<p>I think most of us who have lived lives, know enough to be grateful for each day. I can sympathize with the woman who has cancer as I am a two time survivor, holding my breath all the time. Grateful that I have seen my kids grow up and proud that they are the people they are. ( I was dx’d the first time when they were 3 years and 8 months respectively) I also work with very sick kids and I know people who would wish for to have my problems. What I appreciate about this forum is that it gives a place to vent and gain support. In the real world talking to other people has not been supportive as they are A.not doing this B. too competative . so this has been so helpful. We are just mere mortals loving our kids and feeling bad when they do. I’m not saying that to be stuck in this would be helpful or right, but for now it’s normal. And all the advice and perpective helps. so thanks for being open, love to the mom with cancer.</p>
<p>Lunitari- its not about the worst story- its about helping kids grieve and move on, understanding that they still have a lot of options and they still are in charge of their next choices. Quite frankly I am insulted that you frame it that way. How we handle loss mirrors to our kids how to do the same. If we perseverate on ‘how unfair’ we give them permission to do so. If we acknowledge the loss, sit with it, and move on where we can/when we can we model coping skills and resiliance. Not posting for a ‘pity party’ but to put things in perspective. Don’t want your pity.Don’t need your pity. I am at peace with what is happening. The point is, in spite of the cancer, my daughter and I are better off then a lot of people who can only find complaints and bitterness around others fortune/success. Sometimes we get to know some of the curve balls are coming, sometimes we just get smacked by them . We can face it and deal with the pain they cause, but still keep going. No one ever got a card when they were born saying life is fair.</p>
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<p>Yeah, AnitaW, you’re not the only one who had that reaction.</p>
<p>I will say, definitely, let her be disappointed for a few days. When you’re in the middle of disappointment/grief, it’s hard to wrap your head around the concept of perspective. But then, I agree with others that it’s time to start gently and subtly talking up the places that she did get in. And also, the great boon of partial financial independence that she gets from having merit money. Very few high school seniors really comprehend what a benefit this can turn out to be.</p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln in his ‘Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, Milwaukee, Wisconsin’ on September 30, 1859:
“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!"</p>
<p>It’s natural and healthy to be disappointed in college rejections, especially when a child has excelled as a student. But we should counsel our children (and ourselves) that the disappointment is ephemeral, just as the four years at that “reach” school would be, too. We all should recognize our embarrassment of riches in this country when it comes to college opportunities. We have so many excellent colleges and universities here that it’s nearly impossible for any bright student not to be admitted to a school that will give that student every opportunity to become well educated and successful, even if its name, history or mascot wasn’t the one the student (and parents) fantasized about.</p>
<p>I was a bright student myself, long ago, but I came from economic and personal circumstances that precluded any option but the local “fourth-tier commuter hyphen school,” so I didn’t worry about it. I got on the bus every morning and got a pretty damn good education. I have a high school junior now who is a brilliant student, whose accomplishments make him completely capable of being considered by (and then, almost randomly, accepted or rejected by) any “elite” school in the country. So he’ll apply to a few, and also to a couple good LACs, and to a big state flagship or two. But I will also tell him that if he wants to stay home and go to that same “fourth tier hyphen school” that educated me, that’s perfectly fine, because I know its capabilities. In most of the world, it would be considered a great university.</p>
<p>I suspect no one in this thread, no matter how disappointed today, doesn’t have opportunities that are as good or better than that. So parents, salve the wounds for a few days and then buy a bumper sticker or pennant for that “match” or “safety” school that your child will be attending. Let them know it’s on them now, and that they can get a great education at that school and have a great college experience if they seize the opportunity to make it happen. That’s what growing up is about. Chances are very good that by this time next year their college rejections will be of no more importance to them than any of the other sundry disappointments we all experience and put behind us regularly. This too shall pass.</p>
<p>While I certainly sympathize with you and your daughter, in my opinion there is probably very little difference between the LACs that your daughter was not accepted to (Vassar, Wesleyan, Tufts) and Macalester (where she was accepted). I think all of these schools have a LOT more similarities than differences and from what I hear from my son’s best friend Macalester is a great school in a great city! Granted it may be farther from home than you or she might have hoped for, but many kids I know from the east coast are applying LACs in the west and midwest simply because it’s so competitive these days (particularly for girls!) If she does attend Macalester (or Elon or Hobart) I am sure she will find many people in the same boat and will have lots of good company. Good Luck!</p>
<p>Sometimes I think CC should be a Lifetime movie.</p>
<p>There are some times, I think, when we as parents have to remember whose side we are on. We should be on our kid’s side, not Harvard’s side. So I think it’s perfectly OK to say that we think they were robbed, that the decision to reject them was ridiculous and stupid, etc. We can resist the impulse to tell them that it’s all for the best, that maybe there was some good reason for the decision, that the competition was tough, etc. What, some other kid is better than your kid? No way! Who needs Harvard, anyway? Forget them–they had their chance and they blew it, etc., etc. Perspective may come later.</p>
<p>I wanted to respond to the original thread saying “Who knows how many of these kids got themselves diagnosed so they could get extra time on the tests?” My son (11th grade) has had a distinct learning disability since 2nd grade - when it came time to apply for the special testing compensations for SATs, I discovered that this is no easy task. The process has to go through guidance counselors at the school and they have to fill out very specific documentation and show lots of diagnostic testing from the past. Even after all that they told me they didn’t think he would qualify for any compensation (luckily he did!). All that to say, I don’t think anyone can go this route without truely having a disability (and shame on them for trying if they don’t!) All the other posts have given such wonderful advice for you and your daughter. The future is so bright!</p>
<p>Definitely search on school specific threads. Also, there was a “great schools you may not have heard of” thread that may give you leads to schools that don’t get a lot of foot traffic.</p>
<p>Or you could start another thread like,“I’m not saying that my D got into this school, but does anyone have personal experience with XXX College?”</p>
<p>[Just kidding with the last suggestion…]</p>
<p>Oh, please, I suppose you are all saints who never had the thought that the person who got the promotion didn’t deserve it as much as you did… or whatever and who therefore judged that person as “unworthy?” And you are so pure and free of such thoughts or feelings that you can be smug in criticizing what others have pointed out are only natural, human reactions? Perhaps you are so critical because you have had exactly those thoughts but would like to pretend otherwise.</p>
<p>I never said anyone was “unworthy” – just that they were not more worthy and it seems so unfair when you get the short end of the stick. </p>
<p>And as to manipulating the system with extra time on tests, etc, please don’t tell me you don’t know how often that is abused. Of course it is legitimate in many instances, but you are not so naive as to think it’s not a tool used when people are trying to gain every advantage, are you? </p>
<p>It’s just one of the things that make it such an unfair system along with so many others. So because I pointed that out, someone makes the comment about how she is fighting on the side of the righteous alongside parents who are just trying to get the best for their kids, implying that I am a horrible person who would out of rank competitiveness deprive those kids of their rights. Wow.</p>
<p>I would just say that I think sour grapes are fine, but it will be more healthy for the kid and the parents in the long run if the sour grapes are directed at the schools that made the moronic decision to reject your child, rather than at the other students who were accepted.</p>
<p>Oh my. I wasn’t trying to imply anything or make any type of stand. I just thought folks might want to know that applying for compensations isn’t an easy thing. I’m sure people do abuse it, and maybe it depends on the guidance counselors at each school. They really can help filter the abusers out. Maybe this is a topic for a different thread. Best of everything for you and your daughter!</p>
<p>You remind me of a parent in our school. Our daughter has extensive chronic medical issues (and yes, getting extra breaks- not extra time- on the SAT’s involved a lot of work and documentation) and spent a lot of time at home, during high school. The teachers filled out a sheet each day for her with assignments, and a one or two line description of what they did in class. Our daughter would then try to do that work on her own. It was hard.</p>
<p>This mother, whose son was #2 in the class in September, and who was trying to get a scholarship for him based on that #2 rank, started worrying because our daughter was overtaking him, pushing him down to #3, and therefore no longer eligible for the scholarship.</p>
<p>Our daughter wasn’t even aware of her rank, or the fact that she was doing “better” than the woman’s son. She had bigger things on her mind, like hoping for a day without pain.</p>
<p>Well, this mother called me at home to complain that our daughter had an “advantage” because she got clearly written assignments from teachers (again, we’re talking one line).
She said her son was doing poorly in English because he was unclear on the assignments, and wondered if our daughter could share “all that special information” she gets.</p>
<p>Of course, her son was in class, and our daughter was missing class, but I did not bother to point that out. Being in class certainly seems like an advantage to me.</p>
<p>Our daughter did finish at #2. She found that out when she was asked to speak at graduation. And the boy did get the scholarship afterall, because it was based on his grades earlier in the year.</p>
<p>But geez. You’ll feel even worse when you hear that our daughter is at one of the HPY schools. I"ll bet you wish your daughter “overcame an obstacle” like our daughter has, since that is one of the criteria for admission. But I’ll bet you’d like her to get that advantage without the years of suffering that go with it.</p>
<p>The other thing you should realize is that HPY have many of the kids you are describing as having great grades and scores but “no personality.” I mean, if you look down so much on the kids who did get in, why would you want your daughter to go there anyway?</p>
<p>Macalaster is a great school. If we lived closer, I would prefer my kid go there than HPY frankly. Be grateful, and help her to be grateful.</p>
<p>Your own attitudes leak all over your posts. You may not realize it, but you are probably making your daughter feel this way. And teach her to resist the culture, call the school to end the posting on lockers, and try to do something constructive instead of complaining.</p>
<p>You may think this is also a mean post, but your most recent post threw me even more than your first one.</p>
<p>spoke to my D’s college counselor, got the skinny. helped to know. On a good note scored Rascall Flatts tickets today Yeah!!!</p>
<p>lisares, I understand how badly you hurt for your child. We all do. The slings and arrows that hit my child are infinitely more painful to me than anything hitting me.</p>
<p>However, here’s my experience as a parent: What’s going to help your child most is if you primarily express confidence in your child’s ability to succeed wherever she goes – rather than sadness or diappointment for her, or anger or frustration at the process. Right now your kid is sad for herself but also for you, knowing how bad you feel for her. And her confidence is shaken. There’s nothing wrong with your feelings, or in you expressing those feelings anonymously to us. But venting these feelings to your daughter is not going to help her. And that’s what you want to do, right?</p>
<p>Tell her you are ridiculously proud of her, that those schools’ decisions are their loss, and you are 100 percent certain that she is going to succeed and be happy at any of the schools that were smart enough to offer her money(!) to attend there. Because that’s the truth. She’s the same terrific kid she was before those admissions decisions were delivered, and success can be achieved at ANY school she attends.</p>
<p>Sometimes it sucks to be the parent and to have to say mature things rather than what we really think. But that’s what parents are supposed to do, right?</p>
<p>Sorry your daughter was beat out by less deserving kids and test time cheats. That’s harsh!!! </p>
<p>Thank goodness my son was only beat out by other hard working kids who either scored higher, wrote better essays, had better written recommendations, or had more impressive EC’s. He can stand pround and say he was beat by the best. :)</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter on the schools she was accepted into and the scholarships she did receive. Although, I’m sure there are some parents out there that think their kids deserved those slots more than yours.</p>
<p>It’s all a matter of perspective… ;)</p>
<p>Yes, it pains us as parents when our children are in pain. </p>
<p>Recently, my D had heard from two of her safety schools as to what type of packages she would receive (one a very generous scholarship). She had heard nothing from the others, which were more selective. I knew that my daughter REALLY wanted to attend one that she hadn’t yet heard from, but that would only be possible with a generous scholarship or package with grants. She was fully aware of this and so, the stress mounted…including my own. A wise, wise older friend of mine gave me some insight and a suggestion that I would now like to pass along to you. Both of her children, now grown, went through this admissions “process” that seems to put everyone involved through the ringer…</p>
<p>My friend said, “It is new. Fresh. Raw. The reality of her situation is setting in. Let it be. Let her feel what she needs to feel. You don’t need to convince, fix, or control. Be gently, quietly, present to her. Offer hugs. Listen. That is what she needs. Your presence. She will move through this and come to her own understandings, as long as you don’t layer her anxiety/fears with more of your own. Wait to offer perspective until this tsunami of feelings passes.”</p>
<p>Best to you and your D.</p>
<p>I am so not looking forward to this time next year.</p>
<p>Lisares,</p>
<p>I wonder what we have taught our children if they are truly "devasted, embarassed and wounded " by what would seem to me great results- acceptances at good schools and merit scholarships to add to that. Wow! I wonder too how it could be true that “all her peers are celebrating their impressive acceptances” today. Where are her other peers? Does she know anyone going to flagship u? Perhaps going to a less elite college might be the biggest gift she could get right now if she is, as you say, a truly quality person. Such a person would want to expand her horizons.</p>
<p>lisares: two notes on the comparisons with others-</p>
<p>A} two sisters with virtually identical UC apps, toughest courseload, 4.0UW UC GPA, sports, art etc. One sister had amazing national level athletic accomplishments, the other had normal varsity accomplishments. There were not LORs for the UC, so the only substantive difference was the athletic thing. The athlete got into the flagship whilst the more normal sister did not- no fair!</p>
<p>B} 3 siblings all scored statistically the same on the SAT, one with an LD had extra time. The extra time kid still did not finish even with extra time, the 2 without extra time still finished early. The scores were virtually the same and reflected a correlation with their IQs, the extra time did not give that LD kid extra credit, it just showed her true apptitude. It may be that a few kids ‘cheat’ for extra time and get a boost, but unless they are really quite slow normally the extra time does not make that much of a difference, IMHO</p>