<p>Congratulations to all kids and parents on admissions and consolation on WLs or rejections. D was 3 for 5 overall, but I think her choice is going to suit her well.</p>
<p>Last night the phone rang when D was taking a nap and S2 answered it - he was all excited and said to me in a stage whisper, “It’s Vanderbilt on the phone!” (for D of course) We woke her up and she sort of sleepily fielded a call from the Dean of Admissions at Vandy’s Blair School of Music, who was inquiring about her plans. She said she had decided on Vanderbilt and he told her, “You made my day!” and then welcomed her. This is what had sold her on the school in the first place - its warmth and welcoming environment, along with the top notch instruction. I have a feeling she will have a great 4 years.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the kid and parents who “won” the lottery last night…and sending support to those of you dealing with disappointments. As the parent of a child who didn’t have the qualifications to even enter the lottery…I am in awe of all of your children and what they have accomplished. I truly believe that a year from now, the hurt of rejection will have faded as each and every one of your children will be at the school where they “belong”. Best of luck!</p>
<p>I think that every year there should be a time where parents - who have all signed releases that they won’t sue - could meet with the admissions officers and ask “why?” Why did she get in? Why didn’t she get in? Was there a sentence of doom in her essay like in the Amherst story, or was the admissions officer sleepy or n a bad mood when she read the last stack of essays? Or did the essay that others thought was average really speak to the folks at one partiuclar school? Did Eagle Scout mean nothing or everything? Was there an athletic recruit from 20 miles from your town, so they already had your category covered? Should she have not mentioned that she was a cheerleader, should he have not mentioned his passion for hunting? Is marching band really the best EC? </p>
<p>After all is said and done, I think lots of folks are just curious.</p>
<p>We have some amazing results here and I’m so impressed. And I know there is heartache. Everyone be sensitive today.</p>
<p>Congratulations to those who received good news last night, and hugs to those who didn’t. My heart goes out to all the high achieving kids who did everything right but didn’t win the golden ticket.</p>
<p>For for the record, MOSB, my daughter did not get into Columbia (it must of been someone else’s talented daughter). She’s very happy with her choice of Boston University.</p>
<p>Good luck to those of you who have decisions to make. I can’t wait to hear where all the kids end up.</p>
<p>AvonHSDad - sorry about Duke, I was hoping that one would come through for your son as it seemed he was so fired up for it, but he has great choices!</p>
<p>My fellow girls-applying-to-LACs clubbers - I commiserate! What more did these schools want from our girls? One coach told my D that she didn’t get in simply because she’s from the wrong state. </p>
<p>ckofpng - I loved your post above, thanks for taking the time to write it. I feel a lot of what you expressed. And yes, the prom date dilemma is very cool! </p>
<p>And again, congrats for the GOOD news that everyone has gotten, and hopefully our kids can focus on that moving forward.</p>
<p>Here is a thread I started to post where your student will end up. As soon as my d decides …sigh…I will post…but for those of you have decisions made, I thought it would be nice to have a list…
so someone PLEASE start it…</p>
<p>Congratulations to all of the great news last evening - I too am also in awe of these bright and talented students. I am expecting that they will achieve great things in their lives.</p>
<p>Lots of hugs to those that received dsappointing news, I am sure the parents are also feeling their children’s disappointment and pain. Time and perspective will help.</p>
<p>Although we didn’t have a ticket for the lottery, my D finally made her decision, bypassing a few “highly ranked” programs for the more progressive “hidden gem” with a global focus. Frankly, I was a bit surprised but immensely pleased by her thought process! For her it was all about fit and opportunity.</p>
<p>So, although this part of the journey is coming to the end (thankfully), I am looking forward to watching her make her way in the world come September.</p>
<p>I now need to turn my focus on my current sophmore and help her begin her journey!</p>
<p>No good news at our house last night. D was pretty upset. Spending the day with lovely friends. Then she will get to chose which two of her 5 acceptances will get the visits. Probably Pomona and JHU. Still waiting on one more tomorrow - the dreaded NPR school. Hopefully D will realize one of her schools will be wonderful. The list was bulit with great care. Interestingly, the “new top three” are all places where she could do her sport. The “old top three” were not. Lots of other truly fantastic things about them too. I know God’s plan for her is better than her plan for her. Still stings for the moment though.<br>
Sincere congrats to all who won the lottery and to those getting other good news.</p>
<p>I hope the morning went well for the kids. I’m feeling for the ones who feel crushed. All you have to do is take a look at the acceptance threads and you’ll see it just seems crazy! All the Accepted are more than qualified as well as the WL’d and most of the Rejected. I can tell you just in S’s HS the results were sometimes puzzling. We are moving on…</p>
<p>Need you help!! S even asked me to ask you…
We know a lot about Duke & Davidson, Tell me what we need to know about Middlebury & Pomona. S visited Midd summer before junior year. He loves the idea of an LAC.</p>
<p>I’m popping in again from the 10/14 thread to give a big sigh of relief for you. Whether you have several Ivy acceptances to decide between, or you were shut out from the lottery and are now giving second looks to the schools not loved so much which did say yes, take a deep breath. You have a month and as YDS said up thread, many in our group took until the end to decide. Just like when you are beginning the process, you need to know when the kid is ready. If the kid needs a few days/weekend/week/etc to process what the current situation is, give the space. </p>
<p>Now the tables are turned and you are in the driver’s seat. Take your time, attend the admitted students days if you can. Do other visits. Check out the facebook groups and the cc forums. What helped us was looking through the course catalogs to see the nitty gritty of what the offerings were in the areas of interest. </p>
<p>Good luck getting to the milestone of putting in that deposit!!</p>
<p>Several have added their experiences on admitted students days in the 10/14 thread. I don’t recall if we had any do waitlists last year, but if someone wanted to ask go ahead or in a general note. I remember more crushing disappointments at ED time, but as someone (RobD?) said, the kids are doing well where they ended up.</p>
<p>rom - I just came back from visiting Pomona with my 12’ D. Absolutely lovely! Every program gets top notch support. Their resources seem unlimited. I would love it if my D gets accepted there next year.</p>
<p>rom828: Not necessarily what you “need” to know about Middlebury…but…excellent LAC historically known for languages. Beautiful , but somewhat isolated, location. Middlebury has a number of stores and restaurants, but it’s a bit of a haul to get anywhere. Wonderful location for doing outdoors stuff and skiing.</p>
<p>These are a very varied list of schools. You might want to try to have your son think about what’s really important to him…how he may have envisioned his college life, outside of academics – because all are very strong academic schools. Sporting events? Social life? </p>
<p>Also consider ease and expense of travel. While it should not be the defining criteria, it is something to consider. We are East Coast and one of our kids went to school in the San Fran area…which is serviced by 3 airports…so…that child’s airfares were usually not very expensive…and there were many schedule choices. There are many airports you could take to get to Pomona. One main airport for Duke and Davidson. Middlebury is a bit of ways from the Burlington airport, and quite far from Boston.</p>
<p>At five pm we sit down at my computer together. (S decides to nix our original plan). First we open Cornell’s link and his likely letter is confirmed. He’s in. Seeing it again doesn’t lessen the thrill. Then we open Dartmouth. “I regret to inform you.” Next is U Penn. Another no. S is sad. At six S tries to get on the Duke site. It is overloaded and he can’t. He tries for 40 minutes and then he has to leave for a rare dinner with his father. “Call me the minute you hear,” he says as he walks out the door. I finally get through a little after seven, and this one begins, “It is with the greatest regret…” I call and tell him, and he says, “OK, thanks.” His dreams for Duke gone.</p>
<p>I eat a solitary dinner of salmon and worry about my baby.</p>
<p>Around nine he comes home; I’m in my bedroom and call out to him to come in. “In a minute,” he shouts back. “I first want to go in my room for a second and cry a little.” I understand. He knows his options are good, but his #1 and #2 choices (Duke and Penn) are no longer possibilities. He deserves a good cry, but my heart breaks for him.</p>
<p>A few minutes later he comes flying into my room. Not with tears (he was kidding about those) but with a huge smile, wearing the Cornell t-shirt I bought him last fall but that he wouldn’t wear. He is so happy. “Finally,” he says, “I can wear the Cornell shirt. I know I’m going to love it there.” I remind him of the fact that we still need to hear about aid, and he smiles broadly and says, “I know. I know. But I’d love Vanderbilt too.” </p>
<p>Later I hear him on the phone screaming (literally) when he learns of a good friend’s acceptance to Harvard. His excitement for his friend seems no less exuberant than his own joy when he first got a likely letter from Cornell.</p>
<p>I see my son handle his first major disappointment with dignity and grace. I am so proud of him. So while the day doesn’t end with the good news we’d hoped for, it ends with very good news indeed.</p>
<p>Last night was a bit bittersweet with D talking about what “coulda” been. She still wishes that Smith had been a yes, and that we had let her apply to Oxford. What was interesting was in the time between her call to me about the Hampshire admit and the time I got home, her ideas of Hampshire had shifted. It is now a strong #2. Who woulda thunk? Part of the appeal is the proximity to Smith. We actually talked about her limiting her geographic choices back in December, and how it looks a little different now in the spring. While we talked about blooming where you are planted, we also discussed the number of transfer students we met at the various schools. So excelling her first year and then transferring is on the table too. What is great is that aside from a tiny bit of wistfulness, she is happy and ready to move on. </p>
<p>Senioritis has set in (failing classes? well kinda, but it is an online class with no penalty for late work so not irretrievable. And she has put in place new strategies to focus and insisted at school that she not have to sit in other classes which are being taught while she is trying to do her own, not related, online classwork. Sitting in rooms where classes are being conducted was the GC’s bright idea. Insert rolling eyes emoticon here. ) I am employing one of my favorite parenting philosophies- “Better drowned than duffers…if not duffers, won’t drown.” Now is her time to fail if she is going to do so, learn how to manage her own work and accept the consequences if left too much to the last minute. I think D’s pride is going to make her perform better than she is currently doing, but we’ll see. The bottom line though is that she is blooming right now, despite some health issues, and we are content.</p>
<p>I took two hours already this morning catching up; what an amazing group of kids and parents…and lynjoy, your story brought tears to my eyes…</p>
<p>as a parent of a 2011 grad who was never eligible to be in the lottery (and was accepted to her ED school back in Dec), I congratulate you all…
not only for your admits, but also for your grace and dignity throughout the whole process…</p>
<p>Your children will all be happy and successful whereever they land and whatever they do …with all of you as their parents and with all you taught them…</p>
<p>Congratulations everyone. It’s so nice to see some top 20 acceptances here as there were not many at DS’s prep school. Worse admission results in history, GC is not coming back next year. They are also entirely changing grading as they now see its a tremendous disadvantage. Most of the top students didn’t get into any top 20’s. Ah well. DS could not get into the school his sister attended with the same grades and much better test scores. It wasn’t a great fit for his major and not a great option for us financially, but it would have been nice to feel wanted. Not this year</p>
<p>Hugs to everyone. It has been a tough couple of weeks…Mr Toads Wild Ride for sure.</p>
<p>One thing I want to share: this week our younger student was dealing with the results of standing up to a bully–and being punished by the faculty committee for “fighting”…
We had other things going on, including health challenges, death of a “friendship” etc…Its been a really tough few weeks.</p>
<p>and I thought “Lord, can this day get ANY worse”…
Then I heard sirens coming from the main road outside of our neighboorhood and got a reality check…Thank you God that although we have some disappointments right now, and some tough times…my kids are all home tonight and we are all around the table for dinner.</p>
<p>I say this with tears in my eyes and hope you hear my authentic heart and voice here.
It has been a rough road for many kids and familes this season<br>
AND yet we are all living to face another day, share another hug and another meal together.
It is healthy and right to give space for the grieving the “would have, could have, should have” and then we can adjust our vision and put it in perspective.</p>
<p>For me the NPR story illustrates how the initial passing quickly through the apps to determine if they make a yes pile is probably a pretty common method for the schools,
and then to whittle them down to the candidates who are the best “fit” is based on so many things that it can be the “luck of the draw” on who read the file initally etc. </p>
<p>Wishing everyone a great day filled with wisdom and thoughfulness as we hear everyone’s news.</p>
