For those who have had a student go through the college process already - has your child experienced NOT being accepted to any of the desired colleges? How did he/ she handle it? What was their final decision?
Mine has the safety/ reach thing covered, but is honestly not one bit interested in his safeties. Wondering what others experiences were?
Thanks
One of my Dâs closest friends was rejected everywhere and landed at the safety his GC made him apply to last minute. He was absolutely distraught and fully intended to transfer after his first year.
Just saw him at the holidays and heâs doing fantastic! He abandoned the notion of transferring early on. Heâs now in his second year and thriving. Heâs one of the best and brightest where he is, in honors college, getting a full ride, great summer job lined up, etc⊠He feels challenged as well. Iâve never seen him happier.
For others reading this thread - a safety is only a safety is you can actually see yourself happy attending there. Throwing out a safety application for a school you donât want to go to defeats the purpose.
Agree with everything above.
Keep lookingâŠitâs important to have a highly likely/safety school that the student would be happy to attend. Donât apply anywhere the student does not want to go.
All colleges that a student applies should be âdesiredâ including as pointed at above, the Safety schools. As long as an applicant has a balanced college list with Safeties, Matches along with a few Reaches and they are willing to attend all, this should be a non-issue.
Students have to like, if not love their safety, otherwise itâs not a safety. My Dâs safety school was ultimately her second choice and she agonized first weeks over the final two. I am always skeptical when students or parents say a student canât find any safeties that are great fits.
Probably those students or parents define âfitâ as prestige or selectivity, so that a college that is easy to get into cannot be a âfitâ.
In other words, something is more desired if it is difficult to attain.
@itsgettingreal21 - agree with you. One of my daughterâs safety schools is higher up on her preference list than some of the reaches.
@momofsenior1âs young friend can count resilience among his life skills. Always great to see kids making the most of a situation.
I think many students see the ârightâ admits as a prize for hard work in hs, some sort of triumphant end to the hs years.
But college is really a new beginning, chances for growth and new experiences you may not have even imagined. A chance to âlean inâ in new ways, test yourself.
We emphasized this attitude. Separate from whether a safety truly meets your wants, is how the right attitude empowers you to move forward.
Parents need to flat out say - listen, there is very little chance that youâre going to be accepted to these reaches on your list and same goes for high matches or any school with an acceptance rate under 30% so you need to find a school thatâs a likely admit that checks at least most of your boxes. Being realistic is a big part of finding a real safety. I think kids who just throw a safety on at the last minute are thinking they wonât need it.
With S19, I donât think he loved any of his safeties even though I think we did the very best we could to find schools that were super similar to his reaches. He didnât really speak up too much during the process and luckily had a lot of options. After the process was over, he made some comment about how he would have gone to X school if he âhadâ to but he would have been planning to transfer asap. I feel like we dodged a bullet and I donât know why he wasnât up front with me during the process and told me that he didnât like his safer schools enough to give them a chance. I think part of it was that he felt very sure via Naviance and our counselors that he would at least get into his high matches which he definitely did like so he didnât feel compelled to search high and low for a really good safety.
So, this time around with D21, I will make sure she understands that a safety truly needs to be a place she can at least be excited about at some level.
I have a safety story: daughter of a friend (very highly qualified applicant from a well-ranked NE public school) was one of âthose kidsâ who was rejected from almost every single school. Applied to 17 schools, rejected at 16. Many on the list were places that could realistically be viewed as low reaches and matches. The one and only admission was to a SUNY. Student hated every minute of it and was clearly overqualified. Stuck it through for a year, earned a 4.0 average and transferred out to Emory. A story with a happy ending.
This is the reality. As much as we try to emphasize having a safety the student loves, they are 17 and just canât always see the big picture, especially when peers (and sometimes other adults) are comparing lists, rankings, and prestige.
D20 loved one of her low match/high safety colleges. Had she not been accepted to her ED choice, it would have been one of the top contenders. She considered it more desirable than several of her high match and reach schools, even though it was much lower in prestige and ranking. The only drawback was the distance (we live in MA and itâs in PA). I donât think I can take credit for that though. We emphasized the need for a balanced list that only had schools she would like to attend, but she had a spectacular visit and really connected with the Provost, admissions staff, and students there. Sometimes despite our best efforts, our kids have their own agendas. They can nod and âyesâ our statements, but that doesnât mean they are truly in agreement.
I like your suggestion and think I did this too well.
My concern is that my son has kind of fallen in love with his safety, to which he has already been accepted. When he applied, it was the kind of safety that he felt he could attend if he had to, but he was not really excited about that possibility coming true.
Now, not only can he see himself there, but he is excited about the possibility of going to this particular safety. As we wait for other responses from âbetterâ (IMO) schools, the long wait is allowing the thought of attending this safety to soak into his mind. Heâs examining his two possible majors (and two possible minors) at this school more intently. Heâs watching youtube videos and paying attention to this school more on other social media. Heâs imagining himself attending its football and basketball and soccer games. Heâs trying to imagine exactly where he might hang out in the city. He used to do that with the school he liked most ⊠now he does it with this safety.
Waiting 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks for the other schoolsâ decision days might be costing them.
@ProfSD - 100% agree! We only applied to schools (regardless of status) where DD20 would be happy attending if admitted. However, emotions does play a part.
@EconPop - I totally agree with this: âWaiting 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks for the other schoolsâ decision days might be costing themâ.
Long time ago, D was rejected from her ED school. I wasnât there when she got the news but I think there was some crying. The dinner that night was very quiet. It was heartbreaking to see her trying to keep the calm composure.
I donât remember how long it took her to recover from the rejection but eventually she did and worked on her the rest of the applications.
She got in her ED II school.
How many parents of teenagers have successfully been able to make their kids like or not like something? Itâs one thing if you donât have to worry about a budget for college - that makes finding safeties much easier. However, I had to accept that both of my kids were not going to love their safety schools and that was ok with me.
We were very fortunate that UGA was the best safety option that was affordable. They would have chosen it (or my S would have gone to GT) over other affordable safety schools. Had they ended up there, Iâm certain they would have had great experiences and likely would have been happy in the end. However, during the application process they werenât going to love it and I wasnât going to be able to make them. However, we had lots of conversations about the likelihood of acceptance and affordability at other schools on their list. We all knew the low chances and were on board with the safety schools despite not loving them.
We looked long and hard for safety schools and DD settled on 3 that rounded out her list. Each of them brought something unique to the table to be excited about - phenomenal study abroad opportunities, a vibrant arts community that was open to all majors, a variation of a major she hadnât seen before. She was looking for a certain feeling that she didnât find at any state schools, we needed financial aid or merit aid at all of the privates, and it wasnât easy to traipse around 30 different campuses but we did it. She could honestly say she would have been happy to attend any of the 10 schools she applied to. I am glad she was accepted to her ED school because I seriously think she would have had a very hard time making a decision!
Iâm curious as to why youâre âconcernâed that he is becoming excited about attending a specific school.
What creates ââbetterâ IMO schoolsâ than a school that a student loves and is excited to attend?
I think one mistake people make a lot is not taking the time to visit potential safety schools. Then at application time, the kid is understandably not excited about the prospect of attending one. Itâs important to include these in visits so that there is at least one that the kid feels good about.
(for our kid, it was Univ of Vermont.)
âHow many parents of teenagers have successfully been able to make their kids like or not like something? Itâs one thing if you donât have to worry about a budget for college - that makes finding safeties much easier. However, I had to accept that both of my kids were not going to love their safety schools and that was ok with me.â
I donât think this is the winning approach. The point is not to make a teenager like something they hate. The point is to figure out something lovable about each and every school on the list and to get rid of the âsafetyâ and sloppy seconds terminology and thinking.
IRL I observe parents sabotaging themselves every day. They plan a fun trip to Boston, which consists of Harvard and BC tours on day one, Northeastern tour on day two, and then a day three which consists of a Brandeis drive-by, tour at Babson, and a cup of coffee near Stonehill because itâs dark by then and thereâs nothing to see.
Then the SAT scores come back and Harvard is a total waste of time, Brandeis is a high high high reach, Northeastern (which was only affordable with merit) becomes a pipe dream, and the kid âhatesâ Stonehill and has now decided that Boston is done, the goal is NYC, so the parents repeat the entire exercise with Columbia, NYU, and Fordham. Someone like me asks âDid you look at Baruch or Queensâ and the answer is âwhy tour the safety school?â
Thatâs how you create a kid who is miserable come April with a couple of âawfulâ choices and much teeth grinding over how competitive the process is.