I don’t disagree with this, but I think the specifics of the situation matter. If your kid really wanted to get into college X but was rejected, I think it’s OK to be briefly jealous of another kid who got in–as long as there is no reason to think there was anything improper about that admission. Thus, for example, if the kid was a jerk, it’s OK (in my book) to be annoyed–briefly–that a jerk got in and you didn’t. If the kid was a cheater, then you can be a bit more annoyed–also briefly–but it’s not likely the college’s fault. If the other kid just seems less qualified, then I think you do have to tell your kid that decisions are unpredictable, that there may be things we don’t know, etc., etc. But I guess my view about this whole thing is colored by situations in which I believe that my kid was robbed of something because of favoritism or deceit on behalf of the decisionmaker. When that happens, I don’t agree with telling your kid that those are the breaks. You do something about it if you can, and if you can’t, you try to use it as a teachable moment. But you have to teach that there are people who don’t play by the rules, and sometimes they will harm you. You still can’t let the experience blight your life, but you can use it to learn how to protect yourself in the future.</p>
<p>That’s fair. I guess I can’t think of any situations where my kids’ disappointment was a function of their being “robbed” or cheated. Their disappointments seem to have been sort of the garden variety you-can’t-always-get-what-you-want. Let’s hope that that continues!</p>
That’s been true of most of my kids’ disappointments as well–and we always took the, “it’s their loss” approach. The exception was a very unpleasant situation, and it definitely leaves a mark–and it energizes the protective parent instincts.</p>
<p>Just to add something that perhaps relates more to the main topic of the thread, I think how one takes a rejection can be affected by how the rejection is communicated. There have been threads before about good and bad rejection letters from colleges. One of my kids once had a rejection from an organization that was handled in a very mean way, and we were angry about that. So if the rejection itself seems to reflect on you personally, you’re probably going to take it more personally.</p>
<p>Leaving aside issues of character and so forth, they certainly have more facts than you do, unless you’re privy to everyone’s transcript, SAT scores, letters of recommendation, and full list of EC’s. I certainly hope you don’t “know” whether Suzy got an A- or a B+ in Calculus class.</p>
<p>I went to the PTA meetings at the high school because that was one of the places that you could hear from the administration every month. They also did a big meeting every year to update NYS standards and how the school was structured. Obviously you don’t have the info about everyone, but one of the ways you figure out what schools should be on a child’s list is finding out where people have gotten in and what type of students they were. </p>
<p>I don’t remember my kids ever being bothered by the results particularly. There were kids who got into schools my sons would have liked to have gotten into, but in every case they were at least as good if not better candidates. The only one that I remember grumbling about was the cheater. That’s when you have to say “Life isn’t always fair.”</p>
<p>I can recall grumbling about three college results–two were cheaters, and one was a somewhat obnoxious guy who the kids thought exaggerated his ECs and was a self-aggrandizer. But he probably deserved the good results he got–it was just a head-shaking kind of reaction. Wait, there was one more–a recruited athlete who just barely managed to get the grades needed to retain his pre-admission deal. He was a good athlete, though, so any grumbling about that was on the college, not really on him.</p>
<p>We certainly observed that some kids who were hooked (including my own kids) had better results than they probably would have if they hadn’t been hooked. I’ve heard other people grumble about this–but we certainly didn’t.</p>
<p>TheGFG wrote: “Seeing how quickly some of you make very condemning judgments about posters based on how they felt during one hour of their lives after a disappointment, I am not sure I am buying that you are so above non-virtuous thoughts about others as you claim to be.”</p>
<p>How you felt “during one hour”? This girl got admitted to Georgetown, attended, graduated, spent some time working or vegging, or whatever for “a few years”, then went to grad school and you are still “bothered” that she was accepted to Georgetown and your son wasn’t. As a matter of fact, you seemed to follow her life pretty closely for someone who doesn’t appear to be an acquaintance of the parents, much less a family friend. I just don’t understand why.</p>
<p>Perhaps we look at college admissions differently. I don’t believe students who get accepted to a particular college are better than those who aren’t; they’re just different. For reasons I can’t ever know, one was a better fit for this particular program, at this specific school, at this particular time. It’s my job as a parent to teach my children to accept disappointment and create a new plan when things don’t go well, not tear down others when they don’t get what they want. “How can I make my application stronger” is a legitimate question and one you can act upon with positive results. Speculating on how undeserving a classmate who got accepted is, and what special accommodations were made for her (teachers overdoing rec letters out of sympathy), is disrespectful to the girl, the teachers, and the admission staff at Georgetown who were, apparently, swayed by them into accepting an unqualified student over your son. By my calculation, it’s been nearly a decade; maybe you should just let it go.</p>
<p>The fact that something is brought up in a discussion like this one doesn’t mean that the person has been brooding about it for a decade, for god’s sake. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I don’t think everybody would have jumped over this example if not for the paranoic “I think the guidance counsellor just gussied up her letters” remark.</p>
<p>Good gravy! There are quite a few kids from high school who live in NYC, as does my S. They see each other now and then and word spreads about whom they’ve seen around town. The girl in question happens to be attending grad school in NYC, at the same university as S’s friend, and he mentioned it in passing to S. Since I happened to have spoken to S that very day, he mentioned it. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have. That is the first I thought of her for years. And so yes, I do happen to know what she is studying in grad school and all without any weirdo brooding or snooping. Furthermore, while I don’t know the parents, my D happens to be very good friends with the girl’s stepbrother, who by the way, recently expressed to D exactly the same opinion my S did years earlier. Presumably he loves his sister and was just stating what is a pretty obvious characteristic of his sister and was not being mean. I really didn’t want to go into all that, because every detail I mention will be picked apart and examined for some psychological or moral defect.</p>
<p>There are MANY teachers who are helping personalities, and such feel a special affinity for the perceived underdog. They often greatly prefer the quiet, shy, meek kids with issues who need them or seem to need them, to the outgoing, self-assured kid who has it all together. The former feed their desire to help, and the latter don’t. I’ve seen it a lot. Sorry, but we are not talking about shy here, but a social PROBLEM. I used the word “awkward” to be kind. S was under the impression that to get into a tip top school you needed have the full package. She didn’t. There are, or were then, questions about social maturity on the recommendation pages of the common application, which should have brought that out. That was all I meant.</p>
<p>You can’t have it both ways, Erin. Either the girl was accepted over my S, ie. she was the preferred candidate of the two as you state in your last post, or the two decisions were completely unrelated and independent, as you suggested earlier was the enlightened way to view it. Applicants are viewed within their regions, and I would suspect applicants from the same high school might be compared.</p>
<p>No I don’t. I am merely saying I don’t believe S should be maligned at length for feeling that someone with odd behaviors is probably not well-suited to representing our country abroad. Even though recommendation letters are supposed to be specific, meaning commending a particular student for a particular school, most teachers probably send the same form or letter to all the student’s schools. </p>
<p>The young lady would, however, be a far better choice than Dennis Rodman.</p>
<p>Not speaking to Georgetown SFS in any way specifically, but with respect to Foreign Service: I was in a niche major in college with a young man who, by all accounts, was extremely shy, nerdy, uncomfortable and didn’t have any social skills to speak of (though he was a nice, gentle pleasant person and extremely intelligent). He since went on to work for the Dept of State (reporting directly to Madeline Albright, and has had extremely important and highly visible positions representing the US in various E European countries and in Russia, including direct negotiating types of positions. By all accounts he’s done amazingly well. I just point this out that perhaps there are other things looked for than simply the “pleased-to-meet-you” cocktail party chatter part of diplomacy. Carry on.</p>
<p>I’d probably agree with you, but there’s no point, since this is something that neither you nor I can never know. To be honest, I think you seem a little jealous of her.</p>