) Why would we suggest a student is less skilled or less hard-working because they sought tutoring? As far as I can tell, when a student makes time for tutoring or seeks help with writing, that signifies that they’re willing to do the hard work that leads to growth.
But that’s neither here nor there for OP’s son, who applied to a lottery school – and, like most applicants, didn’t win the lottery. I’m sure the admissions decision could just as easily have gone the other way; surely, his generosity in sharing his talents and efforts to help his friends speak to the strong character that MIT seeks. It will sting for awhile, but now’s the time to celebrate achievements and get excited about college. Eventually, he will, hopefully, be able to be as happy for his friend as he is for his own good fortune.
Sorry, this is frankly ridiculous. Kid asks for some help with math homework and it seems that some denigrate his acceptance and the merits of him getting in. None of us on this forum or OP know about the kid OP’s son tutored or about OP’s son.
I feel sorry for your son. It will take a long time to heal the pain. The sooner he puts this behind, the better it is for him. I won’t sugar coat this. College admissions have become random.
Every year, too many highly qualified applicants are rejected from colleges they desire. Many high school teachers have extensive experience talking to their students about this. Does your son have a teacher he trusts? The teacher can give him loads of examples of students who have excelled after being rejected by “dream school”. These kids are hurt and need acknowledgement, recognition, reassurance, encouragement, trust, and love. A teacher who knows them well can provide all these, and some more.
This is a great idea! Because (at least in my experience), sometimes in moments of high distress or struggle, kids can hear advice from teachers and other adults better than their parents.
OP, if I were you, I would spend time talking to him about his new school, not MIT. Talk about his plan for the next four years, what he wants to achieve and how he plans to achieve it. Look forward, not back. Focus your energy on yourself, not someone else.
Lots of good advice here. But I think more than anything else, OP’s son needs time to heal. It’s hard to hear how everything works out fine in the end, how admissions have become unpredictable for unhooked high stat kids, how it’s all about institutional priorities, etc. when the wounds of rejection are still raw. All good reasons - but none will make sense right now to a 17 year old in this situation.
OP - I would focus on loving the schools your son was admitted to, and move on from talking about MIT.
Your son has the same incorrect belief that I used to have and that many still have in our country. The College/University admissions process in the United States does not exist to have our best & brightest students go to our top universities to be educated by our best professors and experts. Sometimes it occurs, but that is happenstance. You can be happy about this, you can be angry about this…but we all have to accept it. It’s our reality.
I understand how you feel. My daughter has seen many people get accepted to the schools she loved most that don’t have the stats she has, but there are SO many things that factor into it. Are their majors the same? That is a big component. Maybe the other boy was applying for a major that wasn’t as competitive. My daughter’s intended major is Biology–one of the most common. More applicants for the same major means less of a chance of being accepted. Sure, she could have applied for a less common major, but that wouldn’t help her in the end. It could also be any number of other things too. It does NOT mean your son was less qualified! You can be a perfect fit for a school and still not get in because they need something else to fulfill their class. So many things we didn’t really think about but are now realizing. I’m sorry he’s going through this. It really stinks! It’s cheesy, but the saying is so true–it isn’t the college that makes the student. It’s the student that makes the college experience.
Something similar happened to my son. I could tell that he was privately thinking that he was going to get into UC Berkeley and saw himself attending, even though he did not say anything out loud. When the decisions came out, my son was waitlisted… but a friend was accepted (to the very same program my son had applied to), who is maybe not quite as strong of a student, and has gotten a lot of help from my son. My son did not say very much about this, but it was obvious that he had a lot of sad, disappointed, upset and angry feelings.
It helped to leave space for grieving, and otherwise just move on and forget about that school unless he brought it up.
At this point (2 1/2 weeks later), I actually think the outcome has been very freeing for my son. He reconsidered all his other choices with much less emphasis on prestige, and ended up feeling free to pick a less prestigious school that he really likes a lot.
same with my daughter, a very strong studnt and highly respected by faculty and peers. she did not get into any of her more prestigious schools and watched her freinds who are less accomplished get into them.
she moved on quickly and is excited about the state flagship (out of state) she is committing to. but yes, it stings a little and definitely has peers and parents wondering what happened.
I suspect the OP’s back-up to MIT is less of a drop-off.
@parent600 Your son should be proud of his teaching abilities. Your son managed to do a better job at teaching his friend than the high school did.
Teaching math well is extremely difficult, and it is a great talent to have.
Every time the friend talks about MIT, your son shouldn’t think “why did he get in, but I didn’t?”, he should think “this person got into MIT because of ME!, this is MY win! The high school couldn’t do it, but I could!”.
As for the why, if your kid helped his friend put together the friend’s application, I can see your son having no problem making sure that his friend put everything in the best light, while he may have been too modest when writing his own application. People like your son often have difficulty in “tooting their own horn”, and will downplay their own accomplishments.
I do think that your son should consider a career which includes teaching or training. He seems to have amazing talent for that.
OP here. Thanks so much for all your replies. They’ve been very helpful.
I haven’t mentioned a hint of any of this to anyone we know in real life. The boy who was accepted is being subject to a lot of “how did he get in?” gossip, and I certainly haven’t wanted to contribute to that at all. He’s a great kid. But at the same time, my son has been grieving and this forum has been helpful to me.
My son only applied to safeties/matches/reaches that he loved, so once he decides he will be able to be happy and focus on that school. He’s deciding this week, so I’m sure next week he’ll be busy plotting out his schedule and activities for the next year or two. I think once he’s decided it’ll be much easier for him to focus on the future.
The boys still speak daily. My son has tried not to let what’s happened influence his interactions with his friend. My son just prefers not to talk about college with him at the moment.
I would also like to say in response to a previous poster that we value tutoring very much and think that asking for tutoring when you need help or have a question is a wonderful thing. I did not mean to imply that asking for help is bad.
Also, the other boy is only tutored in the more challenging concepts of math and science. He must meet MIT’s threshold. The boys are also the same race.
As far as the college essay writing mentorship program, all the schools in our district have this program and have used it for many years.
I’m sorry for all the other kids disappointments too.
I am a bit disturbed by the number of people who seem to sincerely believe that other students are somehow ‘less accomplished’ than their own children. Nobody has access to the other students’ transcript, all their ECs, their essays and their Letters of Rec.
I also think way too many people believe there is some huge difference in stats when there really isn’t. The kid scoring a 1480 isn’t ‘less qualified’ than the one scoring a 1510. The kid with a 3.87uw isn’t less qualified than the kid with the 3.94uw.
None of the people on this thread have access to each school’s institutional priorities or know what the school is looking for or what does or doesn’t speak in each application to the AOs reading them. And many don’t seem to recognize that holistic is holistic - not rack and stack.
Being disappointed about decisions that don’t go our way is natural. Trying to denigrate the accomplishments of others is something else entirely. And frankly, if you really think the schools are accepting less worthy applicants - why would you want to be at the school at all??
–Your son should not let an admissions officer who likely he has never met and who read his application for maybe 10 minutes have any say in his self-image.
–Agree that having a “dream school” (especially one with a low single digit admissions rate) is a horrible idea. The people I see most hurt by the college admission process are ones who pin their hopes on one hyper-competitive school and then don’t get in. Simply put there are too many extremely well qualified applicants than there are spots available.
–If this was my child I would not buy into his “dream being crushed” pity party for more than a day or two (apologies if this sounds harsh)-- it is time to re-focus with a positive attitude on his next steps forward. He needs to understand that what he achieves at college will ultimately be more impactful to his future than which college he attends.
–Hopefully your son can take a deep breath, let MIT go, congratulate his friend, and get excited about what I’m guessing are the excellent college choices he does have available.
What are your son’s other options OP? Just curious.
And that, you have no idea or control over how your son’s file was read versus his friend’s.
Both of you should read this blog post:
Of course, as parents we can’t evaluate the strength of these kids’ applications.
In my kid’s case, it’s more about what the kids expected, going in to the decision day. They are friends, all of them help each other and are supportive of one another. Over time the friend group accumulated a general belief about which of them are relatively stronger or weaker students in some area, or a better fit for this or that university. Many of the admissions decisions went roughly as they expected. In this particular case, the kids expected the decision to go the opposite way, and I could see that my son was upset at first… although he held himself together well and was appropriately congratulatory with his friend.
I am sure that there was at least one moment of “why did the friend get accepted instead of me?” because he’s human and that’s natural. But he didn’t get hung up on that, and I didn’t bring it up with him, either. Definitely not going there! And he has moved on.