Hmmm, seems like “safety” would connote 100% chance of admission and affordability (e.g. stated policy of automatic admission for the student’s stats, list price well within budget), while “likely” would connote extremely high chance of admission and affordability, but no stated assurance of such.
There are very few schools with a guaranteed 100% chance of admission nor are they needed to develop a workable and well crafted list.
I completely understand kids being disappointed. I’d say more are disappointed than not. My kid was disappointed because he did get accepted at his reach schools but didn’t receive the necessary merit he was vying for to attend.
I’d say it took him about two weeks to completely let the schools go and concentrate on deciding between the two great affordable schools that would love to have him attend. It’s a grinding process.
I disagree that more kids are disappointed than not. Now if you’re limiting your sample to those with expectations of attending an “elite” school, you might be right - but even then, I don’t know that most kids don’t have reasonable expectations regarding this process. We only see a tiny fraction here of those going through this.
It would be helpful if applicants were told that nobody stole their spot. I can’t count the number of threads/posts that say that. Nobody has a spot until admissions of xyz school says you do.
Actually, there are probably more than you think. For example, every public university in Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, South Dakota, and probably some other states lists automatic admission by stats criteria. Other states may have some public universities with listed automatic admission by stats criteria. And then there is the default safety of starting at an open admission community college.
I am one year separated from the process, so my “recovery/detox” is almost complete. I am the parent of twin NMF. We tried to let the DS make the call on where to apply. Our only requirement was at least two ‘safety’ schools. One DS was accepted to 4 or 5 schools, but not his number 1 (USC). I think I was more upset than he was. His final choice was UCLA v Notre Dame. Not a bad choice to have. He is loving Notre Dame. The other DS was only accepted to the two safety schools. I felt bad for him based on the expectation that NMF status would translate into several selective school admissions. It did not. He is at Arizona State on a 100% tuition and should be able to graduate in 4 years with a Masters in Computer Science.
In many cases, I feel the expectations we set as parents are part of the problem in the “participation trophy” society we live in. I fell for it dang it. To their credit, neither of my sons complained about their rejections. They accepted the results and moved on. Now, I must do the same.
@Jon234 My D1 did attend her safety because she liked it just as well as the higher ranked schools she got into, and they have her merit. She was very happy there and had good outcomes. But it takes time and elbow grease to find safeties like that. It is more glamorous to spend time on reaches, of course.
Genuinely happy for those of you who have found true safeties. Love, able to afford and more or less assured of admission has proven elusive so far for my kids.
My DD is going to her safety. We made her apply to it, even though it was out of her 6 hours radius from home, because we thought she should have one high merit option. We made her visit it two weeks ago, which she did very reluctantly, and yesterday she shocked us by announcing that she will be attending.
We pressed her to make sure it wasn’t just the financials and she said that when she revisited her number one option last week, she compared everything to the safety and the safety kept coming out on top.
Very happy for her because she is really excited about her choice.
“But it takes time and elbow grease to find safeties like that.”
I tell new college search parents and students to find your safety, likely what ever you want to call it first. Put the bulk of your effort into your search for a school you know you can attend (and please be sure. A safety is likely not an OOS public flagship). Finding the expensive “dream” school that you like or rattling off a list of top 20, 30 or 50 schools is usually comparatively easy. Being able to get accepted and afford it is something entirely different and less in your control.
I’m not even a little surprised. I’ve spent almost a year selling my daughter on schools that have a higher than 30% acceptance rate. I’ve spent an incredibly amount of time and effort trying to help her find places where she can be excited to go and has a good chance at admittance. And I’ll be honest, I won’t know how successful the effort is for a year. High stats kids are inundated with messages of - “you’re going to Harvard, or Stanford or MIT” by their peers and clueless parents/relatives who haven’t been through the admission cycle in 20+ years or aren’t up to speed on how tough admissions are right now. And no it doesn’t help that every day you’re receiving emails and glossy brochures from schools with sub-20% acceptance rates. Yes we all know it’s junk mail, but it’s hard for a 17 year old who receives a package from Harvard to realize that they really don’t have a shot there. And this is only junior year, I can’t imagine how bad it’s going to be before we’re done with this process.
@Darcy123 - I couldn’t agree more. Just yesterday we had a neighbor saying “ I guess your S got full tuition somewhere” - thankfully, my kid wasn’t around. This process has been very hard on him and he is just so done with talking about it, being asked about it etc.
To @Darcy123 point, “Yes we all know it’s junk mail, but it’s hard for a 17 year old who receives a package from Harvard to realize that they really don’t have a shot there.”
We used the incessant college mailings as a fun tool for critical thinking and media literacy. It became enjoyable for the whole family to look at each mailing and talk about how they were trying to sell their product. We asked: Why do they think they should send so many mailings? Are they trying to keep their brand name on our minds? Do they think we have terribly short attention spans? Why are they putting so much budget into these 3D hologram-like pictures? Do you think these photos are actual students at the school, or do they look like stock photos? When they select the students to showcase, are they showing the kinds of kids that are enrolled, or the kids they want to enroll? What’s the difference? Most of the mailings went in the recycling bin, but at least they served a good purpose first.
College junk mail sent through email is another story. For senior year, students need to tighten their spam filters and establish a DEDICATED email account for communications from schools and programs they want to apply to. Without a separate account, it’s easy to miss messages about missing components or deadlines within the sea of spam.
The truth is the vast majority of students and parents have no clue about CC, nor are they truly informed with how competitive college admissions has become. In my era if a kid earned a perfect SAT they were on the news; now there are high schools that have more than a dozen perfect scores in one graduating class. Unless going through the reality of current admission standards, parents and students can live in a bubble. They think that a high SAT score, 4.0 and good EC’s is a automatic ticket to anywhere when we know that it’s not. They also think that full rides are plentiful when again they are becoming more and more rare. Too many parents rely on their own experiences with college admissions when things have changed so much. This is why many students are shocked when they are rejected from colleges that they knew were “sure things”.
Just yesterday someone asked me about are DS’s college choice and how much the overall cost would be. I explained that he got significant merit aid that would make his LAC $28k a year. They were stunned until I told them that even our state flagship was $30k a year with little merit aid given. They had no clue college, especially public ones, were that expensive. Every year I believe you will have more parents enter this crazy “reality zone” when they realize how tough college admissions have become not only academically but financially.
The College Admissions Process for Selective Colleges:
Working hard to get good grades, EC practice, PSAT, NMSF, College visits, EC competitions, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, EC achievement, NMF, SAT, AP tests, More college visits, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, Building preliminary list, Continuing EC effort, ACT, SAT subject tests, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, SAT retake, Decide on final college list, EC awards & honors, Choose EA school(s), Write EA essay, Write EA app(s), Submit EA apps, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, Write RD essays, Work on RD apps, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, DEFERRED EA - Redouble effort on RD apps, Write required extra essays; Submit RD apps, Rushed ACT retake, Letters of recommendation, Continuing to work hard to get good grades, FAFSA, More AP tests, Now wait until April 1st…
Now after all that, if the results fall well short of some students’ and/or parents’ hopes, I think it’s perfectly normal for them to feel some pangs of disappointment.
It seems to me that the real disillusionment arrives when parents and students confuse hopes with expectations.
i have nothing but sympathy for these kids. Of course the four weeks between offers and decisions is tough…right now, CC is full of kids who are choosing between colleges (“Princeton, Rice, or UChicago?”) while others are facing May 1 with no decisions at all (that is, got into one true safety and that’s where they’re going…or kids with no affordable options and will try again). And that goes double for the parents (I’ve been one in that position).
I’d ask the question a different way: Why are there so many people on CC upset when a kid (or his parent) facing college decisions for the very first time are disappointed, sad, upset, in disbelief with their outcomes? Why are there people at CC who use the chance to tell the applicant (again and again) why he or she didn’t make it into their dream school (one of the best last week being when a CC participant noted that while the applicant had made a 1520 on their SAT, it “wasn’t in one sitting.”)
Offer sympathy, give practical advice or perspective when you believe it would help that person (or future applicants) and then move on.
Peer pressure, needlessly comparing themselves to peers, and worrying what others think rather than doing what is best for themselves.
Bravo Southernhope - ? bravo!!!