Lots of good advise on here but this is what I caught on to. Honestly, I am just sad for you because you have achieved so much and yet you are unhappy. I am of the opinion this is because you are doing what is expected of you and not what you truly want to do and that going to Yale or Harvard would not have made much of a difference.
Please get over the “NEVER ENOUGH” syndrome. If it is coming from your parents, you need to speak up and make it stop. If it is coming from your peers, get different friends.
Here is an idea, try to do something meaningful that enriches someone else’s life. Like all those ECs that you did to get into college, revisit 1-2 meaningful ones and try to do some good for the sake of doing good. Maybe teach math to kids in Baltimore that are desperate for a good role model? Volunteer and try to rehabilitate some abandoned pit bulls? Spend some time walking a senior citizen?
I’m really surprised by the responses you are getting and I’m so sorry you are disappointed in your choices for college for Fall of 2022.
I don’t think anything any of us type in these text boxes will hep you get over your disappointment, but I also don’t think it helps for people to say that they don’t feel sorry for you, that you are essentially learning a life lesson by this, etc is helpful at all. It’s probably true in a retrospective way, but it’s not helpful in the moment.
My recommendation is to get to know the PEOPLE of JHU. Join enrolling student Instagram and Snapchat groups. Maybe your classmates’ excitement and anticipation will be “catching” so to speak. If you begin to see the school through their eyes, you might start to feel real positivity towards the fall.
Why are we still even talking about this??? Didn’t JHU have an admit weekend (akin to a Bull Dog or Blue Devil Days or Visitas Weekend)? You couldn’t meet interesting matriculants or professors??? This seems so crazy. If you didn’t achieve your objective (however unrealistic it was), then you failed. Embrace your failure and learn from it!
My daughter is the salutatorian, national merit finalist and very well rounded resume. She will be attending our State school for premed. She did not apply to any ivy’s . Got in UNC, Vandy and GT. But without any merit.
I think you should be thrilled with your acceptances.
I hold Hopkins in the same regard as Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, and Northwestern… and UCLA is a top-tier public in sunny Westwood. Many kids would give their eye teeth to have your options.
Let’s take it as a good sign. Hopefully, they used CC as a forum to vent and now they are off and running! They certainly received responses here across the spectrum — heavy doses of serious tough love, kind empathy, indifference, frustration, and everything in between.
Right… I just have a confession to make: I didn’t get into either school–or any–yet. I’m to start the app process next fall, and I was just seeing how everybody here was perceiving Johns Hopkins (and UCLA), when compared to other schools, which I believe, are peer institutions. Albeit, I feel that the methodology I used was rather questionable here, but it was still interesting to see how everybody here felt nevertheless!
Doesn’t JHU have a reputation for students being cutthroat rather than collaborative/authentic scholars? Maybe he’ll get in exactly where he belongs, and he would be quite prescient!