<p>No good news here either, today. Waiting for one more probable rejection on Friday, and then we’re movin’ on! D has 4 acceptances, with 2 especially good choices among them. We’ll go to admitted student’s days at one or both of those choices, and then it’ll be done!</p>
<p>Big congratulations to the fabulous news on this forum today! And big hugs, condolences and commiseration for those of you with not-so-good news. Hang in there.</p>
<p>Jeez Louise! What a group of kids! And what a group of parents!! Never in my life have I been in the presence of such grace and thoughtfulness. congratulations to all of you. Every one of these kids is a superstar.</p>
<p>Rom, sorry to hear that. I hope there is other good news in hand or on the way that will soften this outcome.</p>
<p>Amandak, not shabby at all! Excellent! Now if the money tree in your back yard starts sprouting spring buds (in green…with presidents on then)</p>
<p>Avon, Yale’s loss. Fingers crossed for the other 2.)</p>
<p>325, so it’s Columbia? Awesome!</p>
<p>Pepper, double-rats! My heart is with your son tonight. He is an amazing young man who will be so successful. So sorry for this disappointment tonight. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed for Brown.</p>
<p>Momjr, Columbia? Awesome!!!</p>
<p>Momdoc, Whoo-Hoo on Cornell. I’m with you. Big group hug to our “adopted” kids om this thread who need it tonight. Their tomorrows will be brighter, even if they don’t believe yet.</p>
<p>VAMom, screaming with you! The cat jumped 4 feet off my computer! I’m thrilled for you!!!</p>
<p>Another 2010’er jumping in to say yay for acceptances, boo for no’s and hugs to all who need them. I know it’s too new and raw for you to understand, but truly in 6 months your kids will all be where they’re supposed to be. </p>
<p>In 2 years I’ll be in your shoes again…</p>
<p>Rom, sorry to hear that. I hope there is other good news in hand or on the way that will soften this outcome. (Later) Yes! Duke! So happy for this good news tonight!</p>
<p>Phbmom, tough early night, but what an ending! Very happy for you,</p>
<p>HighHead, hardly know what to say. Awesomne, awesone news. Heartiest congrats and best wishes!</p>
<p>Moneyp, I’m sorry the results didn’t turn out as you’d hoped.</p>
<p>Amandak, not shabby at all! Excellent! Now if the money tree in your back yard starts sprouting spring buds (in green…with presidents on then)</p>
<p>Avon, Yale’s loss. Fingers crossed for the other 2.)</p>
<p>325, so it’s Columbia? Awesome!</p>
<p>Pepper, double-rats! My heart is with your son tonight. He is an amazing young man who will be so successful. So sorry for this disappointment tonight. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed for Brown.</p>
<p>Momjr, Columbia? Awesome!!!</p>
<p>Momdoc, Whoo-Hoo on Cornell. I’m with you. Big group hug to our “adopted” kids on this thread who need it tonight. Their tomorrows will be brighter, even if they don’t believe yet.</p>
<p>VAMom, screaming with you! The cat jumped 4 feet off my computer! I’m thrilled for you!!!</p>
<p>Happy for your D, and you, Mayhew. Brown! Nice going!</p>
<p>Aria, Princeton! Rock on!!!</p>
<p>Wait listed at Brown. what does that really mean? I thought that the D’s would just go for one of the fabulous schools that they were accepted at, but now twin A says that she couldn’t say how much she liked it because she was sure she wouldnt get in. So now does she express her love to Brown, send in the check for the second fav and wait? Is there any chance of aid for wait lists? Does Brown give full need?</p>
<p>Great news! Camathmom (especially the $$)!</p>
<p>Pepper, the tears you have shed and the feeling of helplessness until he gets home are part of your strength we’re all referring to. You care so much, obviously love him so much, and want what’s best for him…always beside him but never taking over the steering wheel so to speak. What an ally your son has in you!</p>
<p>Tessa, Dartmouth in the bag sure takes the pressure off, doesn’t it? Congratulations!</p>
<p>I am so, so thrilled for everyone with good news. And I am just devastated for those of you whose kids are taking it hard. It hurts to watch our kids struggle, and much about this process is difficult to rationalize. But these are great kids, with great support, and they WILL get through it, and maybe even grow stronger and more resilient as a result.</p>
<p>No good news here: rejected from Brown, waitlisted at Oberlin. D was very upset for a pretty short time. Just as she got her news, a bunch of her classmates were posting acceptances on facebook and she was feeling pretty left out and angry. I talked her out of posting her own update 
and we went out for a lovely dinner to toast her accomplishments, her options and her future.</p>
<p>Disappointed that I’ve had limited internet access. We’re on the road with S2 for a couple of scholarship interviews. It’s a bad time to be out of touch with all of you – the news is flying in!</p>
<p>Congrats to all of you who won the lottery tonight! No winning tickets here – waitlisted at Princeton and Dartmouth. I thought he might be upset, but he was so excited about an acceptance to Duke, that I think the sting from the others faded quickly. He has some nice choices. Now we’ll wait to see how the money works out. If anyone has money tree seeds available, I could use some!</p>
<p>So sorry to read of the disappointments. We were there last week with a WL from what should have been a pretty good match. That hit him hard. I know the feeling of not being able to find the words that make a difference. Pepper, I think this is the first time my son has ever felt that he has “failed” – and while it’s something he needed to experience, it’s painful to watch. I am thankful that his first real feeling of failure took place while he was at home where we could support him and see him through it. How tough it is for these kids who have soared through life so far to feel the sting of rejection! And how great it is that they have moms and dads who love them and help them to see that this is but a bump in the road.</p>
<p>Non-admissions related item from the “Not Always Right” blog, which lists hilarious and hair-raising examples of when customers are wrong, or exceptionally funny. This one is about a mom who is doing prom season right.</p>
<p>[Not</a> Always Right | Funny & Stupid Customer Quotes 27 Stresses](<a href=“http://notalwaysright.com/27-stresses/10886]Not”>27 Stresses)</p>
<p>Finally heard back from S who is on a trip and we went 0 for 3 tonight with Yale, Harvard and Duke all saying no. He seemed upset about Duke more than the two Ivys. Fortunately, along with Duke he had Northwestern at the top of his list and that was a yes. Now we have to see if he wants to be on the waitlist at Vanderbilt or Hopkins and we have to wait for the FA from Northwestern.</p>
<p>I am just glad the NW and Georgetown acceptances came through first so that this week’s no’s and maybe’s didn’t sting so hard.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all of the great news this evening. It is a pretty amazing list and there are some pretty amazing kids represented here by parents who are supportive and who do care. Given all of the overlap I can see why the waitlists are bigger this year. </p>
<p>Condolences to all of the disappointments. Even though there were many no’s today, each of the kids represented on this forum are strong and bright and will flourish at the school they end up selecting and attending in the fall. A year from now, this day, and week, will be a forgotten distant memory. And we can jump in on the 2012/2016 thread and share our wisdom and knowledge with the parents of this year’s junior class who mostly have no idea what is coming their way in the next 12 months.</p>
<p>Hopefully, there are only a few schools left to release their decisions. Good luck to any of you still waiting for those straggler decisions.</p>
<p>Next, we can start the countdown to the national committment day on May 1st.</p>
<p>AvonHSDad, thanks for keeping our countdown. I’m sorry the results for your S were not good, but NW and Georgetown are excellent choices. Congratulations to your son!!!</p>
<p>So, the big day is at an end! Congrats again to everyone who made it. And I hope the ones who didn’t quite will be able to turn to the future.</p>
<p>My daughter leaves early tomorrow for a college visit on the other side of the country alone! I was really surprised she wanted to do that. I do have some local back-up in case things get hairy.</p>
<p>She’s still waiting on two decisions – one of them being Hampshire, the college she has loved the most since visiting (though she insists she doesn’t have a dream school!) It will probably come while she’s gone, in which case she wants me to open it and call. I am dreading a rejection like you can’t believe. If it is bad news, I think I’ll just have to equivocate and wait until she gets back to let her see it.</p>
<p>And it’s not likely she’ll be able to go there even with an acceptance – they aren’t exactly known for having a generous endowment. But still…</p>
<p>Wow just wow. The ups and downs tonight…D1 was not in the running for “the lottery” type schools and I am glad to be on the sidelines…but my heart is soaring with the “happies” and plunging with the disappointments—some of the sting of the sad news is removed when I see these kids’ other amazing choices–and I hope they feel that way too very soon</p>
<p>Just in awe. Your kids are not only amazing in their own right but lucky to have such parents. Regardless of the yesses, the noes and the ‘not-nows’, you all deserve to pat yourselves on the back. I only hope that if your kids don’t yet realize they have powerhouses in their corners, they at least understand that you are their number one fans forever! (Even on the days when loving the kid on the couch includes banging your head against the wall as a buy-one-get-one-free option).</p>
<p>D just got an e-mail from Harvard and she was accepted! We are shocked and elated! D was rejected from Yale, Princeton, Williams and Brown. I feel like I have been on Mr Toad’s Wild Ride!!</p>
<p>Hugs for all those disappointments tonight!!! I don’t have any answers or know what the it was that made it a yes for those 2.</p>
<p>^Congrats Tessa’s D!</p>
<p>Wow! Congratulations to all of you who received acceptances today, and especially to those of you with multiple acceptances to Ivies and other big reach schools. I’ve been thinking until now that admissions to those highly selective schools really was just a luck of the draw for the thousands of qualified applicants. But when you get admitted to so many of them, it has to be much more than luck.</p>
<p>In our home tonight we are right there with those of you who got the bad news of waitlists or rejections. As I predicted last week when D1’s third consecutive waitlist notification arrived following seven consecutive acceptances, the pattern continued today with one more waitlist and then four rejections. All of the notifications, from the first acceptance to the last rejection, arrived in the order of the selectivity of the school. The waitlist today was from Tufts, the rejections from the four Ivies she applied to. </p>
<p>D1 seems to be taking it well, and I hope she isn’t putting up a brave front. The only tears she shed came on Saturday when she received the waitlist from Vanderbilt, not because she had her heart set on going there, but because she thought that Vanderbilt was a good match for her, because she was concerned about disappointing others, and because she too saw the pattern and assumed she wouldn’t be getting anymore acceptances from schools she really loved. She tried hard to hold back her tears, but the instant I saw them mine began to flow too. We were on our way out to dinner at the time, though, to celebrate DH’s birthday, so I was able to look out the window and hide my tears from her, not wanting to compound her sadness, and before long she had bravely turned her focus towards making it a special night for her father. She didn’t want to talk about it later, so I’m still waiting until she does. Today she seemed almost resigned to the waitlist and the rejections.</p>
<p>As for me, I’m in the midst of a lot of thinking and wondering right now. Two years ago I never would have thought that one of my kids would apply to an Ivy League college, let alone four of them. To us, Ivies were things of movies and books and TV shows, not real life. Living in the Midwest and working in special education, I don’t know anyone who has attended an Ivy, except for my nephew who went to an elite and well connected east coast high school, and who’d had some amazing opportunities earlier in life because of the work that his parents are in. </p>
<p>Then last year D1 and I visited colleges in the northeast part of the country over spring break. Our first scheduled visit was to Boston College on Monday morning. But on the way there we got soaked in a very windy rainstorm, decided to move the BC visit to later in the week, and headed back to the hotel to dry off. That glitch in our plans left us with some extra time in our day. So we decided, out of sheer curiosity, to head over to Harvard, an easy T ride away, for an information session there. As we listened to the admissions counselor and two student volunteers talk, we both started to have the same thoughts – “Why not Harvard? Why not D1?” She had all the qualifications and credentials they seemed to be looking for (though they said they had no specific criteria, of course), and the students seemed so much like her. There was so much she loved about what she saw and learned that day, from the residential colleges to the shopping period that allows students to sample classes before registering for them, to the financial aid that could actually make it feasible, and so much more. And whether that would be the school for her or not, we began to build a list of things that she would be looking for in every other school she considered. We ended up visiting five Ivies that week, and she applied to the four from which she was rejected today. Her favorite was Dartmouth. All along we kept asking “why not?”, knowing that if she didn’t try she’d never know. </p>
<p>From this side of the admissions process, however, I can’t help thinking that we were deluding ourselves (and by “we” I really mean “I” since I am the parent who encouraged her to go for it). Not many people in our real life circle know that she applied to those schools. People in our community just don’t seem to aim that high, and although those who know her know how smart she is, I’m sure they’d have thought we were throwing our money away on those application fees. And I have to say now that from this vantage point it really doesn’t seem like a Midwest girl from a good but not an elite high school has a place at an Ivy League college, even if she has always thrived on academic challenge and has a 35 ACT, a 4.0 UW GPA, a transcript thick with honors and APs, and an impressive set of ECs and LORs. </p>
<p>Please know that this is just contemplation and wondering on my part, not sour grapes or bitter disappointment. I am sincerely happy for those of you whose kids have been accepted to those very selective schools, and in awe of those who’ve been accepted to more than one. And, like so many of the kids whose parents write on this thread, D1 has a great set of schools to choose from in those first seven schools that accepted her (all with merit scholarships and, where she has sought it, admissions to honors programs). One of them is her school. She will get an excellent education and have an awesome four years of intellectual exploration and fun. I would just love to understand all of this a little better, to know what it is that opens those Ivy League doors to some and keeps them tightly shut to others.</p>
<p>On a lighter note, D1 had an ironic and kind of funny thing happen to her today. When I picked her up after track practice (her little sis had a crash in her car a couple of weeks ago so it’s been out of commission), I expected her to talk about the five admissions decisions that were waiting for her at home. Instead she was full of news about how prom plans are shaping up. Her two best friends had told her today that there are three guys who want to ask her to prom. Her friends wanted to know who she would like to go with, so they could field questions from the three young men (yes, it is high school…she told her friends that she would be happy to go with any of the three boys, so she’s just waiting to see what happens). Dating has not been a priority for her in high school. She is a beautiful young woman (of course I’m biased, but I hear that from other people all the time, and I can take no credit for it myself) but she’s been way to busy studying, playing music, leading school activities, and so on to think much about dating. So today, the day when she gets rejected from four colleges, she finds out that she can have her pick of three really great prom dates. Not that I’m equating the significance and lasting implications of one with the other, but the irony is that for one she has worked so very hard, while to the other she has given little concern or attention. The blessing of it is that it was a very nice distraction for her today.</p>
<p>I just noticed the time. I’ve written much more than I intended to. Best wishes to all in the weeks ahead. I’m looking forward to seeing how things come together for everyone.</p>
<p>I am new to CC, having just learned about this site a few days ago. I agree with many of the posters that this process is brutal, not only for our kids, but for us parents too(sometimes I wonder whether we get stressed more than our kids do). </p>
<p>This has been a roller coaster ride for us. My S goes to a private school where there are lots of high achievers. I’m constantly amazed when I hear about all the different schools the students apply to and where they get in. We began this journey about 1+ years ago and met our S’s college counselor. When the counselor previewed his grades and SAT scores (the school has the students take SAT tests a couple of times starting in sophomore year), the counselor started throwing out suggestions of schools we never thought he would consider, let alone qualify for. It definitely opened our eyes. Of course, we were warned that we needed to select a couple of “safety schools”, a few moderate schools, and then the reach schools.</p>
<p>Starting in mid-December, the S received his first decision–MIT on EA. He was blown away and so were we. As a result, he decided not to apply to several other schools he had previously planned to apply to since, in his mind, he would prefer to go to MIT instead of those. However, he finished up his apps for the reach schools which included Harvard, UPenn, Princeton, and Stanford (he didn’t like Yale or Columbia after touring the schools). </p>
<p>Subsequently, he received a Trustees Scholar offer from USC, a 1/2 ride at one of his safety schools, and a full ride at another safety school. He was feeling pretty good and so were we. </p>
<p>Then we heard that the decisions for the “other” schools would be coming out this week. I saw a notice from Stanford that their decisions would be coming out on April 1st after 3 p.m., with the Ivy’s all issuing their decisions on 3/30. Well to my surprise, I received a text from my S yesterday (Tuesday) indicating he got rejected. Of the various campuses we visited, I liked Stanford the best. Of course, I was bummed. But my S told me he was ok since that was not his first choice and he already had two schools he liked (MIT & USC).</p>
<p>So March 30th came and I didn’t get any text or call from my S. I presumed the worst. When I got home this evening, I looked at him and he smiled. He said he got WL at Harvard. So I asked him if he got rejected to the other two. He paused and then said he got admitted to Penn and Princeton. Needless to say, I am a happy and proud parent and truly blessed. I don’t know how the admissions process works–I truly believe it involves some luck, faith in God, and being in the right place at the right time. Some of my S’s friends who had better credentials didn’t fare as well and are hurting this evening. I think S was prepared for the worst, and is happy he fared well. However, I know he feels really bad for some of his friends.</p>
<p>Now the tough decisions will need to be made. His first choice is Harvard, with Princeton, MIT, and USC following behind. I don’t think it is realistic that he will come off the WL for Harvard. While saving $42K/yr would be great if he accepted USC’s offer, I realize that as a parent, we should try to provide the best opportunities for our kids. So as much as I would love to save that money (we don’t qualify for much financial aid), I will let S make the final decision.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all of this year’s applicants. Even though they may not have gotten into the school of their choice, each of them are terrific and are our community’s next generation of leaders. Good luck.</p>
<p>Good Morning all…</p>
<p>D didn’t receive the last email until after midnite.</p>
<p>No winning tickets in her lottery but she has some really solid options. Final tally : 6 acceptances and 3 rejections. She is upset but will survive, and I know that where ever she goes will be the right place for her! Just have to let the emotions run their course.</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone who won (that is so awesome) and sympathy and hugs to those who did not. </p>
<p>Now on to the next phase…</p>
<p>Have a great day everyone, our rollercoaster ride has ended! ha ha</p>