<p>Pizzagirl:</p>
<p>It’s painful because these people are insecure. Most need constant affirmation and reassurance that they measure up. It’s like being accepted to a private club. It’s great when the membership committee approves you, but devastating when you’re rejected. The rejection becomes an obsession. Others simply don’t get the message - they wouldn’t want to belong even if they were invited to join. </p>
<p>It sounds like you don’t want to be in the club.</p>
<p>Congratulations. Inspiring news for this time of year for many applicants.</p>
<p>Olive - I’m not talking about the pain of rejection by a school that a kid really wanted to go to, worked hard to put together a good application, etc. I get that totally. </p>
<p>I’m talking about the pain of the kid feeling that his or her choice – when by any objective measure was a “good” choice – didn’t measure up to the scrutiny or the expectations of the other kids / their parents. </p>
<p>I mean, really. A culture where U of Chicago is a “sigh, I guess it’s a decent alternative if you must” backup to the Ivies is a completely wacked out culture. (Not saying that NMD professed this, just that apparently that was the culture at his D’s school.)</p>
<p>I think newmassdad started a useful thread that will hopefully help the many students who will be disappointed with their college application results. Congrats to his daughter and thanks to him for what I consider an appropriate topic on a site like this, where so many kids are applying to the same top schools.</p>
<p>I have long thought that Ivy admissions should be determined by a lottery, after first meeting some sort of test score cut-off. I’m sure no one here will agree with me, since so many people buy into the notions of “fit” and school culture. I personally think that’s all nonsense and any random selection of strong students would produce an equally good result. And, as a plus, rejections would not feel so <em>personal</em>. After kids pour their hearts out into those ridiculous essays, teachers write individual recommendations, and kids are personally interviewed by alums, the rejection can feel very personal and really sting. I strongly believe that the impersonal, test-based system used everywhere else in the world is far superior just for this reason alone, but I realize I am in the minority here. I just find the current system to be absurdly arbitrary, yet mistakenly perceived to be rational and well-meaning. (And no sour grapes! My kids got into their top choices! And I attended an Ivy! But I have seen some pretty crushed kids.)</p>
<p>The high school culture that newmassdad describes sounds similar to the one at the school my kids attended. Don’t underestimate the power of the peers, even if this Ivy craziness is not endorsed by the parents. My daughter found the judgements of her classmates to be very tough to take when she had to explain that she was turning down top-ranked schools for financial reasons. Years later, all is well, and her experience has been very positive. But high school seniors are just kids, and they tend to reinforce widespread beliefs about prestige at the time of college applications. </p>
<p>I completely agree with the posters who say that the emphasis on Ivies is unsophisticated and rather ignorant. And it’s true that UChicago is hardly a step down. My own kids attend a school that most kids on CC would never consider. Yet I regularly see seniors moving on from here to the best medical schools, law schools and fully-funded PhD programs at tippy-top universities. The lessons of newmassdad’s daughter can be applied anywhere.</p>
<p>To seniors in the midst of this process, I would point out that undergraduate admissions is not an exact science and the job itself is not particularly prestigious. There’s a lot of turnover, and often the gatekeepers did not attend the school in question, or they are very inexperienced new graduates themselves. Admission counselors tend to be people who like to read and write and they have biases in favor of these skills, resulting in undue importance given to the application essay. The world of graduate admissions is completely different – applicants are evaluated by professors who actually know the field in question and are qualified to assess the applicant in a way that an undergrad committee is not.</p>
<p>Plenty of excellent students find themselves knocked off-balance by their college rejections and I think newmassdad has provided a story that many will find encouraging.</p>
<p>Sure, my kid was rejected by both Ivies to which he applied. He also had two T-10 acceptances (which were his top choices) and a waitlist. Failure? Not a chance. But the Ivies were never at the top of his list anyway, and by April of senior year he knew they would have been a terrible fit. </p>
<p>He is a delightfully happy UChicago second year soaking up all the opportunities he can and gets his MIT fix during the summer and through one of his ECs. He thinks he has the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>Nmd’s D has represented her school and herself with grace and distinction. I doubt she’s bemoaning lost opportunities!</p>
<p>pizzagirl, you are astute. But keep in mind that many east coast folks don’t know there’s civilization in fly over country. They confuse UofC with UIC and maye CSU. They know Northwestern only for its football team.</p>
<p>These attitudes have changed some recently, but we’re talking a long time ago in cc time. :)</p>
<p>Well I know you appreciate that your D got in and out just in the nick of time, NMD. I’m sure you’ve heard (over on the UChi thread) that they’re starting to let in the riff-raff now. LOL</p>
<p>This thread is getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>The “Ivies” are really good schools. Not the <em>only</em> good schools, but still, they are good schools.</p>
<p>C.C <em>IS</em> a site that is frequented by “ivy wannabes”. Just look at it. The links to the left are arranged so that “Ivy League” is a separate link from all the other colleges. The main site has articles about getting into Ivies.</p>
<p>Lots of kids are about to get rejections from ivies in the next couple of weeks. And their parents are going to be here, looking for ways to cheer their kids up. The story of OP’s daughter may bring some comfort to those kids. </p>
<p>I have bookmarked the first post, to be sent to my “ivy wannabe” D if/when she becomes an “ivy reject”. </p>
<p>Thank you, OP for taking the time to brag.</p>
<p>And here in Tennessee most people can’t imagine that anyone would want to go anywhere but UT (which is NOT Texas around here), unless they were a REAL genius and might want Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Leadership potential! I’m always a little amused when reading these 2 words. Most teachers and administrators of high schools do not have a clue about leadership. Yes, they sponsor all kind of clubs making it possible for students to become ‘leaders’, but the kids running these safe, sponsored clubs are actually ‘only’ developing (useful) organizational skills and that is an entirely different thing. Many true leaders have never shown any leadership talent while being in high school, either because educators were unable to recognize their talents or because their type of leadership needed more time to mature. I’m always wondering how elite colleges can justify words like "the leaders of the future’ knowing that the information they are getting is so limited and biased.</p>
<p>True, Pizzagirl, but I’m talking about the inability to truly move on and be happy with one’s choice of another school. I have a friend in her 50s who still (occasionally) talks about being waitlisted at a particular Ivy. She clearly has a great life by any standard, but she still looks back at the rejection with bitterness. Some - possibly more parents than their children - never really get over it. Thus, the feeling that UChicago is a oh hum second choice. It’s not right, but it’s human nature…</p>
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<p>It is not that what everyone else think but what you have always thought. The students don’t want to go to these colleges because everyone else wants to go there but they genuinely want to go there.</p>
<p>What I was trying to convey that at some High schools % of such students is much higher than other school. Every one there wants to matriculate to these colleges because they really love these colleges.</p>
<p>Now why one student will love 8 different colleges just because they are part of a League is beyond me.</p>
<p>similar story here, only a few years later. Last year after the early action acceptance from U Chicago, S1 only applied to top Ivies (if you know what I mean) for RD, dropping all other matches and safeties (other than those full sride cholarship applications that needed to be done before the EA decision came out - he got them, but we decided to let him turn them down).</p>
<p>He was rejected by the top Ivies. He did not say anything. Honestly, I was NOT surprised at all that they rejected him: perfect stats, but nothing in the way of demonstrable ECs (not that he did nothing, but nothing in the way of institutional awards and such that can be put on a paper with a proof - he was marching on his own drum beat). I actually believe that from these top Ivy schools perspective, he amply deserved to be rejected, and I would reject him too if I were the admission officer. They couldn’t read his mind, they only had what’s submitted by him, and it was a very fair decision on their part.</p>
<p>In my mind, these rejections were a kick in the butt for him, and motivated him: close to the end of the spring semester of his senior year, he went to win the first prize in a scholarship competition sponsored by a well known Wall Street firm, hustled/lobbied with the top executives who showed up at the award ceremony and got a paid summer internship as a high school graduate while most of the other interns were rising juniors and seniors from the same kind of schools that rejected him. At the end of the summer, he got a rec letter from his supervising executive that says “he is better than some of my regular employees with 5+ years of experience”. He is invited to come back next summer as a paid summer intern again, but he wants to look for different opportunities to diversify his experience. We will see…</p>
<p>It was at this point that S1 said “now, I feel vindicated”. That really surprised me: I knew he was disappointed by the HYP rejection, but I did not realize how deeply he felt the rejection since I thought U Chicago was a perfect school for him, and was so excited about him going there!!!</p>
<p>Some people may consider this to be a “whining statement” — “why, U Chicago is not a chopped liver, and you expect other people to be sympathetic with you since HYP rejected you and you ended up with U Chicago” All I am saying is, regardless of the source or the alternatives, options, and other choices, rejections are hard to swallow for 17 year olds, and we should not trivialized that sentiment. </p>
<p>I completely agree with other posters that the college diploma is not everything, and there are lot of terrific kids who are pursuing a diversified array of academic opportunities. However, we should also acknowledge that the kids who do manage to make it to HYP do deserve a lot of credit and acknowledgement: they do possess outstanding qualifies and very few among their peers have the wherewithal, focus, and tenacity to do that, and I respect them for it.</p>
<p>BTW: so far, S1 is VERY happy at U Chicago, and is determined to “over compensate” for the lack of automatic networking opportunities that HYP provides for his chosen field (Investment Banking).</p>
<p>It may be useful to put NMD’s experience in the CC context as well as the context of the school his D attended.<br>
When his D was applying to colleges, CC was in its infancy, and there was less diversity among the posters. There were many many threads by students whose parents categorically refused to let them apply to any school that was not H,Y, or P, or maybe M. And there were threads by parents of applicants who became depressed because they had to “settle for” schools such as Rice, Wellesley, and University of Chicago.
As I wrote earlier, NMD’s D attended a school in MA that is full of high achievers who focus on getting into H,Y or M (for some reason, not so much P). And when one is a very high achiever but sees oneself passed over by these schools where one’s friends (and sometimes competitors) got admitted, it is very hard. With EA/ED decisions coming soon, NMD wanted to reassure those who did not get admitted into HYPSM that there is life after such rejection, that one can go on and succeed magnificently.</p>
<p>To those who castigate NMD’s D for being influenced by her peers, one might ask “were you ever young?” NMD’s D did grieve; she was angry and upset for a little while. For all we know, it was the very first real setback of her young life. But she got over it, and has done wonderfully well ever since. That is the message that applicants and their parents should take away, whether the dream school was in the Ivy League, the top 10, the top 50, or whatever.
We all want good news for our children; but we also need to give them space for dealing with setbacks, and help them remember that these do not set the tone for the rest of their lives.
Good luck to all!</p>
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<p>I would agree here. Disappointment is extremely personal. But isn’t there also the old story of everyone who gets together in a group to trade their ‘problems and disappointments’ to the others, hoping to find less miserable situation than their own, only to find that after looking at everyone else’s, they end up keeping their own? </p>
<p>I also want to add that for hard working and extremely talented kids like the OP’s daughter, for most of their 17 years, they probably accomplished almost everything that they put their minds and hearts to. Consequently, a rejection from their top choice(s) becomes that much more difficult–perhaps the first time that something extremely significant for them, which they worked hard for and clearly had the talent to accomplish, did not come their way. </p>
<p>Finally, as for the responses to the readers who had a somewhat ‘less positive’ response to this particular story, recognize that as much as the reader is asked to keep contextualizing the OPs situation, realize that some of the reactions also have to do with the context of those who are reading it. The general theme of overcoming the disappointment of the rejection to a first choice school is applicable to most here, but the specifics maybe less so.</p>
<p>Beautifully put, marite. </p>
<p>I’ll also add that this is yet another reason why applicants should have a list of schools which they truly like and could see themselves not only attending, but succeeding while there. If a student likes every school on the list, it’s not a disappointment (or least not as much of one) to attend X vs. Y. Every school on that list should be there for a compelling reason, and that includes the likely admit schools (I don’t like “safety”).</p>
<p>This is also a good time to teach/reinforce resilience in our kids. This may be the first time they’ve faced rejection, but it won’t be the last.</p>
<p>This is a great story, and I’m glad to see someone posting. I was rejected from Yale last year after being deferred SCEA and I am now in the Honors Program at University of Wisconsin-Madison. I could not be happier with my choice of schools. I didn’t believe people when they said that an education is what you make of it, but it’s completely true :)</p>
<p>I’ll also remind parents and students that an Ivy acceptance is not a subpoena. YOU can reject them!!</p>
<p>CountingDown: True, and one should be able to reject Ivies in favor of their fit school.</p>
<p>^Too true. My son did, and it was hard on his parents for a while, though I have to say Carnegie Mellon did a great job in convincing us that our kid made the right decision turning down Harvard. No regrets. </p>
<p>I’d like to add my thanks to NMD for the story - it’s great to be reminded that there are other great schools out there, and that opportunities are mostly self-created.</p>