<p>My daughter applied EA to MIT. That school had been her number one choice since her sophomore year, and as her junior year progressed, her dad and I became increasingly anxious that she only had this one enormous, extremely hard-to-get-into egg in her basket. I probably felt more stress than she did.</p>
<p>The day the EA results were posted online, she was attending a mathematics competition. I was off running errands. Apparently during a break from competition, she went into a university library, accessed her MyMIT account on one of the computers, and saw the results. She phoned immediately, and I received the call while standing at the teller’s window at the bank. I felt…amazement, gratitude, and enormous relief, and shock. I remember looking at the teller and saying, “My daughter just got into MIT.”</p>
<p>Two years afterward, my son applied ED to Whitman, and he stayed up until midnight to access the computer and learn the results. His teachers, school counselor, and we had believed the school to be a good match. We had encouraged him to visit the school, and he fell in love with it. But he was rejected. To say the least, this was a quite different experience. He was accepted shortly afterward by Willamette University, and then also accepted by schools like UCSD, Boston U., Trinity College CT, and eventually Emory. Slowly, he decided he preferred Willamette, and he’s now very happy there and doing really well. So there was a happy ending to his story as well.</p>
<p>I remember very well the first acceptance D1 received - a phone call to the home in the evening saying he had been awarded a full tuition scholarship. We literally jumped up and down as a family! It was a safety school, and not where he ultimately attended, but that first acceptance being so huge after a multi-round EA competition really validated for him that this whole college thing was going to work out.</p>
<p>The big day for my daughter (who is now a college junior) was the Ivy day! Previously she had received acceptances from UVA, Michigan and UCLA. We were all thrilled for her (esp since she’s the oldest, her younger siblings were intrigued by the whole process), and she was very modest about her acceptances yet she was curious about the Ivy day. The Ivy day went pretty well also, she was accepted to Harvard and Columbia, waitlisted at Yale and Princeton. Her father was happy for her choice to attend Columbia, where he did his undergrad.
Overall we were very pleased, we had moved back into the country during when she was a sophomore and because she was born in October she had the option of being a freshman. We had always wondered if she’d be better off graduating a year later, but she was fine.</p>
<p>The first acceptances were from his safeties, we went out to dinner to celebrate and I ordered some champagne! There were a bunch of acceptances, then the rejections and a final acceptance to a school he expected to get a rejection from. He went to the school that he almost applied ED to, but we talked him out of applying early so thank god he got in!</p>
<p>There were 3 kids that I knew of that applied ED to the same school my son applied to. This was his first choice throughout junior year’s college visits.</p>
<p>I am very friendly with one of the other kids’ mom and she texted me that her son had gotten in. Although happy for her son, we hadn’t gotten the letter in the mail so I started feeling really badly for my son thinking he would be rejected. It was emotional as we’d discussed the possibility of not getting in at length and we were all okay with the other choices - but I am afraid we all fell in love with Colgate. :-/ But - we were really “cool” about it. </p>
<p>A half hour later my friend texted me - Kid 2 was rejected. As badly as I felt about that, I realized that now my son had a 50/50 chance of getting in. (I wasn’t even thinking about deferral) LOL</p>
<p>Needless to say, you could’ve cut the tension with a knife at our house that night. I had a closing the next day (I’m a Realtor) and it kept getting postponed all day and then when we were at the final walk-thru, my phone rang while we were in the basement. When I answered the phone, my son was joyfully telling me that he’d been accepted. Yep, I cried. Luckily, my clients understood as they’d been the recipient of my many college shopping stories throughout that summer. LOL </p>
<p>Just like mentioned above:
Relief
Joy
Freaking out over the $$$ (who wouldnt - no matter how prepared you are? LOL)
Envy (LOL I didn’t have the privilege of the campus experience)
And now . . . . praying that it all works out. I think I am reading too many CC “stories” . . . ;-)</p>
<p>Our DD is twice exceptional - high IQ, gifted, ADHD. She struggled with school work at her very demanding HS, had significant imbalance between her high SATs and not so stellar grades/rank. Given her personality and ADHD she (wisely) wanted a not too big school, and given her academic strengths wanted a challenging one. Between the schools she could not get into because of her grades, and the ones where we felt the lack of academic challenge and suitable peers would make her unhappy, the college search process was particularly stressful for us. We never did find a true safety we were all sure would work, though she did find one school that seemed more acceptable than the other safeties. She ended up applying to 3 clear reaches, and to 6 matches, with the safety(with a late app date) held in reserve. </p>
<p>The first response she got was a rejection from what we had thought was an easier one of her matches (DD had somehow gotten it into her head that it was a safety) We faced the prospect that she would blank on the nine schools and we would have to have the bitter family fight over whether the safety was really an acceptable alternative, vs say trying to reapply in a year. </p>
<p>The day she got her first acceptance from a match was, needless to say, a time we were bursting with excitement pride - and as churchill said, “I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”</p>
<p>Son was accepted places we didn’t expect. It was good but stressful. Pretty sure now he/we didn’t make the right decision. Don’t assume top scores/grades don’t get you into places without a hook. It can happen. Be prepared. We weren’t.</p>
<p>My oldest (who has one semester to go and will graduate in December) was our challenge. He went to CC for one year, held down a job, played a sport and completed enough credits to transfer in one year. He only applied to one school. He actually called to see if he got in. I was in his room when he made the call and I will never forget the look of elation on his face. What a journey he had and what a special moment for him. </p>
<p>Daughter (middle child) was my hardest worker. She applied to a big time reach (Notre Dame) ED, and her first letter was a denial. She has it tacked to her wall as her only “official” correspondence from the school. A while later she got the large envelope from the school she really wanted to go to. I drove it to her at lunch. We just laughed and high fived. haha She’s a junior now and loves it there.</p>
<p>Son (my youngest) was our over the top, high achiever with many, many options. He had dreamed of going to Cal to study engineering (yes, his dream was to attend a UC school and not the Ivy League.) Of course Cal is the last UC to release acceptances. He was playing in a match when decisions came out. When he got home, he ran to the computer with me running behind him. He went to his site, grinned from ear to ear and said “I got accepted to the one that mattered.” He had worked so very hard, and I was so happy for him to have achieved his dream.</p>
<p>How I felt? So very proud of all of them and so darn happy that I achieved my goal as a parent. I wanted all of them to go to college and they did. No one in my family graduated from college so this was a big deal to me. Of course, financial panic was right there along with my joy. However, joy won out in the end… Great days all of them. :-)</p>
<p>moneyp, how is it that your deadline to reply is December? My understanding is that unless you have applied Early Decision (in which case you are obligated to go if you get in) the reply date is May 1 for all.</p>
<p>Gwen, that is also perplexing me. We are international. DS applied for RD. We had assumed his case would be reviewed in January/February and results out in March/April. Here, lo and behold, we got the results but reply must be given in December and deposit given by March 1. What can you advise us to do? My ds has other schools that he is looking at. He does not want to be boxed in as he wants to see if he can get in the other schools.</p>
<p>Of course we were happy, proud, excited, relieved, and sad that they were leaving. Do not agree with the comment that it mattered what school they were accepted to. The feeling of excitement, pride and happiness comes with ANY acceptance.</p>