<p>Agree that if she really REALLY wants to go to W&L, she and her GC should call and follow oldfort’s advice. Good luckw</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-were-picking-up-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-were-picking-up-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html</a></p>
<p>Here is the thread.</p>
<p>^Thanks MomofWildChild – I started reading it and it’s like looking in the mirror!
Thanks Lafalum84. You’re right – deep breath. Do something else. Stay positive. And I agree – attitude is everything. If she thinks this will destroy her life, it will. And the opposite is also true.</p>
<p>No. I got waitlisted at Pitzer and Wesleyan, but accepted at UCB and Pomona, whose admission rate is much lower. It doesn’t mean a thing.</p>
<p>Well, it’s really hard to love a school that is your third or fourth or lower choice, is it not? I mean it’s one thing if the child doesn’t have specific college ambitions, another if this was a huge deal to that person, their goal for their academic life for 12 or so years. If you are aiming for Columbia or Brown or whatever, and you have the scores, how could you “love” your safety of your state’s flagship?</p>
<p>Sure, you might think, “I could cope with the disappointment” but I remember how totally anxious I was at that time and I didn’t even know about safeties, LOL. I’m sure the kids will learn to love the safety, but that’s not the same as being able to cope with the difficulty of rejection. Mourning is a process and for a teenager who’s been putting their entire life for four or more years into this application, not getting in could be the biggest disappointment they’ve faced.</p>
<p>If they loved the safety, why waste all that money on applications to longshot schools?</p>
<p>I think it should be, “Know and appreciate thy safety.” </p>
<p>OP–Best of luck to you and your daughter.</p>
<p>A graduate from a safety school may do better than a graduate from a dream school. It is very rare that undergraduate school defines a person or his/her career. For most high-paying job, it would require degree beyond BS or BA. For some profession, it may need no degree at all. If the child has ambition and willing to put in effort, plus some street-smart, he/she will be successful.</p>
<p>“Love Thy Safety” is often tough to do. You really have to start working on it long before the searches and applications. For my kids, it was easier to do than most because they were so clueless that they couldn’t name 10 colleges without big time football/basketball teams. They vaguely knew that Harvard and Yale were well known schools, and knew where DH and I went to college. They had little other interest so it was easy to look at some nice safety/match type schools and they looked at those as real possibilities. </p>
<p>In contrast, a lot of families here are doing the HPY tours years in advance and focusing on the lottery ticket schools. Until they are in the process, most people don’t understand how selective the process is even with a high stat kid. </p>
<p>One of my son’s friends applied to a star studded roster of schools, tacking on a safety that his family and he hardly mentioned. Yesterday, he visited a school with my son that would have been a pretty sure admit for him, and wistfully wished he had applied there. Good school, but not in the upper echelon. Had he included a number of schools like that on his list, he’d be looking at a bunch of acceptances along with the WLs, rejections and the disdained safety. </p>
<p>It’s not cherry picking the top name schools for your list that is the challenge. That’s easy. It’s finding some schools that you like, that fit your needs and wants and are also likely to accept you and are affordable to boot. That’s where the time and effort needs to be spent in the college search, not trying to decide which top schools should make the apply list.</p>
<p>“Who wouldn’t rather go to their reach than their safety?”</p>
<p>Our family views it differently. We’re trying to put together a list with a variety of interesting choices from reach through match and safety, and we’ll see what our kid bonds with. Knowing what I know now, it would be tough to decide between a top notch private, an honors college at a big state university, or a small school with the perfect feel.</p>
<p>So many good choices. (I wish I had known more back in the day). Slogging through a program at the reach school might not be the most enjoyable undergrad experience.</p>
<p>My kids refused to apply to any school they didn’t actually LIKE and could see themselves attending. They also really focused on a couple of schools where they really wanted to attend and poured heart and soul into those apps (though probably at the expense of other acceptances, since those essays clearly carried a certain vibe). Got them both into their top choices, including reachy schools.</p>
<p>I’ve also come to agree with the wisdom of other CC posters that having a CHOICE in April is very important. Even if the schools are not at the top of one’s list, having options gives the student a sense of control over the decision-making process. Those merit awards can be real ego-boosters, too.</p>
<p>We also were VERY happy with applying to EA/rolling schools. Both had at least one acceptance in December.</p>
<p>My younger son applied as a Physics major to only one school and was sure it was a safety, California State University Sacramento, where my older son is a sophomore majoring in Geology and they planned to rent an apartment together. He took the SATs in March during his Junior year and obtained scores of CR 660, M720, W 580. He did not bother to take them again his senior year since CSUs only look at CR and M scores and he already had a 1380/1600 applying to a school where the accepted student averages about 1000/1600, few applicants majoring in Physics and hardly any who scored over 700 on the Math SAT.</p>
<p>The problem is he has ADHD and refuses to take his medication so his GPA was only 3.1 as a result of 0s in the huge number of howework assignments he never did or did not turn in. Still, we were very confident he would be accepted at CSUS since we live in Sacramento County. We were stunned when he was rejected. What do you do when your safety rejects you? In our case the only thing left is community college where they have to take him. However, due to California’s fiscal situation funding for higher education is being cut drastically and the Community College system here is in the process of disintigration. It could be five years in community college before he is able to complete enough courses to apply as a transfer to a four year college in either the UC or CSU systems, particularly since Physics has so many required prerequisites in addition to General Education courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences.</p>
<p>Related–just heard today that a friend’s daughter was accepted to all 8 of the schools she applied to. Well, that’s dandy for her, but I feel like she’s holding spaces that some of these poor waitlisted kids would kill to have. I hope she decides sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>I made my kids make some decisions BEFORE they applied. I know it’s hard if sometimes you don’t know your major yet, but mine at least narrowed it down. We also sort of eliminated “financial reaches” b/c we had 4 kids to educate and they knew we didn’t have really big bucks to throw at the problem.</p>
<p>LeMaitre1–can your son do a gap year and try again next year? Seems preferable to a long slog through community college.</p>
<p>Lemaitre, I remember your experience from your earlier thread. Your son was denied because when he filled out his application, he mistakenly marked that he was an international student, right? And then he felt too embarrassed to appeal? He might still be able to attend Sacramento State if he is willing to go talk to someone about what happened.</p>
<p>lemaitre
I feel for your son but his 3.1 has put him in a bind during a tough admissions cycle at several CSU’s. He needs to make a decision about how he will handle his ADHD. If he doesn’t want to take med’s he need’s to find another way to get more focus and get his hw done. If he doesn’t do hw in HS what is going to change once he goes to college? He may need to spend a couple of years at CC as he works this out.</p>
<p>i mean washington and lee has a 19% acceptance rate…that’s pretty low.</p>
<p>^^^^^^</p>
<p>Yeah, any time you get below a 25% acceptance rate, or maybe higher these days, you’re not talking about a safety. It’s a tough process right now.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone.</p>
<p>From the thread cited by MomofWildChild:
</p>
<p>Well, what would YOU think if you were an Oberlin adcom and saw this list?</p>
<p>It’s not just that Oberlin is the least selective of these schools. It’s that Oberlin is a rather different kind of place than the rest (other than Swarthmore). If someone is sincerely attracted to Oberlin’s distinctive qualities, why not apply to more similar schools, such as Carleton, Grinnell, or Macalester?</p>
<p>Oberlin’s biggest risk in this case is not to its yield if the candidate refuses their offer. A bigger risk is if the candidate accepts, and what the college gets is a disgruntled Ivy-league reject who never really wanted to be at Oberlin. That can poison the atmosphere for everyone else.</p>
<p>Lemaitre, I’m sorry to read this. I love what California has done with their state university systems in terms of their infrastructure. NY tried to use this model, but has yet to gain the prestige for its top state schools. However, here in NY, we have been successful in having a lot of low cost alternatives for kids. To me, that is a priority of the state education systems, and it is a huge lacking when a state cannot accommodate those kids willing and able to learn on the college level. </p>
<p>My older 3 boys were all 3.0 type students and they were not dxed with ADD or any issues, though I suspect that there is a strong streak of those problems in their make up. It has been a tough go for them to function effectively in the adult world because of their lack of discipline and organization. I think that a couple of years at home instead of away at college would have been more helpful to them, if I’d had the energy to work with them more. They are slowly learning the hard way on how to make their way in this world independently. </p>
<p>Though I am sorry if this different route through school does indeed add time to your son’s studies, it may benefit him in the long run, as he will have more time to grow up.</p>
<p>I don’t believe colleges will as a rule reject those who are applying to more selective schools. I know too many kids for whom the acceptances have very much been in line with their stats, and too few for whom it has not. I think that a list like that with little interest shown to a school would do it, however. I say this because these schools don’t know any more than the students which colleges are going to accept which students. So to turn down the type of student your school is seeking on the assumption s/he is going to get accepted to a “higher” level school makes no sense. You aren’t going to get any of those stretch students that you so want in a college if you don’t accept them. You take the chance that they will not get accepted elsewhere.</p>
<p>I know a number of kids who have applied to Oberlin and top schools as well. Two of them ended up at Oberlin. A lot of kids I know have lists looking like Andi’s son’s that I know, except most have a safety stuck there often as EA, rolling or flagship state school. Does anyone really believe listing the other schools to which one has applied has effect on the outcome? Kid change their minds all of the time. One of my kids was worried because by the time he finished and set out his apps, the list he gave to one of the colleges was no longer correct though it was at the moment he was completing it. I haven’t read any insider story saying this has an effect at all, and those tell alls from the admissions offices have specifically said they do not care where else someone has applied because you can go nut with the “what ifs”, taking such things into consideration. It’s tough enough to assess all of the pertinent things for each applicant.</p>
<p>
My son was accepted to 8 colleges and my daughter was accepted to 9. The thing is, other than a few safeties, the didn’t know they would be accepted and/or would be able to afford the school until after they applied. So good for your friend’s daughter – I’m sure she will narrow down her choices soon. I’d note that colleges generally “overbook” based on their standard yield expectations – they may easily be offering 3 students admission for every 1 space they need to fill. They won’t be notifying anyone on the waitlist until they’ve got a better count, usually around May 1st – so your friend’s daughter isn’t hurting anyone by holding a spot while she considers her options. </p>
<p>I’d also note that the ad com chose the friend’s daughter over the waitlisted kid because the college wants her more. Some colleges will be quite aggressive in communicating how much they want a particular applicant, with offers of scholarships or other perks, phone calls, personalized mail, etc. Sometimes during the last month students learn more about the schools they’ve applied to and change their mind about their favorites. </p>
<p>
So did your friend – because 8 colleges is not a particularly high number to apply to these days. She just happened to be accepted to them all – maybe because, in hindsight, she aimed too low, or maybe because she just happened to make good choices of colleges that are excellent fits. </p>
<p>If a person is certain of what school they want to attend and is not concerned about financial aid, then there is a system in place at many schools that allows that person to apply without temporarily holding onto a spot that could go to someone else – it’s called ED. For everyone else, the system is to apply to many, and then give each school an answer between April 1 and May 1.</p>
<p>
No one gets into Columbia or Brown based on “scores” alone, and if a state’s flagship isn’t good enough in the applicant’s eyes, there are a LOT of schools to choose from in between the Ivy League and in-state public. </p>
<p>I can see where students who use their test scores as a determinant of where they should apply and where they expect to be accepted are in for a world of disappointment. The only schools that are likely to put enough of a premium on scores to admit everyone within a certain score range are the ones that the student is going to feel is somehow beneath their abilities.</p>