IvyHopefulDad, you’re also right. The most well-adjusted people find happiness at any school and feel no need to transfer. My current school is really a bad fit for me, and I knew that going in. The irresistable bone of money drew me here!
Without picking apart Mini’s words (I gave that up long ago), he IS making a good point. I know when that first acceptance came in for both of my kids (from a rolling admissions Big 10 which was truly a sure-thing), it was exciting and felt really good. Andi’s son didn’t get to have that- even from a love-thy-safety school. I am not the least bit critical of how Andi and family handled that first application process- there are lots of mistakes to be made and if you don’t have the wisdom and information many of us would NOT have had without this forum and a lot of research, these mistakes are easy to make!
I guess the Interlochen counselor and teachers knew what they were doing, but in retrospect my D (rising senior at Rice) could have been in the same boat. She applied to top vocal performance programs where an audition was required. NONE of these schools could have been considered musical safeties, especially not Rice which takes three to five vocalists a year. She was successful in the process, and I didn’t even know enough to be panic-stricken, but it could have been just like Andi’s son’s situation.
andi – I have a high school senior and have been following your experience from the very beginning. Thanks to you, H & I “forced” DS to apply to a wider range of schools than he initially selected himself. He did not get into any of his top choices (including one where he was a legacy and kids with lesser numbers were admitted from our high school in the past) but still had terrific options come April 1. Also, his focus suddenly changed from larger universities to LACs as he spent more time visiting and talking with people at his top choices. He is in the top 10 students of 400 and I’ve heard that there are 1-2 top students who were admitted only to a state school; I wish they had had the info to know about how ultra selective the college app process is. Upcoming high school seniors, parents, and guidance counselors would be well served to learn from your experience as my family has.
Good luck to your son this fall and thanks for sharing so openly here on CC even in your worst moments.
Quote: “you are missing the sinking feeling that can come with thinking that you may have steered your kid wrongly - which didn’t come from the rejections, but from not being accepted anywhere.”
So I guess you are speaking about a parent’s feeling. Stupid me, I was empathizing with both parent AND child–in all aspects of the experience.
And, then, it also leaves one to wonder, what this twist in your discourse (and your distortions of my points) has to do with your orignal admonishon of Andi that she overstated the severity of the experience. I guess you just love to debate (and to be the lone critical voice of her valuable summation).
Here’s an update for you concerned parents. From the NYT series looking at sports and admissions to LACs- the lacrosse player rejected at Haverford will go to Swarthmore! Happy endings for all I guess.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/s...1haverford.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/s...1haverford.html</a>
Perhaps this could be another thread entirely, but I’ve thought often lately that I wish the gap year was a more universal thing for all high school seniors to do before they go off to college. So many young people would gain from that extra year of maturity and perspective on the world. They would make more informed choices about what they might want to major in and which colleges would be the right fit for them. The universities would probably welcome seeing fewer kids who enter freshmen year already burned out by the hyper-competiveness of their high school years.
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Interesting point, jazzymom. It reminds me of the fact that when I was in college, kids who took time off between undergrad and graduate school were the exception. Now, the majority do (I was recently told that somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 of med school applicants take a minimum of a year off.) And the way things are today, the burn-out phenomenon is probably there at an increasingly younger age–making the “gap year” likely to become more common as well.
Well, yes, under the current stupid non-system.
To paraphrase - MIT doesn’t make mistakes. Which means that the original list of 8 schools is completely reasonable. andison BELONGS in a very selective school. Any system that does not get him into one with some kind of predictability is warped to the point of being a disgrace.
We owe our brightest and hardest working more.
There is such a thing as the larger picture. An applicant, while confident of his/her own scholarly attainment, has nonetheless no way of knowing what he is up against the caliber of the entire applicant pool. The AdCom, on the other hand, has the larger view and is able to make a more informed decision.
With demand far outstripping supply common in highly selective colleges, prudence dictates that contingency plans as encapsulated in a well-balanced mix of colleges are to be instituted. To do otherwise is both unrealistic and foolhardy.
Recently there was a thread discussing top high schools. My son went to a high school mentioned in that thread as being a power house of high schools. He was one of the top students there, for what that’s worth. I personally know how he ‘fits’ into the scheme of the <em>national</em> picture both academically and extra-curricularly. In that respect I agree with beprepn. It’s not like he was a big fish in a small pond.
However, we are living in a time when college admissions is a very complicated and often perplexing system and EVEN with a top kid, you just can’t be sure of ANYTHING.
This thread is about covering your bases. Apply to a variety of schools if you don’t want a blanket of rejections. If you only get into a school that you aren’t crazy about going to you will at least have the ‘option’ of choosing to do a gap year.
Precisely my point on the big “unknown”. Nothing (at least for most) is a given as far as getting into highly selective colleges is concerned. As Andi put it, cover your bases.
There are some analogies that may work well in describing odds of admission. Soozie has been using MT as a good metaphor. An individual may be extremely talented but may be wrong for a particular role. They want a tall blonde soprano and you are a petite brunette alto.
Or you could use the analogy of getting tickets for your favorite sports event or concert,. There are a limited number of seats available, but many people with enough money to buy the tickets–more indeed than there are available tickets. You could wish you were among the VIPs who get free tickets; that you could have afforded season tickets; that you had bought ticket for that particular event earlier. But you do not fall into any of these categories. And there are hundreds and thousands ahead of you in the queue. There’s not much sense railing against the fact that there is a limited number of seats and you have the money to buy tickets. If your plan was to have a night out, you ought to consider Plan B or plan C.
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Beprepn wrote:
"Any system that does not get him into one with some kind of predictability is warped to the point of being a disgrace.
We owe our brightest and hardest working more."
I don’t agree. Andison’s list was comprised primarily of reaches. There were two matches (approximately…I don’t know every detail of his stats). Matches are not guarantees. The thing is, if his list wasn’t so top heavy with reaches and had had two more matches and then two safeties, he may have gotten into a couple fine colleges (as he did this year). For instance, who says we “owe” top students an Ivy or a school like Swarthmore? There are fine match schools for a student like him…in terms of odds of admissions…schools in the range of Brandeis, BU, William and Mary, Hamilton, Emory, Conn College, Trinity, Colby, Colgate, Bates, or Bucknell and for a student like him, there are schools he could consider safeties that are still selective such as Dickinson, Skidmore, Lehigh, Muhlenberg, Tulane, and University of Rochester. With a balanced list, a student like Andison would end up at a very good school, just maybe not one of his reaches because his reaches are no guarantee for any student. Would I feel sorry for a bright hard working student who ended up at a match school like Bucknell or Brandeis or even a safety (which for a student of his calibur means a selective school nonetheless) such as Skidmore or Mulenberg? No, not really. These are all good schools that are selective. If one feels they must get into a school with an acceptance rate of under 20%, not all qualified kids will make it into the available slots and if they can’t be happy at a school that accepts 40% of applicants (still quite selective), then he/she has a problem. This is the reality of selective college admissions. Having one’s eye just on the top schools in the land is a set up for possible disappointment. Having one’s eye for a range of schools that are selective, will yield better results. What CAN be predicted is that a student of Andison’s calibur WILL get into at least one college if he has a list that has some reaches that he had originally, a significant number of matches, and some safeties that are safe for him but are considered selective schools in general.
Three years ago, our val did not get into any of her colleges but UVM, her state U. She wanted Swarthmore, like Andison’s. There are a lot of kids out there with profiles like this girl, Andison’s, my kids, and limited spots at the tippy top schools but there are plenty of selective fine colleges and so, students like this WILL get in somewhere that is still a very good school. They just may not be able to name their preferred school. They may go to their match school. Is that a shame? No, not to me. Most students end up at their matches. Reaches are just that. And schools such as Columbia, Harvard, or Swarthmore that made up the bulk of Andison’s list are reaches for ANYONE by the nature of the odds of admissions (low acceptance rates). Because these very bright and hard working students are not guaranteed admissions at schools like Yale, Williams, or MIT, many are attending other fine and selective schools like BU, Boston College, Bucknell, Smith, etc. and so these schools are also made up of “bright and hard working students.” It certainly is no shame to attend the likes of Brandeis, Skidmore, or Colby and in fact, students will find a whole lot of other top students like themselves on these campuses.
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“To paraphrase - MIT doesn’t make mistakes. Which means that the original list of 8 schools is completely reasonable.”
He got into MIT on the second round, we don’t know how he would have done if he’d applied there the first year. The Gap year may have been the tipping factor. Or it may not have been. No way to know.
Superb students like Andison have every right and reason to apply to all those top schools, but we’ve determined that the original list lacked a safety. Kids with excellent resumees should still apply to their state’s flagship state school, because for them it will be a sure thing (the very top Publics are a little less sure, but certainly more of a safety than Swarthmore). A lot of these state schools have excellent Honors Programs, so apply to those also. I think at least one state school should be on everyone’s list. These schools, such as Penn State, have so many applicants that they don’t require essays nor recommendations. The PSU Schreyer Honors program, which is VERY well ranked, does require essays and recommendations, and I know several students who have turned down Ivy Leagues for PSU Honors. PSU-Main campus just has a chart by which they admit students: <a href=“http://www.psu.edu/dept/admissions/counselors/newsletter/fa05bubble_files/Page295.htm[/url]”>http://www.psu.edu/dept/admissions/counselors/newsletter/fa05bubble_files/Page295.htm</a>
Though in Andison’s case, he had a terrific outcome after a gap year, but that rolling admissions acceptance letter from a big state school provides a cushion and some sanity early on in the admissions process.
I just think that it is terribly sad when andi posts a thread about the heartache of last year to help people, that we waste our time responding to the one person who shows no empathy and misses the point. I think it is wonderful that so many of us have supported andi and will continue to support her. But to try to personally make her feel guilty or carry the burden of last year’s tragic result is cruel and show a lack of empathy and pomposity that I hoped never to see on this site. Hindsight is always 20/20. It’s not like andi took it upon herself to advise her son or choose the schools for him, but they sought advice and guidance where they knew to last year from professionals, and they followed the advice. With that said, I will not waste my time on such a lack of compassion and I personally will forevermore ignore such posts.
I was in a similar boat last year (accepted at a safety and seriously considered passing it up for a gap year or uni in my country) and I remember reading this post.
I am genuinely happy for you and him, and wish him the best of success :). Some parents here ought to be making muchos $$ off the advices they give on CC hehe
Andi,
Thanks to you, my kids probably went overboard in applying to safeties. Nevertheless, it felt good to all of us as each acceptance came in, and it certainly made it easier to accept the rejections. Our family was fortunate that things worked out in the first go-round … but we were well aware throughout the process that it could easily have turned out differently; we planned lists accordingly so that each child would have a tangible school to attend.
The few extra bucks and the few extra essays were so worth it for peace of mind.
You and your son have touched so many lives with his story. Please do write that magazine article! 
I don’t think that is the best lesson to take from the original list. After all, Northstarmom points to the number of kids who apply to five Ivies and UMass – which, IMO, isn’t a very good list either.
The “system” works OK, but without a great deal of precision in knowing exactly where a student will slot in. Therefore, the best advice is to apply to a broad range of schools that are incrementally spaced from reaches to safeties. In many ways, the schools in the middle are the most important.
We saw this recently with a kid who applied to “all Ivies” and a SUNY. The SUNY was the only acceptance and he didn’t want to go there. My question? What the heck happened to the dozens and dozens of great schools between the SUNYs and the Ivies in acceptance rates?
The other issue that Andi and I have talked about and Northstarmom hinted at: it is a mistake to allow fixation on super-reaches to result in treating the other schools on the list as afterthoughts.
As parents, the best thing we can do from day one in the process is help our kids calibrate their thinking towards solid match schools. If those are selected and valued appropriately, then applying to a few reach schools carries much less risk. Allowing the reaches to obscure the meat of the list in unrealistic expections can be a big problem.
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We came very close to this situation this year and only because I pushed my daughter into applying to 2 schools which initially didnt interest her did she get any acceptances. (She was applying in Musical theater and luckily I had read all the treads on CC on MT admissions and the importance of applying to something other than top rated schools.) In the spring we went back and carefully relooked an auditioned at the 2 schools which in September she had said there was no way she was going to go to. She found things about these 2 that on second look really appealed to her and she ended up getting to choose. I think that out of every bad situation some good can be found. As painful as rejection can be the lesson learned that one can come back from it is a powerful one and can last far longer than anything you learn in college.