<p>Just adding my sympathy to scoutsmom, phb and owm. As hard as the kids take the news, I know that you are feeling it twice as much. It’s the worst kind of hurt. I don’t have any pearls of wisdom for you, only my utmost respect for all of you, for having raised children who are not only exceptional students, but also exceptional people who were willing to take a chance and throw their hats in the ring.
Owm: my heart is with you today. I wish I could sit down and share a piece of pie with you.</p>
<p>Mosb: your story is enough to remind to me that good things happen when we least expect them. Lucky songbird to have a family with such great values.</p>
<p>owm - your post brought tears to my eyes. I can so identify with your gamut of feelings.</p>
<p>D hasn’t yet heard from her one favorite school that I know (thanks to cc) sent out another wave of letters. Very baffling since I thought she would have definitely heard by now. So I am sitting out here in a hotel room, second guessing everything we did with respect to this school. Did we somehow turn them off when we visited? What did we do wrong? I see kids posting that are in (with much lower stats). I know stats are not ALL, but sometimes, that’s all we can compare since we don’t know what the intangibles are. D once told me that she would be very upset if she got rejected from this school (she has applied to other reaches and is much more zen about those!). Ugh - she probably won’t know for a while more, but not hearing yet does feel like a rejection is on its way…</p>
<p>Own – my heart aches for you and your son. I know he doesn’t want to face his friends at school today, but I am sure they will offer him the support that he needs. Aside from few “bad apples” most kids are very sensitive and understand what it feels like to have your dreams crashed. Most importantly, it’s MIT’s loss. Being the great young man that he is, he will succeed anywhere. </p>
<p>Mosb – great idea to pay forward. But why not to tell your parents?</p>
<p>owm - your post reminds me of my feelings on December 16 - after D got deferred from her dream school. It just stinks. AK’s adjective - arbitrary - is perfect. I will also add mine - unfair. To be a qualified kid on the short end of a lottery is unfair! My D dreaded the first day back at school and facing the disbelief that she was not admitted. Noone gets how tough it is, this year especially. I wonder if we should have hired a professional advisor, should have sent her to academic summer programs (she spends 20 - 25 hours per week on her sport year 'round instead), should have pushed back on the school that said only one AP for anyone sophomore year and no self studies…Oh well, she made the choices she wanted to at the time and we all did the best we could with what we knew. Our kids will get through this and so will we. I hope your S (and all the kids dealing with a tough day today) find a good friend to comfort or distract them, remember that they are just as smart and talented today as they were yesterday, and start their “bounce back.” I know I shared in December that my D started wearing the rival school sweatshirt on December 16th. For some reason, it was cathartic! AK - thanks for the laugh. I think we all needed it!</p>
<p>OWM, my heart goes out to you as well. It is so tough to see one of your kids’ heart broken. You can handle it for yourself, but for them its a 100 times worse. My S was too rejected from MIT(and Harvard), he was the smartest in his class, perfect SATS 11 APs with 5’s, summer at BU studying number theory etc. And this was 10 years ago before it got so crazy. We were shocked, I think one of them he heard early on or was waitlisted or something, so he got a little depressed and had a couple of months to wallow until RD decisions came out.
Flash forward 10 years and he is happy, he has a great job earning enough $$ to have a nice apartment of his own, a new car and $$ in the bank. I talked to one of his co-workers on the phone as my company had some related business and the first thing he said to me was “he’s the smartest person I’ve ever met”. I couldn’t hope for much more for him (except maybe I would like him to have a nice girlfriend, get married and have a couple of children).
My point is - I know this hurts so much now, but with a son like you have raised he will have great opportunities and a great future.</p>
<p>Thanks for the condolences. Good friend of D2’s, a young man, also rejected at MIT. OWM, I so feel for your son. </p>
<p>D2 did crawl into bed with me for a few minutes last night and bemoaned that all her hard work in high school was for nothing. I put an end to that idea. She has four options available at the moment. </p>
<p>On a sweet note, another good “young man” friend of hers made D2 a paper fortune teller yesterday. Each flap says “Congratulations! You’re going to …” and individually names all eight of the schools she applied to. I was impressed he knew the names of all eight! I thought is was such a cute, thoughtful gesture. He knows she’s stressing about this final decision and tried to lighten the mood a little.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for their kind thoughts. OWM, I know what you mean. My son fell asleep a lot sooner than I did last night. What if we were able to send him to a private school, summer programs, etc…but lots of those kids got rejected, too. And my son was not happy this morning about having to face all the people at school, including his teachers, who were “sure” he would get in. He didn’t want to hear about the good schools he has already been accepted to, or how he could try again for graduate school. He wanted to be miserable, and I guess he’s entitled. So pi day (hereafter to be known in our house as “humble pi day”) is followed by the Ides of March. I told him I didn’t expect the 17 years he’s spent building his confidence to be changed in one day. He’s the same person he was yesterday, and that was a pretty amazing kid. (Besides, everyone at school will ask today, but next week very few will remember whether he got in to MIT or not; another drama will be taking their attention.) I am trying to keep in mind that a year from now he will be somewhere great, and happy, and warmer than Boston!</p>
<p>I’m sure it will be very hard to convince your son that all students at Mizzou are not like the party kids who snubbed him all four years of HS. If he does go to Mizzou, I would strongly urge him to seek out a research assistant position ASAP…even before he gets on campus. If he connects with a lab, he will meet some advanced undergrad as well as grad students…and he will certainly find like-minded people. There will be lots of suggestions on how to find your own “tribe” on campus…but, from what you’ve told us about your son, making an academic connection will lead to social connections and be very important for your son’s happiness.</p>
<p>Hugs to all who didn’t receive good news last night. You already know that you should be so proud of them for achieving so much and putting themselves out there.</p>
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<p>You are so right that most people - even parents of seniors and the seniors themselves - have no idea how competitive the process is.</p>
<p>OWM, if I can offer a tiny bit of advice: it is very likely that you will carry this heartache longer than your son will. When my kids have had stinging disappointments, I know for certain that I have mourned a lot longer than they have. My advice is when he stops talking about it, you need to stop talking about it…at least to him. When his tears stop, yours need to stop…at least in front of him. You can rant and cry to your friends, partner, us, but once he’s moved on, he needs to see that you have, too.</p>
<p>Missypie gives very good advice. A few years ago, when my younger daughter was a freshman, she desparately wanted to make the JV field hocky team. She practiced and worked out like crazy all summer, and was a nervous wreck when try-outs started. I really wanted her to make the team, so I was a wreck also. My older daughter told me that I needed to downplay my feelings, so that her sister wouldn’t feel like she was disapointing me if she didn’t make the team. It’s important for your kids to know that you are disapointed for them, not in them.</p>
<p>Momjr and OWM, I can still make myself angry when I think of that blown call in 2nd grade softball that booted D’s team out of the tournament! D doesn’t even remember it and I’ll never forget it!</p>
<p>De-lurking again here. Blessings on all of you wonderful caring parents and your wonderfully accomplished kids. A special blessing to all who pick each other up, dust them off, and send them out to do battle again.
Reading about the pi day disappointments is bittersweet. To even be in the running for that sort of school is amazing to me. We have a darling but somewhat slacker son who has the smarts but not the drive to even consider MIT or ivys, nor would he have the faintest idea how to go about getting there. He is headed to a small school, academically rigorous, where we hope he will realize his potential - but compared to your kids he is not even in the same league. I can’t imagine being so close and being denied, but your children will be so successful anyway - you know they will. Do you think one of them could give my son a job someday?</p>
<p>I’ve been a lurker and once or twice poster. To OWM, Scoutmom and others, hang in there. I agree that we parents hold the pain much longer than the kids. They will bounce back and find great colleges and experiences. I’m so sorry your kids are hurting and I definitely feel your pain, but as others have said, it will pass and they will be happy and amazed at their final choices.</p>
<p>I’m reading these thread to prepare myself for the next few weeks. Happily my DS has been accepted into one of his top choices. We continue to wait for his top choice (a dreaded ivy) and another private which I think is his #2. He’s confident he will get an acceptance. I’m doubtful. His school doesn’t have much history of acceptances to top schools. I’m allowing him his optimism while reminding him he’s already IN at a fantastic school that his peers would love to have gotten into.</p>
<p>So go out and have a latte on me. Remember how amazing your kids are and how they are that way because you are all amazing parents!!! The schools are the losers, not your kids or you. You are all winners knowing how great your kids are!</p>
<p>So sorry to hear of the MIT decisions for scoutsmom, olderwiser and pb6mom. It is quite evident that the cream had curdled in the MIT adcom’s Boston Creme Pi or the apples were sour in their apple Pi. One of S’s best friends also got the sour apple news last night. He has already gotten into the engineering programs at Purdue, Ga. Tech Honors, and was deferred EA at Chicago.</p>
<p>As one of you said (I don’t recall who - sorry) it boils down to the intangibles. Our DIL is an admissions counselor at a smaller mid-level college here in Ohio and she describes the process as extremely difficult (Her college accepts 60% + of their applicants.) For them, its easy to reject the bottom 10% and accept the top 10% but its everyone else in between where it can become very subjective and arbitrary. She said that the more selective schools have a harder time as better than 85 - 90% of their applicants have the raw stats to easily qualify for admission. It boils down to essays, EC’s and sometimes the passion of the recommending teachers and counselors. Many times it comes down to the specific adcon that handles that area having a connection with the applicant through the submitted materials. In summary, however, she indicated there is no magic formula for anyone.</p>
<p>Grandparents can be beautiful and do wonderful things for their grandchildren. The pay it forward idea is wonderful. In conjunction with our inlaws, we have started 529 Plan accounts for all three of our little grandchildren.</p>
<p>OWM, I’m so very sorry and full of empathy for you. I’ve never had a cherished son rejected from MIT, but boy, I know what it is to see a beloved child’s heart break, and I expect most of us here can really relate to your painful feelings this morning.</p>
<p>Know this: you’ve been an outstanding mother, and continue to be as he deals with this setback. You cannot possibly know what “mistakes” or bad outcomes have been averted by the good choices you’ve made for him all his life, but I guarantee you, many have been.</p>
<p>You two will waltz through this and many more of life’s challenging moments together, just as you have with your older son and DIL. I admire you so much, and I know your son’s future is very, very bright.</p>
<p>My heart is really aching for those of you with such disappointing news! I would like to echo the thought that your children should be so proud of themselves for having the qualifications to even apply to a school like MIT!
Sometimes I think rejection is easier for kids like my d, who while smart, aren’t brilliant and have gotten used to failing the occasional test or not getting accepted into opportunities. My d’s best friend is a very high achieving young lady. Never has gotten less than an A, 5’s on AP’s , fantastic SAT scores. When she was rejected by Tufts this fall it was devastating to her. It was so hard to watch!
Hang in there!</p>
<p>I wonder what the turnover/burn out rate is for admissions officers at highly selective schools. I guess you just couldn’t think about how many fantastic and deserving students you are disappointing, or you couldn’t do the job for very long.</p>
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<p>LOL, so it’s *good *that my D is doing so poorly in AP Econ!</p>