This will be a hard day

Parents Forum
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<p>How can a high school senior possibly decide they will only be happy at one college? No matter how fabulous that college is, there are others that are every bit as fabulous! I honestly think that what you as a parent should do is help your son realized that there, really truly are multiple colleges that are a good as Yale. Honestly, what could the child know about Yale other than it’s prestigous rep and location? </p>

<p>A gap year might be a great choice – as long as you don’t encourage him to decide that only one school in next year’s application cycle is acceptable to him. I would use the time to help him visit multiple campuses and develop an appreciation for the charms of each.</p>

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<p>C’mon. It’s competitive out there, for sure, but it is simply not true that the only applicants accepted to highly selective schools have connections or some mega-hook. </p>

<p>Yes, it’s extremely disappointing when your child is unhappy with his acceptances. The important thing is to help him move beyond the disappointment and focus on the choices he does have. Reinforcing the mistaken notion that the deck was completely stacked against him from the first by competitiors with hooks and connections doesn’t move him forward.</p>

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<p>Coming very late to this thread and I already see favorite posters who are eloquent and wonderful.</p>

<p>I have a slightly different perspective so I’ll add to this embarrassment of riches and wonderful posts.</p>

<p>First to the OP: No doubt about it. Your kid is suffering. And probably will be a bit until she goes to college and then forgets about it. I really do think it’s unfortunate that USNWR posts acceptance rates and they become a way of judging oneself.</p>

<p>About that sub – that’s unfortunate. Enough said.</p>

<p>Kids have to learn to deal with the silly and sometimes ignorant judgments of others. Unfortunately in a competitive society everyone is trying to get a leg up on each other. If your kid serves that function for another kid, it’s sad, annoying but expected. She’ll just have to grin and bear it. Yes, it can hurt.</p>

<p>Girls do face a bigger hurdle in admissions. My D wanted Columbia in the worst way. I saw that she was going to face a tremendous hurdle being admitted; I started harping on Barnard in tenth grade. She resented me, but eventually applied to Barnard, was accepted and preferred it to Columbia. Read the Barnard bashing on these boards. Had to develop a thick skin. And the blank looks from friends who never heard of it or who thought it was ridiculous for my very beautiful girl to “waste herself at a woman’s college” were all things she learned to cope with.</p>

<p>The fact that your D’s self-esteem is effected is more serious. That really is a shame. The more the stats, acceptance rates, etc. are repeated the more these values become cemented.</p>

<p>I have taken the tack that the Universe has its ideas for us that we can’t always see. Sorry if I am sounding like a holy roller, especially because I am an atheist/agnostic. </p>

<p>Perhaps the perfect mentor is at the place she will end up. Or husband. We don’t know why things arrange themselves as they do.</p>

<p>I was all set to go to Yale, the first coed class. (Yup, I’m old.) Things with my parents deteriorated (yup it was the sixties) and I chose a non-distinguished state u so I could pay myself – scholarship, etc. Then I was accepted into an Ivy grad school. Process recurred. My then H didn’t want to move, help me pay for it. Whatever. I ended up staying at same state u too naive to realize how this would limit employment opportunities in academics.</p>

<p>I now teach at CC. My dissertation was chosen best in the country the year it was completed, over all the Ivy dissertations, but that can’t make up for my lackluster alma mater.</p>

<p>I am sad? Well, not really. First, I had no debt. Second, I love my job. Third, I teach with people who do have Ivy educations and ended up teaching at CC too.</p>

<p>I think of all the disadvantaged kids, minority kids and immigrants who would suffer if all the interesting professors ended up at fancy institutions.</p>

<p>And I know I am a great teacher. My S told me my British lit survey was better than the one he took at his very prestigious LAC. He also said he wished the atmosphere was as open as much class and as communicative.</p>

<p>Things often happen in a way that benefits us in the end in a way we can’t see. OP: That’s what I’d tell my D if I were you, and I would say it over and over.</p>

<p>When my S was told to change majors because he just didn’t quite have the auditory memory to succeed in music theory at his very challenging school; he thought his life was over. I kid you not. I acted VERY matter of fact and said that the Universe had other plans for him. Now he’s a very happy Classics major.</p>

<p>We can’t do anything about what others do or their decisions, only about how we think about them. That said, I feel for you and your daughter and hope you both leave this behind soon. I know how these disappointments hurt.</p>

<p>To the poster who is facing such a health challenge: My heart goes out to you and your D. I so hope things are not as dire as they seem. And if they are, I can see that you both are preparing yourselves to deal with life’s difficulties in the most constructive way possible. Serious care to you and best of luck to your D.</p>

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<p>The application entire process is an exercise in managing expectations, yours and those of your child. Anyone who applies to the HYPSs of the world needs to be aware from day one that the numbers are against them. Last year Harvard accepted 8% of its applicants, essentially 1 in 12. If you truly make it clear to your S or D ahead of time that 11 out of 12 people get rejected, it’s hard to envision a situation where they or you can feel “devastated”. It’s been said before but bears repeating, applying to the super elite schools is little more than buying a lottery ticket. You pay your $50/$60/$70 application fee and you get a chance, but little more than that. Furthermore I suspect that if they gave everyone a pile of 25 apps including our own child’s, most of us wouldn’t be able to pick it out of the bunch. Everyone has a 12.0 GPA, everyone got 10000 on their SAT’s and everyone brought peace to the Middle East while on summer vacation. </p>

<p>The same is true no matter which schools you apply to. If your child’s stats and profile say that University XYZ is a reach, then it’s a REACH. To encourage them to think that they will get in because they’re “special” is foolhardy, and only defers the pain. I’m not advocating avoiding reach schools, but I am encouraging everyone to apply to schools with their eyes open. People do get into reach schools, but your life and the life of your S or D will be a lot easier if everyone realizes that they’re swimming upstream. It may be that their particular reach school is looking for exactly the profile they present, but don’t waste time or energy on “conspiracies”. Frankly the idea that somehow the admissions process is conspiring against a particular individual is laughable. Blaming rejection on “connections” is a convenient excuse and if it makes you feel better, great, just don’t confuse opinion with reality. As wjb said, it’s competitive out there, the people who succeed don’t live by excuses, after they get knocked down they stand up and get back in the fight.</p>

<p>Finally, as for what their friends, classmates or teachers have to say, the sooner kids learn to say, “to hell with them”, the better off they’ll be in life. It’s a tough, but necessary lesson.</p>

<p>So ends my vent.</p>

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<p>Measuring happiness is like a snapshot taken–it is a memorialization of a specific moment in time. Measure happiness again a semester into college…and after college graduation. </p>

<p>Most rejection letters I’ve seen aren’t nasty at all. Admissions knows that, in the final analysis, they are dealing with kids after all.</p>

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<p>What I meant wjb is along the lines of what vinceh said, unless a college is recruiting you for a sport or you have certain connections, there is no guarantee at all with those acceptance statistics. The reality is the process is very arbitrary among kids who have the stats. but may not stand out as much as others with the same or fulfill a requirement or whatever. Just no telling who they are going to accept. To put all eggs in one basket is a set up for dissapointment. I felt bad for the poster who’s S had his mind set on one college and was guided by GC that he could go wherever he wanted. That is not true for the vast majority. P.S. I amend my “nasty” comment to “cold” some were definately worded better than others. Just saying…</p>

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<p>also I never reinforced the notion that the deck was stacked against my child, or she was dissed or anything .That does not work in this house. We were simply a little niave, my D especially. Her hopes turned into expectation, and we are dealing with reality. When you realize how things are done it takes the personal part out and helps to deal with the rejection. PS. she got into some great schools got money and is moving on. Healthy and whole.</p>

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<p>Hey, my son received several rejection letters and all were very gentle and polite. Notheless, they were rejections, of course they are disappointing!</p>

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<p>I like how vinceh explains the application process as an exercise in managing expectations. As someone who has gone through this twice now, we all did a lot better the second time through compared to the first time through.</p>

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<p>Exactly, I am talking from the viewpoint of a person who has never been through this process before. Now I know what to expect. The next time I will be more prepared. It has led me to explore what I really think about it all. I have evolved in my thinking in the last week or so. That is called processing and that is what I thought this thread was all about. I am very happy for everyone and now things are back on track here I am just relieved. I was really responding to the person who had a son who expected to get into Yale and couldn’t wrap his brain around another school. I think it helps to understand the process, manage your expectations per vinceh, and get on with it. Like I said next time will be different. I get it.</p>

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<p>Mythmom, I liked your post. Hey, I also applied to be in the first coed class at Yale (or maybe it was the second) and I was rejected! So I can still feel jealous of you even though you didn’t get to go! I’m kidding. After this many years, you finally do get over it, and I hope it doesn’t take my D that long. I can barely recall where I applied, much less where I got in, though I do remember applying to Yale more or less because it was the thing to do that year, and why not take a shot? It is heartening to hear that you are happy in your job and not everlastingly bitter that you didn’t get to do the Ivy League thing that would have allowed you to get a “better” job. That is actually quite inspiring.</p>

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<p>downtoearth–the best thing D2 was able to accomplish in our second time through the application process was to not fall in love with a school or having a favorite until all of the results came in and then falling in love with a school in the acceptance pile.</p>

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<p>My D graduated from HS in 2008, applied to a variety of schools and despite being top 1%, good scores, good EC, etc, she did not get in anywhere she really wanted to go. Where she did get accepted did not give much $. She was crushed. And very turned off to the whole college idea. So she decided to take a gap year. Spent fall semester in Honduras building sustainable housing and is now in New Zealand working on an environmental conservation and habitat restoration project. She is loving it. And I have seen so much growth and maturity come out of this. She is now looking forward to college. Of coure it probably helped that this year she was accepted everywhere she applied. And she had a much more focused idea about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. Getting off the beaten path helped her tremendously. Against all conventional wisdom she applied to two schools that rejected her last year and she was accepted to both. She also applied to new schools based upon her new focus and was accepted to all new schools too. I did learn alot about the application process for gap year kids too. Tell H to talk to the schools where you got the scholarship. Sometimes they will defer the scholarship. My D’s scholarship offers were bigger this year too. The state school she applied to deferred her scholarship. She applied to a different state school this year, and with some arm twisting, they considered her for a scholarship along with all of this year’s high school seniors. So there were some hiccups along the way, and if you want more details about potential pitfulls send me a PM. But overall I cannot say enough good things about D’s gap year experience. Even if she had not gotten in to the schools she did, and ended up at the state school, she would have been so much more ready for college than last year.</p>

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<p>ellemenope, that is a hard one, isn’t it? You can hear about the statistics and the chances but if you truly believe your kid is totally qualified to attend a certain school, and she wants to go there, how do you encourage her to try for it while fully expecting that it probably won’t work? If you believe your chances are small, how can you put your all into trying? That was actually a source of a lot of angst. My D verbalized it: “I don’t want to fall in love and try for a school and then get rejected.” We encouraged her to try for the schools she truly wanted and that we believed she was qualified for. We didn’t encourage her to try for places we knew were out of her reach, and she didn’t. All her choices seemed quite possible, though of course the numbers were against her as they are against everyone at the very selective schools.</p>

<p>When deciding where to apply it was impossible to know 1, where her classmates would apply and 2, exactly what stats and other qualifications they would have. So really it was not possible to know with any certainty what the result would be, or to know what to expect. </p>

<p>As it happened, she had stiff competition for some of the schools from classmates who did beat her on the SATs and on GPA, though D was in the range for those schools. And since her ECs were good but not world-beating, well, the results were that she didn’t get into the schools and some of her classmates did. There was no way to predict that because we didn’t have all the information. Her GC seemed to think she had as good a chance as any of the others. So again, “managing expectations” seems tricky.</p>

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<p>My friend’s daughter is planning a gap year instead of going to school. I think she plans to defer her acceptance. Why does deferring a year /gap year change what schools you get accepted to. Not planning it just curious.</p>

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<p>Ellemenope- thats the plan!</p>

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<p>Maybe my D is better able to compartmentalize (or is a better actress than I give her credit for), but I don’t see why you have to fall in love with a school to put forward a good application to it.</p>

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<p>It hurts even more at schools where kids have a good idea who is where and what in the academic stats, and you see kids get accepted at schools where you are rejected with better numbers. Yup, it happens. And it hurts when it does. Not fair, but life.</p>

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<p>It would be nice if it was like a job application"here are the requirements etc… then you would know. May be they just want the application fee…LOL</p>

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<p>Some colleges like to see that you are “in love” with them. Several required essays where my daughter had to explain why THAT college was the one for her. I remember my daughter’s comment: "I feel like a college whore. ‘I love you. No, I love you!’ " </p>

<p>Of course the ad coms know these kids are applying to multiple places so no doubt they read these rhapsodic essays with a somewhat jaundiced eye.</p>