Thought I didn't care, but I do

Applying to College
1

Hi. Thanks for reading this because I know there’s a lot of threads like this right now, but I just really need some support.

Obviously college decisions have been coming out and it didn’t go great for me. I got rejected at every selective school I applied to…I got into some good publics/safeties but nothing with a sub-45% acceptance rate. I have one affordable school I’m fine with going to, so it’s not that I have nowhere to go, it’s just that I thought I’d spend April making a bunch of agonizing choices and now my choice has basically been made for me.

I know my applications could have been better – essay was OK but not wow, ECs were lackluster I suppose but I worked and volunteered and did some clubs – but I had a 4.0 GPA, 36 ACT, NMF, and research experience, so academically I don’t know what more they could have wanted from me. I knew I’d get rejected from the Ivies but I wasn’t expecting the T20s and selective publics to reject me too. I don’t know; maybe I didn’t apply to enough schools, but I simply didn’t like a lot of the more selective (top 50 or 100) schools and I had plenty of safeties, so I thought I was doing things right.

The thing is, I don’t even want to go to a top school if I’m being honest – they’re too small and elitist for me, and I never was hyper focused on them like some people on CC (not insulting anyone, it’s just I never had a “dream” school or anything and didn’t spend HS prepping for college apps) so I wasn’t expecting it to bother me so much. But it does. I really do think I’d chose the same school anyway, but I wanted to at least have the choice. It just hurts to know I’m not good enough for those schools and honestly I don’t understand why I didn’t get accepted to at least one, especially the school where I did research with a professor. I couldn’t have afforded it but I wanted to at least get accepted, you know?

I’m on the wait list for three schools but I’m not that interested – I’m sort of offended that they only want me if no one better shows up, plus of course the money aspect. Everyone tells me that I still have a chance, but I know I don’t and I don’t want it anymore anyway.

I just feel like everyone expected me to go to a “good” school and now I’m disappointing them – my parents aren’t mad, they feel bad for me, but I know they imagined more for me. My teachers encouraged me to apply to selective schools and told me I could do it, and now I have to admit that I wasn’t good enough. Everyone’s been asking me where I’m going and when I tell them, they just say “oh.” It’s embarrassing because the one school is close by so of course everyone knows I applied.

I got a great scholarship at the other school, so I know I’m lucky. I like the school, I know I’ll have fun there. It’s just harder than I thought to let go of hopes I didn’t even realize I had, I guess.

Sorry; that was way too long but I just needed to let it out because my family’s tired of hearing it by now and I was hoping someone could relate. Please don’t tear me apart.

2

first about this: “I just feel like everyone expected me to go to a “good” school and now I’m disappointing them – my parents aren’t mad, they feel bad for me, but I know they imagined more for me”

I’m sure your parents would be thrilled if they felt you were thrilled. They are probably disappointed only in your disappointment. There is a good deal of confusion right now about college and its meaning. Getting into college isn’t a trophy. Rather, it is the result of a business decision by the schools. That’s it. They are selecting what will work for them this year. If you go into the store and select a can of beans, well it does not mean that the peas were less good.

So stop looking at admissions as if it were some index of your academic worth. it isn’t. So the next question is whether you can get what you need from the colleges you’ve been accepted to and/or if the ones you are wait listed at would serve you better. If so, do the things you need to in an effort to get yourself off the wait list. If a school that you’ve been admitted to will work as well, then don’t bother.

But start getting excited about all the opportunities that you will have next year at the school you attend. Going to college is a big deal. You’ll meet tons of new people and have experiences that are very different from those you’ve had in high school. Start getting excited and I bet your parents will be thrilled.

3

Thoughtful post and thoughtful reply. You’re entitled to grieve. Even though your case may be more extreme than others, I promise you that almost every high school senior is feeling some version of what you’re experiencing whether they were rejected from one or all of the schools they wanted. I can tell from your post that you are bright, self-aware and have a high eq. I suspect once you start your college education, you’ll be hard pressed to imagine yourself anywhere else. And if it does still bother you, I also suspect you’ll have the grades to transfer to any of the schools you originally considered. Good luck.

4

"Everyone’s been asking me where I’m going and when I tell them, they just say ‘oh.’ "

Muster a smile and tell them you got a great scholarship. You’re far from the only student chasing aid, and it is a very positive spin on an otherwise awkward moment.

5

That’s not true. Schools like HYP etc aren’t looking for the students with the highest ACT scores and GPAs or the smartest students. They’re looking for football and lacrosse players, legacies, sons and daughters of royalty, oboe and french horn players, a handful of students with international awards etc.

You’ll be able to do great things with the degree from the school you’re going to.

6

You wrote “I really do think I’d chose the same school anyway, but I wanted to at least have the choice.” you had the choice, and you chose to not to put effort into something that you really didn’t want. Instead of spending a lot more time writing a better application, and then turning down more competitive schools, you chose to write an application that was good enough for the school to which you actually wanted to go.

You have another choice now - you can go to the college that you really wanted to go all along, or you can take a gap year, do something interesting, and put together a killer application next year which will get you accepted to more selective colleges. Or you could go to the college where you want to go, and have a great four years.

You have a great GPA, a perfect ACT, and are NMF. You don’t need to prove anything about your academic skills.

7

“Getting into college isn’t a trophy. Rather, it is the result of a business decision by the schools. That’s it.”

Yep. Pretty much.

This is what I said to a student in a similar situation in another thread (also a stellar student that got shut out at elites:
You didn’t do anything “wrong”, but the RD round for these schools (and UCLA OOS) is brutal simply because there are too many highly-qualified applicants and not enough slots. A school like NU could reject the RD applicants they did take and replace them with the batch that just missed the cut and see no drop in student body quality.

8

Sometimes things happen exactly as they’re supposed to.

You submitted a lackluster application to some very competitive schools— schools that you don’t want to attend.

So you didn’t get in. That’s OK-- you don’t want to go there anyway.

This way, some other kid who really, really wants that spot got it. You’re going to the type of school you want to attend, and some other kid who will thrive in that “too small and elitist” environment has the opportunity to attend those schools.

Put this all behind you. Proudly wear the hoodie on May 1, attend the school you’ve been accepted to. Don’t sweat the whole “top school” thing. Work instead on making the most of the many opportunities, of the diversity and the wonders of the school you’ll be attending.

9

In the end, you only attend one school, and you are going to the school you thought you would end up at. Congrats! The hoopla surrounding multiple acceptances fades quickly. Soon, you and your classmates will all start to get really excited about starting a new advebture.

10

I’ve worked at and attended schools at all level of the spectrum. I have one kid at highly selective school and another finalizing a decision between above average but not “stellar” schools. The truth that no one wants to admit usually is that most of the colleges in the U.S. are perfectly solid and fine schools. Some are better (have better and more engaged and kinder faculty and good resources to use) in some majors/departments than others but if YOU put the effort in and go to talk to faculty during office hours in EVERY class (you’ll click with some and not with others) and if YOU participate in extra-curriculars that you truly enjoy and if YOU say “yes” to all (safe) opportunities when they come your way, YOU will get the very best and highest calibre education just right for you wherever you go. Graduating with less to no debt should be the main priority. I know students compare. But I can guarantee you that 99% of students get turned down from SOME school, they always just tell you about the highest ranking school that accepted them. So don’t tell everyone where you got turned down. Tell them what you love about the school you chose (and who chose you). Sometimes it turns out to be the best fit for a reason. My current daughter wanted to be close to home which limited her schools. She is also a tad shy. She will also now be at the top of the curve in hard science courses, which won’t hurt her for graduate school. She can also do many more extra-curriculars here than she might have been able to at a school where everyone was a star. So, don’t compare. 10 years from now at a reunion hopefully you can share all the fabulous faculty you had mentor you, the things you learned, the jobs you did and the career you have and no one will care where you went. head up! And, by the way, the rankings…mostly poo poo. They can be skewed. So let them be happy, don’t knock their schools. But don’t apologize either. I currently work at a cheap state school. We have geniuses here who will leave school with no debt…their friends will be jealous of them after graduation. :slight_smile:

11

Just know almost everyone who applies to top colleges get near 4.0, and top colleges treat 33 in ACT and 36 in ACT not that differently. Think about how many applicants had close to 4.0 and 33+ in ACT and with interesting ECs and great essays? With your NMF status and stats, you are a sought after student at many Honors colleges which will give free college education. And you will do well at any school. Kids like you are the reason why I know 25% of kids at pretty much any top 150 state colleges would have done fine at Harvards and Stanfords, some even excelled. I know a kid with similar stats who “only” got into UCSD Comp SCi, and now has a job that not many Stanford graduate could get. I know this kid would have done fine, if not better than many students at top colleges.

12

OP, I totally get this…its not like you even wanted to go to those schools (as you point out) but, dang, you still thought you would have the chance to turn them down. I like this line of yours, “it’s just that I thought I’d spend April making a bunch of agonizing choices and now my choice has basically been made for me.”

Plus, gawds, expectations. My oldest is starting grad school in the fall…she was amazingly successful and has great schools to choose from. But we were at a large family gathering last week and my s-in-law said excitedly, “where did you end up getting in? Harvard? Princeton? Yale?!!” And then D was like “well, no not those schools” and then told the group her choices and everyone was like “oh, that’s good!” but you could tell that they thought the results would be more dramatic. I mean, what can you do but laugh?

Hugs to you…anyone would be proud to have a kid like you.

13

Not sure if this helps or not, but it may not be the last time you run into this. My husband and I have both applied for jobs over the years that we aren’t sure we want, but we are sure that we would be perfect for. And then…we get the dreaded “thanks for your application, but we have decided to pursue a different candidate.” We don’t even think we want the job, but it still stings that we don’t have the chance to decide. So- I think I can get what you are feeling. You’ve received some good advice above, I won’t repeat it. It’s ok to feel disappointed, as long as you also know that your value as a person isn’t determined by which schools accepted you.

14

@SuperSenior19

I’ve had friends planning a break up to end a relationship. The other person must sense their lack of interest and breaks up with them first.

Then all of sudden my friend is trying to get them back or to change their mind. I am like what’s wrong with you? LOL

They can’t break up with me. I wanted to break up with them…

They probably could just tell you weren’t that into them. Self esteem is for you to have not others to define. Your own outlook will determine others responses.

No one is going to spend a lot of time thinking about it.

“Hi Jess.
Hi Bill.
Did you get into Harvard?
No I’m going to university of Outer Mongolia.
Oh.”

Thirty seconds later. Jess is thinking- “why did bill say that, Bill thinks I’m a loser. He will tell everyone. And they’ll all think I’m not that smart and all my work for nothing. And all my friends are going to better schools and they’ll not respect me as the smartest kid in the room anymore. Etc “

Reality for Bill thirty seconds later -

“Jess is so smart and nice. And what is mom making for dinner, I’m starving ”

Congrats on your admissions and go knock it out of the park!

15

I get this. I cried when my son didn’t get into a college we both loved, but I knew was actually not the best place for him. I don’t know why that particular college hit me so hard, it wasn’t his first choice (which also rejected him). In the end he landed on his feet and made the best of his opportunities. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that the prestige of the college you attend is some kind of indication of your worth. It’s not.

Go to the college that accepted you. Make the most of the opportunities. It’s not bad to be a big fish in a little pond. If at the end of the year you feel like you need a different experience you can consider transferring.

16

People are going to say “Oh” when they aren’t familiar with the school and don’t have a clue what else to say. It’s a lack of knowledge on their part. As mathmom said, shine wherever you go! That’s what my daughter is doing at a school (Susquehanna) that I’d never heard of before a college admissions counselor recommended it to my older son. She has studied in Italy, worked in the campus art gallery, and is going to get to curate an exhibition next year. She’s getting a wonderful education even while people still say, “Oh,” when we tell them the name of her school.

17

As a NMF you probably got into a school that offered you a full ride, right?
Just say “University of Z on a full ride” and they’ll go “wow”. :slight_smile:

18

Try changing your mindset. With schools of that caliber, it isn’t so much that they rejected you, but that they didn’t accept you. It wasn’t anything personal. There are simply far more applicants than spots to fill. And if you applied to several Ivy League and a number of T20’s, you weren’t necessarily applying for schools that were a good fit, since those schools can be vastly different. In my opinion a good fit is better than prestige any day.

We can actually trick our brains and change thought patterns. Perhaps if you send letters to the waitlist schools withdrawing your application you will feel a sense of control and the satisfaction of making a choice? Plus it will save you the depressing possibility of more rejections.

19

@IowaMom66 and @websensation are correct. The thing to remember (and it’s actually pretty amazing) is that, in the US, outside of some fields (usually the squishier ones preferred by scions of well-to-do families like PE and museum curating or non-profits where it’s hard to actually judge talent) there is this huge disconnect between admissions difficulty and actual opportunities at a college. For instance, UCSD CS can get you anywhere in tech that Stanford CS or Cal EECS can get you but Stanford and Cal EECS are waaaay tougher to get in to than UCSD CS.

20

College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won. I’m kind of in the same boat, but make sure to make the next four years of your education count - because if you do, you can go over to an amazing graduate school where you’ll chart a course in whatever specific interests you have, whether that be law, medicine, engineering, or etc.