<p>Love the one you're with is a great strategy, and most well-adjusted (or even not-so-badly-adjusted) kids gravitate to it naturally. That's one of the best things I remember about April and May from my daughter's year. April 1, there was a lot of pain and disappointment going around (and elation, too, but that's not what we're talking about). By about May 15, everyone was in love with the schools they were going to attend.</p>
<p>Almost everyone. One of my daughter's close friends remained quite unhappy and apprehensive. She had only gotten into one college, and it was one she maybe shouldn't have applied to in the first place, because she really wasn't falling in love with it. She was a difficult kid to read: not a great student, very involved in music but without great natural talent, tremendously strong, but very quiet character. You had to know her well, for a long time, to appreciate how great she was; it wouldn't have come through on paper at all.</p>
<p>She did get into her first-choice school off the waitlist, after a full-bore campaign by her prestigious private school to make it happen. It helped that the school was perfect for her and she for it, and that it was a school that regularly took some substantial number of kids off the waitlist.</p>