Rejection from all Colleges. No acceptance yet.

<p>CMU priority waitlisted.</p>

<p>Oh my. extra circulars, sports or community leadership are the real reason so many get in to these schools- everyone is smart. Didnā€™t your Guidance Counselor guide you and tell you that you needed to have a couple of match schools? Donā€™t despair-like many others are saying, many schools still take students until the first week of school. My son just received a letter telling him he had received a large scholarship to a college from which he hadnā€™t even applied. It came with an ā€œapplication for his convenience.ā€ Too much emphasis has been placed on rankings and not quality of life for the student. It is perfectly true that it is not that YOU are not ā€œgood enough.ā€ You have the option of still applying to a college this fall, and making the most of it by getting involved in as much community service or student organizations as you are able, while maintaining your grades. And applying as a transfer.</p>

<p>OR-
If no one guided you, let me tell you that with those grades you still have a choice. You can take a ā€œgap year.ā€ It is very common now and schools will not penalize you for it- and IF you choose to do something really great with this time, you can use it to supplement your application for next year. Look into organizations that you can contribute to in a meaningful way, like Habitat for Humanity, local Food Banks, United Way, Red Cross- something that interests you. Get very involved. Look for something you could do to improve the organization, seek out the people at the top and ask to assist them. Then use it in your essays for the fall. And- please include a couple of ā€œsafety schoolsā€ like everyone is suggesting. We all experience major disappointments and set-backs in life. It is how you handle them that determines if you will eventually rise above and be a success. Good luck to you!</p>

<p>Rejected from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, and Duke. Stanford releases decisions today. Waiting on USC. Accepted to Alabama and St. Johns.</p>

<p>Ohā€¦boyā€¦ you really screwed up kid.What happened to applying to safety colleges ??</p>

<p>@Smithg1227 How high what was your GPA ? </p>

<p>Youā€™re on the same boat. And @MrMom62, why do you even assume that these people are all internationals? Iā€™m not, I have the similar numbers and leadership positions with great ECs, and got rejected from all of my reaches and majority of my matches. I only saved one match and one safety, and still waiting to hear from two. And Iā€™m not an international. " Iā€™m getting a little sick of them when they donā€™t mention for 40 posts that theyā€™re international" When they donā€™t mention it, why would you even assume? College competition is getting harsher even for us domestic students.</p>

<p>@HTheek: Pretty low, only a 4.1 and lowish SAT at 2150.</p>

<p>You can still apply to New Mexico Tech. Itā€™s a decent, affordable school and you can just transfer after a 4.0. Really easy to get research positions as a freshmen tooā€¦ unlike a big state school.</p>

<p>collegebvv1, the CMU priority waitlist is a real waitlist, in that you actually have a chance to be accepted off this list. Itā€™s worth accepting a waitlist place. The way it works is they call you in early May once they have gotten their enrollment. You have to be ready to take the spot then and there. If you decline, they continue to the next person on the list.</p>

<p>My advice to OP and others in a similar situation: There still is time to apply to some good schools. The kid is receiving email almost daily from Ursinus College, and I believe the RD deadline at Hendrix is June 1st. Both are good schools, although I cannot speak to the strength of any given department.</p>

<p>There are other very good schools that have had trouble filling their freshman classes the last few years. Beloit and St.Maryā€™s College in MD are two such schools. These might not be good fits for future engineers, but other students should take a look.</p>

<p>Same here. I have been rejected by 10 top-tier colleges so far. I am international, though. So my backup is to study in my homecountry where I can actually graduate without taking out any loans. I was accepted to one school, not expecting much FA though. </p>

<p>NACAC will have a space available list in May. </p>

<p>I am absolutely shocked that your guidance counselor or teachers did not give you any advice that your list of applications was not balanced. ANY school, even if you are qualified in terms of GPA and test scores, that accepts less than 20% should be considered a reach. Period. And many of your schools are far less than 20%. I feel terrible for you. I would strongly encourage you to schedule a meeting with your guidance counselor NOW to see what options may exist for you. </p>

<p>There arenā€™t really even any <em>match</em> schools on that list - thereā€™s no Brandeis, BU, Vassar, Lehigh, William & Mary, etc - schools that arenā€™t safeties but are reasonably likely admittances. </p>

<p>If the only schools that you apply to are basically lottery schools (as in, everyone is just rolling the dice), then you can and should expect that you might not have anywhere to do.</p>

<p>I vote for the gap year followed by reapplication to some of those schools, at least two safeties, and a LOT of match schools. </p>

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<p>@DesperatePal: You have nine posts. Get back to me when youā€™ve responded to a few more. </p>

<p>But in the mean time, I canā€™t tell you how many posts we see here from kids who go on and on about their stats, what schools should I apply too, blah, blah, blah, and then they suddenly mention ā€œOh, BTW, Iā€™m an international in need of full financial aid.ā€ Well, that changes things and means everyone whoā€™s been helping you for the last three days has been wasting their time. </p>

<p>I will repeat - the veterans here like to help, but you need to provide all the relevant info - being an international in need of aid changes the answer tremendously. Please include that info in your first post about your situation. In fact, it would help if domestic students indicate their home state, as that can make a difference as well.</p>

<p>1980 SAT score 6 AP classes total (4 this year), 3.3 GPA URM first generation college student here, got rejected from 6 colleges in a row (Brown, Dartmouth, Lehigh, Colby, Lafayette, Tufts). Had hundreds of hours of community service and was in 1 club. Wrote a pretty good personal statement, (teacher gave me 100 for it) had 3 recommendations. I shouldnā€™t have tried in high school since Iā€™ll end up at a crappy school anyway. </p>

<p>@Neoncrayons You should still wind up at a good school, but you probably over applied. With a sub 2000 SAT and only 1 EC, most of the Ivies and your other schools were a reach. </p>

<p>I was HOPING that you all were international students. It makes sense for them NOT to apply to safeties as they would have an all or nothing situation here in the US and stay in their own country if they cannot get into a ā€œnameā€ school. That US students did not include some schools that are certain to accept them is mind boggling to me, almost to the point that if you didnā€™t have the sense and wherewithal to do this, you are not smart enough to be going to any of those highly selective schools. I can understand why those not from this country would apply to all lottery ticket schools, not so for Americans .</p>

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<p>Agreed. Although I think many of us take for granted the counseling services that are available (or not) at various high schools. Compared to some of my sonā€™s peersā€¦who attended a pretty wide variety of public/charter/parochial schoolsā€¦he was literally hand-held through the entire process from compiling his initial college list right on through to sending out decline postcards to college acceptances he was passing on. Have to imagine that a kid with those stats has been told at every turn that s/he is a ā€œspecialā€ā€¦ā€œbrilliantā€ā€¦ā€œamazingā€ student. And they areā€¦very much like the bazillion other amazing students just like them. Such a hard lesson to learn. </p>

<p>Ironically, some of the toughest schools with the highest Ivy League acceptance rates are the most diligent about making sure their students have acceptable likely schools. On the prep school forum a mom posted that her childā€™s highly competitive boarding school requires every senior to apply to his or her state flagship in addition to whatever likely and match schools are on their list. Canā€™t remember if it was Choate or St. Paulā€™s. Iā€™ve heard similar stories at Boston area day schools-3/4 of the class ends up at schools with sub 25 percent acceptance rates, but they make sure even the class stars apply to schools with 50-75 percent acceptance rates so no kid will ever be shut out.</p>

<p>Iā€™ve said this on other threads, but IMHO the most important schools on a studentā€™s list are his or her likely schools. Too many kids treat these as an afterthought and are disappointed when they are their only choices instead of doing the work to find likely schools about which they can be honestly excited.</p>