<p>(I don't know how to quote, but...) "Oh God! That is awful! In a way though, at least it was over and done with. It might be worse to get five in one day, but still be hopeful, and get the remaining 5 rejections in the next few days..."</p>
<p>That's EXACTLY what happened to the seniors at my school last year... Ivy rejection day came and went and none of them got in, and while some still had hope for places like Stanford, Tufts, and Amherst (I think it was these schools... could be wrong), they all got rejected from pretty much everywhere. :-/</p>
<p>A story from my son's application process last year - not exactly a venting of frustrations but a telling of the tale about the panicky state we all (parents and kids alike) get into during this abso-tively insane process:</p>
<p>In an effort to help out with some of the administrative nitty gritty that is piled upon high school seniors when they're applying to college, I called the College Board to get his AP scores sent to the schools he ended up applying to (the old belts and suspenders approach because he said that the scores were reported on his transcript anyway). I got on the phone with a very nice lady down in Princeton who asked me all the basics of his information: name, date of birth, schools that the scores should be sent to, etc. As she was looking up my son's file, she said "Hey, there's another boy with your son's name who's applying this year to many of the same schools. You should really make sure he includes his middle initial on every application."...<em>GULP</em> and it's not like his name is John Smith. </p>
<p>In that one moment, it hit me the enormity of the task involved in shepherding through the thousands of applications flooding into college offices during the fall months. What are the chances that one kid's application materials gets mixed in with those of another with exactly the same name? I know that the person opening all that mail in College X's admissions office is careful, but how careful exactly? And I now know that they check files based on birthdate or social security number or some such when they have 2 or more applicants with the same name. But somehow I had never really appreciated the level of attention to detail that's required of every single person in the admissions office before that moment when I was talking to the nice lady in Princeton.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I ended up calling every single college my son was applying to to just make sure that everything was okay with his file. I'm sure they loved getting that call! But in the course of running my mania to ground, I also uncovered some missing pieces of info that would have stymied his application, so I can't say I'm (totally) embarrassed at having exposed myself for the mother hen that I am.</p>
<p>Right now....I wish all the admissions offices would get all my application stuff processed!!!</p>
<p>Patience is indeed a virtue. Most of the colleges I'm applying to have thousands of apps to sift through so it's probably going to take awhile before they get to mine.</p>
<p>It's not so much the admissions/getting into colleges that I'm worried about; I am totally stressed about getting enough financial aid, scholarships or otherwise. Why do we have to wait until April just to get fin. aid reports back??? For me, No money=in-state school=freezing cold=doom.</p>
<p>Having to write 19 essays is terrible; my first 6 colleges required 2 essays total. My last 3 colleges require 3 essays each. Horrid...</p>
<p>I know the process is crazy and it's stressing me out to the MAX, but I have to agree with most of the admission procedures. With tens of thousands of applicants, how else can a college decide who is best fit for there school? Essays, GPA, SAT/ACT score, Ltrs of rec, etc., yeah they're a pain, but they are necessary.</p>
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<p>Why must I suffer???? Not that SDSU is my first choice or anything, but still....I don't understand why I can get into schools that are much higher in selectivity, but still can't get into a third-tier school with a semi-ridiculous requirement.<<</p>
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<p>You don't have to suffer. Just strike SDSU off your list and move on. Every college gets to set its own entrance requirements, and SDSU's don't align with your achievements. There is no Good and Bad or Right and Wrong here. You and that school just aren't a good match.</p>
<p>^^They usually don't. They more typically use some language like "We regret to say that we cannot offer you admission blah, blah, blah...." or some such thing.</p>
<p>I hate how so many Ivies take class rank into such great consideration. (Rant Warning- but I guess that's what this thread is for). I'm currently near the bottom 10% / (mabye falling out of it to top 11%...I pray to the lord no) in a school w/ unweighted grades and NO GRADE INFLATION - people simply take the easy classes and get 100's and less than 3% of the class takes AP's, and prob 1% get's A's in them, me being part of that elite 1%.</p>
<p>While I am one of the most superior academically at my school, a bunch of idiots and retards are ranked higher than me in positions that they do not deserve and that they will not use to help others or the world. Stupid Class Rank - at least make it weighted.</p>
<p>RootBeerCaesar, I think that you'll be glad to hear that the top tier schools don't necessarily use the class rank provided by your school to determine your competitiveness. They will recalculate a rank based on the difficulty of your courseload, so you should have no problem standing out among applicants at your school.</p>
<p>I woke up at 4 in the morning to visit a college. I got dressed in my nice clothes, and everything, and I thought I was good.</p>
<p>Somewhere on the highway, I'm half-asleep, and I realized that I'm not wearing my nice black shoes. I'm wearing my ratty black sneakers. Terrified, I realize my mom's going to KILL me when we get out the car and she notices my shoes.</p>
<p>So she does. Then goes to get me a new pair of shoes and makes me throw the old ones out. The new ones don't fit, hurt like hell. And it was the biggest campus tour EVER. I had three blisters on both feet by the time it was done. For chrissakes, I was BLEEDING.</p>
<p>And I had to pay her $70 for the new shoes.</p>
<p>Oh, and I have another thing to say. At my school, there are a few applicants who are getting special treatment for admissions because they know someone who knows the admissions director. It's an HYP type of school too. 2 of these applicants have scores around 1900-2000, are not URM's (they're actually Asian), are not legacies, are not recruited athletes, and [quite frankly] are not as smart as the people who deserve to get in. It sucks when this kind of thing happens. I'm guessing they'll get in solely because of such stupid connections. Yeah, I know that life's not fair. I just feel bad since those spots could have been taken by people much more deserving/brilliant. =[
(And no, I am not referring to myself.)</p>