These are all helpful comments! Thank you! She was focused on big city schools which immediately limits her choices. Add her major and need to stay in the ne, and the choices were slim. Boston specifically, is a great city, but since ne and bu were so competitive this year, really limited the options. And I know it does not matter but we were getting solicitation mail from Yale and Harvard, we knew these were out of reach, but reject from bu was truly heartbreaking.
Anyway, the other schools are not in a city and so the settings alone are upsetting. Iâm sure everything will work out, but wanted to see what others were thinking and or options we didnât consider.
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Absolutely the best advice!!! Double down on really looking at the great things going on where the acceptances are taking you. If they want to do marching band - there may be clinics and camps where they get to move in early. If they are undecided on majors, some colleges have exploratory programs with professors.
Do not let your child miss opportunities for unique programs, summer orientation add-ons, major or department special programs that let them move in and get acclimated early. Help them sort through the emails and mail to make sure they have not missed a professor inviting them to something extra at accepted student day or a special program in August with only 15 openings.
My daughter helped with her accepted student day today on campus. Last night she was talking about how last Spring she almost did not sign up for an additional honors college program within her department because she just could not process anymore emails or think about taking on extra course loads freshman year. I had to remind her to not miss the deadline in the end and she finally got it submitted. It has absolutely been the best experience and she can not imagine her year without it. I am sure she was definitely the best ambassador for that program today.
Look at what the opportunities are with fresh eyes. And change the mindset from âsafetyâ to âlikelyâ admission to a place where they can excel and thrive.
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100% this! Our college consultant wouldnât let us use the word âsafety.â She said they are âlikely,â âtarget,â and âreach.â Especially these days, there just are no such things as âsafeties!â
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Today kid started the process of declining offers at the schools she wonât attend. I hope that opens up some offers to other kids! But I have this weird anxietyâŠwhat if the top school (so far) suddenly sends âoops, we sent you an acceptance by accidentâ? I tell myself this is irrationalâŠbut with the CMC scholarship snafu and other recent weird cases like thatâŠI wonder how long is long enough to wait?
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You should wait. This withdrawl now makes little difference. The schools have enough buffer to manage their low yields anyway.
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If you have the emails, portal logins, invites to events, mailings - they are in and you can sleep 
And yes, the process of declining offers of acceptance is an odd one with such mixed emotions. Some colleges have the buttons right there and others make you work to find their process. Next they will send surveys asking why the student did not pick themâŠeven more awkward, but I made D21 do them as a courtesy.
Some may come back later and ask if you are sure you do not want to attendâŠS19 actually received mail from somewhere not too long ago asking if he was interested in transferring that he had turned down years ago.
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That is indeed the pathnottaken 
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Iâve had the same thought about DS withdrawing. We did have him withdraw from our local CSU since heâs definitely not going there and they were sending personal emails and even making a phone call. Just wanted that to stop. But weâve sent the mid-term grades from both the HS and CC and Iâm holding my breath that theyâll agree we filled out the Cal State Apply web site correctly for the A-G requirements and for his GPA. Iâm completely confident it was done correctly. I even emailed the Cal State Apply website to confirm the correct way to report one of his HS classes that got CC credit through test-for-credit (not the same as DE) and they told me to process it exactly like DE. So if all else fails, I have the email from Cal State Apply to back us up. But Iâm still paranoid someone at SLO is going to look at his HS transcript and say, âhey! you didnât claim this as a HS class and that lowers his GPA! Heâs OUT!â I know thatâs irrational, but Iâm still slightly fearful.
@ucscuuw - VERY COOL! Congrats on the acceptances! Looking forward to hearing whatâs chosen.
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Removed
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Withdrawing applications (and declining the one offer my kid had already) after her ED1 acceptance was irrationally stressful for me. She was fine, but yes, I kept thinking, what if? But we did it and you can too!
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Very well said.
She got into UF no merit.
We were hoping she would get more than $20,000 at Tulane but she didnât.
She got into university of Rochester with only $7,000 merit for BA/MS 5 years program and 40% discount for the 5th year. Sheâs most like to choose U of R, we are visiting in April. If anyone has any information about HEAL, please do share.
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That is awesome! My oldest is a UW grad.
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Thereâs no way to know, but I will say that with my D16 I had similar suspicions about the midyear report. Particularly because the person doing the report had no familiarity with the Common App in prior years.
Itâs not gone as we thought it might as well, but he has good choices. We were hopeful for more merit at a couple places that didnât happen. Iâve learned a lot!
So now he has to figure things out. He has no desire to do more visits even though I think it might help. His top choice is still over our budget that we started with, although we could make it work if we wanted. Itâs tough when we have more kids coming through to know what we can spend on the first one. And he has some other really good options for considerably less money, so itâs hard to want to spend that much more. While he understands value/cost, he only understands it as an 18 year old can. Itâs hard to explain that if he spends $70k-$150k LESS on college what opportunities that opens in the future.
Hopefully in a month all our kids here wlll be happy with their decisions and plans for the fall!
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This advice is gold, absolute gold!
I have shared this post offline with so many parents that needed to hear this. Your wisdom and empathy are deeply appreciated.
Thank you for this post. You have provided comfort and a path forward to so many distraught parents and their kids. 
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Rolling into this week, it had been more downs than ups (rejected Yale SCEA, Williams, UMich, Oxbridge), but she was starting to get excited about UMD who ended offering more than tuition and Muhlenberg who gave her academic + max theatre and music scholarships. Then, she got into Northwestern! AND, it is affordable (we really didnât hope for that latter at all)!!! And, now she is in to Wesleyan with better FA than Muhlenberg! Nothing is off the list yet because she really did find so much to love about the safeties.
Still waiting on Vassar (another we think may not be affordable if she gets in) and some Ivies. Hoping for a few more choices but very happy with the variety of options she has now.
Itâs hard with these high stats kids who have sacrificed much of their âkidâ time to engage in all the activities, pull off the grades, compete for the awards. Itâs a lot to give up and then get shut out. So, Iâm just thrilled that she has this array of possibilities and hoping she will get some much needed downtime to just be a senior and have fun.
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Just want to share the story of one of my Dâs very close friends who only got into the safety that the GC forced him to add on. He was rejected or wait listed to his entire list of schools, including the targets/matches. He was beyond upset and started at the safety fully intending to transfer.
He ended up knocking it out of the park his freshman year with academics and clubs. Decided he loved the school and the profs and wasnât going to transfer. Fast forward 4 years and heâs going to graduate with his engineering degree, at the top of his class, and with an amazing job offer. (His company flew him around last summer in their corporate jet). And, he had a happy 4 years!
Another friendâs D was the val of her HS class, super strong application and also ended up at a safety. Similar outcome - super happy 4 years, top of her class, about to finish med school now.
So, Iâm in the camp of love the school that loves you back. Go and shine. And if after the first year, you want to transfer, go for it but in my limited experience, most kids end up loving their school. There is something to be said about being the rock star ; )
Best of luck to your child!
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I know you know this but be careful about making a financial decision based on emotions. We all want our kids to be happy and sometimes we try to help ease their pain and disappointment by spending more money than we should.
He has no desire for visits but you may need to take him anyway. They will celebrate him and his acceptance.
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Can I ask your specific reason for SIRing to 2 colleges at this point? Ethically this is wrong and I am assuming you will withdraw from one school before the May 1 date? Just trying to understand your strategy. Thank you.
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