<p>
[quote]
Elleneast--just wait till those parents have to deal with their daughter choosing a SPOUSE!
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<p>Gee, and here just today I was thinking how hand a genome sequencer and analysis kit would be in just a few years. </p>
<p><g,d,rvvvf!></g,d,rvvvf!></p>
<p>Btw, as for measuring happiness, I have an indicator that's seldom wrong: all I have to do is listen to the burble factor. Classes, housemates, you name it...all burble.</p>
<p>Accepted : Caltech
Attending: Chapman Music
Happiness: 9.0 (Caltech's financial package was better than Chapman)</p>
<p>School: Yale
Result: Accepted
Attending: Yale
Happiness 5 (It's a long story...)</p>
<p>Clue us in kubakloth..or at least a little bit</p>
<p>If you get into Stanford EA or Harvard EA, do you still apply to other schools RD after this acceptance?
Then, if you get admitted to the other "less prestigious" RD schools, you may be taking the spot of some other kid -
What would you tell your kids to do? What advice would you give them?</p>
<p>School: Yale
Result: Deferred EA, Rejected RD
Attending: Duke University
Happiness: 10</p>
<p>(Note: Also accepted to some other great choices. Yale was the only school which ultimately denied him admissions.)</p>
<p>There have been some thoughtful responses on this thread and I think it serves a really useful purpose. However, it has begun to occur to me that (partly as a result of the phrasing of the original query by a poster whose thoughtful comments I usually admire amd enjoy) it has become rather quantitative and maybe even a little competitive. Hardly anyone comes to a reunion and says things aren't so great, after all. And this thread is a little like that. As someone noted earlier, it's hard to judge a student's ultimate satisfaction with a school before the first semester of the first year even ends--it may be better than it seems, it may be less successful than it seems. Or it may be just right. But there is more to the EA/ED deferral/denial question than jsut saying oh my child didn't get in to Yale but is loving Harvard. Even on CC there must be a lot of kids who didn't get into another Ivy, or applied to AWS and got into good school but not one fo the the other membres of the super-trio. Or got in to a really good schol and likes it but hasn't yet shed all the doubts that come with not gettgin what you were sure you wanted, or not being the one among your five best friends who isn't at a school everyone else wishes they had gotten in to. This may relate a little to BHG's query about bowing out, but I think it relates more to the almost-elite students who are, perhaps, stars but not superstars.</p>
<p>It might be helpful as the week comes to an end and the first round of EA/ED decisions finsishes to start a thread that addresses the question without being quite so determined to say everyting is the best in all possible worlds. Yes,deferrees need to be optimistic and cosntructive, but they also need to know that it may not work out as they dreamed and that they need to open themselves to other dreams, whether elsewhere in the country or elsewhere on the ranking lists.</p>
<p>What is AWS and BHG?</p>
<p>mattmom I think you are very right about this.
Also, kids need to be gently reminded that HYPS/rankings/prestige is not everything.</p>
<p>Amherset/Williams/Swarthmore. BHG was shorthand for Backhandgrip, who had posted an interesting query several days ago.</p>
<p>School:Harvard
Result: Deferred, rejected
Attended: Stanford
Happiness: as close to 10 as he's ever likely to get.</p>
<p>Child:
School: Stanford
Result: Accepted EA
School Attending: Swarthmore
Happiness: 9.9</p>
<p>Friend:
School: Stanford
Result: Deferred/rejected
School Attending: Swarthmore
Happiness: 10</p>
<p>What an excellent post, Mattmom. You articulated so well something that Ive thought about a great deal. My own daughter had no clear first choice last year and did not apply to any school ED, so what I have to add doesnt directly address the issue of early round disappointment. But it does touch on the issue of kids expectations about college, especially as those issues may be shaped by these boards.</p>
<p>My daughter is what we affectionately call a regular smart kid. After due deliberation last spring, she chose to go to Colgate, a selective LAC that is nevertheless a few selectivity rungs below the Ivies and AWS. (I do think that Colgate is unfairly stereotyped on these boards, but thats a topic for another day.) Anyway, she is happy at Colgate and we believe she made a fine choice. Having said that, for her college has been a transition. At least in the first semester, she has not experienced the sort of unbridled happiness that many parents here describe. (One of the toughest things for her was separating from a great group of high school friends.) I sometimes wonder why there seem to be fewer adjustment issues for the super high-achieving kids who are at the Ivies, AWS, and a few other schools that are heavily represented on these boards. I think its so important for kids and parents who are going through the admissions process to bear in mind that no school is perfect. Schools are, after all, operated and attended by humans, who are not perfect! And that is why for any kid, there is never just one school that fits..</p>
<p>Wjb, I can't speak for others, and I wouldn't characterize my daughter as super high achieving (particularly not compared to others on this board), but I expect her to be much happier at college because she is so relatively unhappy now. She is somewhat out of sync with many of her classmates, and the group that she does share aspirations with, is so busy that's there's not a lot of free socializing time. She had a couple of close friends in mid school and freshman year, but they, unfortunately, moved away by end of soph year. By that time, it was too late to break in to any of the other groups.
She is ready to be at college, and most of them are having their "high points" in high school. The students in her actual classes are great, they are the academic, "nerdy" kids - it is the rest of the class. She went to a college summer program for 3 weeks this summer, and came home the happiest I'd seen her in over a year. She didn't like the college, in fact, it went from her first choice to she didn't even apply, but she loved the experience. Her 2 overnight college visits this fall only confirmed that - she is ready to move on.</p>
<p>I agree that the parents may well be painting a rosier picture than the kids would, but there is something about living with your peer group for a couple of years that just makes college fun, wherever the child goes.</p>
<p>In defense of my poor rating of my experience, I will admit that it is only the first quarter of my freshman year, and I am having an unusual experience. For example, I do not live on campus or anywhere particularly near it (though I live in town), and that creates a whole other set of stressors that makes my experience nonstandard. </p>
<p>I think the greatest reason for my dissatisfaction, however, is that I have this incredible ability to convince myself that things exist when they really don't -- in this case, interest for a school. I didn't know myself well enough, though I tried, to be able to truly find a fit that wasn't an extreme reach for me, and I am paying the price for that. But it's not truly so bad; my school is pretty good, and very supportive, and I am doing well academically here. Also, these struggles are encouraging me to look at things in a different light and approach life in an entirely new way. Having accepted that grad school is not necessary for my probable career path helps too! </p>
<p>I can't stress how important it is to visit the school, though, and with an open mind. The brochures and websites -- and even student testimonials, because they are so self-selectively offered -- pale in comparison to an actual visit in which you at least try to see things objectively and try to place yourself there.</p>
<p>The super-high-achieving kids, as well as the kids with very specific interests, may be lonely outsiders in high school. For them, getting into the "right" college may mean that for the first time in their lives they are surrounded by people who are like them, who are interested in the same things and laugh at the same jokes. Those kids might or might not be able to find happiness at the convenient college down the road.</p>
<p>Cangel and Texas: I think you have both hit on an important point about the correlation between extreme unhappiness in high school and extreme happiness in college right from the start. Viewed from that perspective, it seems that for kids who are leaving a relatively happy social situation (albeit one that has evaporated with high school graduation) the transition to college may not be as seamless. Also, I did not mean to suggest that every kid can find "happiness at the convenient college down the road." I fully agree that kids need to find a school that "fits." But I do believe that for the vast majority of kids, even the super high achievers and the kids with very focused or esoteric interests, there is more than one school that fits. And for the majority, even if the school does "fit," it's perfectly normal for that fit to be somewhat less than perfect.</p>
<p>wjb - I totally agree with all of your points. You picked out the most salient kernal from what I was saying better than I did - the kids who are happiest in college may be the ones who were the most miserable in high school, and who are the most relieved to get out of that setting into an appropriate (even if imperfect) college.</p>
<p>I agree about some kids loving college more than HS. My son is one of them: he has specific interests and the general Math/Science/English courses in HS did not correspond sometimes to those interests. He is having a great time in college. I don't know if I was specifically being rosier than my son; perhaps I am. I do know that he loves his freedom, being a young adult (well, still a teenager, but being treated like a young adult), he loves exploring various interests of his in college without the obligatory Math courses that he thought were a chore. So, all in all, I'd say he loves college a LOT more than HS. I hope his grades (if he shares them with me) are better in college than in HS, but he doesn't care much about grades anyway.</p>
<p>Wjb, I too, agree with your points. What I picked up about your daughter was her happy social situation. And I do think that for most kids there are many colleges that will be a "great" fit - I think, based on my DD's summer experiences, (as achat describes), it is college that she needs. </p>
<p>I have a friend whose daughter sounds much like yours, she is struggling a bit making a choice. She has a BF who is a sports recruit at a school, that, although an excellent school, is not like any of her other choices - but she is considering applying there because of him. SHe's applying at some other colleges as matches because, in part, they are common schools for kids at her high school - some are like her top picks, some aren't, but the social life feels comfortable. I'm not saying that's a bad thing or a good thing, it just IS. I feel strongly that these kids are only 17, they mostly don't really know what they want or what will be important to them at age 20, BUT, just as things worked out well for most of us by going off to college, often having never seen the place, I think they will mostly love their schools regardless sometimes of the "fit" at app time.</p>
<p>Achat/Cangel/Texas: This mini dialogue has given me a completely logical answer to something Ive been questioning for awhile. Actually, its nothing short of a minor epiphany! Gotta love this board. Thanks.</p>