<p>Suze,
Thanks for that input. I think I had better do some investigating, as unpleasant as that may be. </p>
<p>I wonder if my s performed at your school this spring, with his music program.
French piano duo music.</p>
<p>Suze, talk to your college counselor about applying to Wash U and Oberlin and not visiting them. Then tell him that they are just safeties as the other schools on Andi's son list are your main events. I guarantee you he will tell you that you had better visit those two schools. </p>
<p>Yale does not do much in the way of courtesy deferring kids who apply early. If his recs were a problem, he would have been flushed right out of the pool when he applied EA, as the same % of EA deferred kids get accepted as those who not deferred. Also Swarthmore is not into waitlisting kids with bad recs either. If you look at the % accepted in the schools chosen and do a statistical analysis, it is very possible not be accepted. Especially if you use Mini's more real to life numbers for a kid who has no legacy or other hook.</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is no one at our school with his stats that didn't get into a top school. Not one. It's hard to understand all of these adults saying it was just bad luck.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The two situations are not directly comparable. Very different admissions process, especially from the guidance office.</p>
<p>BTW, I know a student last year at one of the top New England boarding schools who completely screwed up his list with an unrealistic concentration on HYSPM. He ended up at a safety school, leaving a whole bunch of great schools he would have gotten into on the table because of a gaping hole in the middle of his initial list. It was kind of sad to watch unfold, especially because my daughter pointed out the flaw in his list to him way back the previous fall. I guess he thought that a famous prep school and super high SATs would be enough.</p>
<p><<yes. that's="" because="" it's="" true.="" there="" really="" are="" parents="" like="" that.="" it="" can="" be="" very="" hard="" for="" of="" students="" who="" exceptional="" to="" realize="" that="" tens="" thousands="" in="" this="" country,="" and="" they="" all="" can't="" get="" into="" hpys.="" also="" probably="" most="" high="" achieving="" such="" as="" nm="" scholars="" how="" deep="" field="" is="" what="" kind="" remarkable="" achievements="" many="" similar="" have.="">></yes.></p>
<p>I've only been at CC a short time but I am stunned by the degree to which parents do not realize the truth of this. One of my sons attends an elite private university. His twin brother attends a state university. When we went to the honors program orientation at the latter, it was clear to me that many kids there could have easily been contenders for a spot at HYP or AWS. Those kids don't even apply -- sometimes it's poor counseling but often it's a matter of middle class parents insisting that there are other ways to spend $160,000.</p>
<p>My dd attends an intensely competitive and well-regarded (nationally) private school. 20% National Merit recognition, all kinds of academic, athletic and artistic superstars. No one is permitted to approach the college process as if an Ivy-type admission is in the bag -- because it isn't. 2 of her good friends were deferred from the same Ivy in December. They both promptly applied to other schools ED2 and were admitted. They are both accomplished young women, but there are 15 other kids in their own small senior class just as accomplished. And that's only one very small high school in one state.</p>
<p>I teach in an even smaller private high school. I have some students whose scores and accomplishments bounce off the page. But they don't believe me when I tell them that there are 1000s and 1000s of kids with just as many strengths; they want to believe that they are singular in their achievements.</p>
<p>As far as the Boston bias -- well, I certainly can't impute that to anyone on the basis of a few posts. But I went to boarding school and college in New England and then returned to the midwest for graduate school and professional life, so I know that there is most definitely a New England parochialism that can seep into conversations (and applications?) quite unintentionally.</p>
<p>I'm a CC reader but rarely post. Andi, you are living through a parent's worst nightmare scenario. My heart goes out to you and yours.</p>
<p>There is one aspect about a gap year which has puzzled me, that being the health insurance coverage issue. Our policies have always covered until the 19th birthday but allow an extension for a fulltime student at an accredited educational institution until age 23 or 25. I do not believe lapsed coverage can be reinstated after the 19th birthday. </p>
<p>So my purpose in posting at this time is to encourage anyone who is considering a gap year to fully explore the ramification of a break in education on the availability of your health insurance during the gap year and beyond.</p>
<p>Late to this party, but here's my 2 cents.</p>
<p>As some others have said, your son's entire list consisted of very selective schools. Tons of great applicants get rejected from all these places. Odds are a lot bettter applying to one ED.</p>
<p>Oberlin is the easiest statistically to be admitted to, on that particular lofty list. But it is still not an easy admit. They have a particular culture there, and I have to believe they want to see that the applicant expresses a reasonable argument for why they want to go there. Probably more so than many other schools.</p>
<p>So when an applicant with above-average stats shows a list consisting of the most prestigious colleges in the nation, some of which are very different culturally than Oberlin, doesn't even visit the campus, and maybe doesn't make a compelling case for "Why Oberlin?" in his essays: maybe admissions concludes he hasn't really looked into it enough, so Oberlin may not be a good fit for him in the end. And maybe that's the case.</p>
<p>My daughter had an easy time with her Oberlin essay, because she really loved the place and it was easy for her to say why. She was waitlisted at some other places where she had a harder time making a convincing story. Who knows if that's why, of course.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, she's there, and likes it there.</p>
<p>As for what to do, select one of the places on waitlist that he really wants to attend, and see if GC can beg his case to the college. Or at least find out where on the waitlist he is.</p>
<p>mominva :eek: one of the many things I would never have thought of!! Well I guess he'd have to go back to school by next March!!!!</p>
<p>Andi, Don't panic, just check it out, and keep pursuing accredited options!</p>
<p>re: health insurance - a very good point. Andi, you need to read what your coverage is. Ours covers dependents until age 21 regardless of whether they are full time students or not. If they are students, I believe they are covered to age 24.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Math schools are what I research most, because of my oldest son's strong interest in math. I was surprised, and I would say surprised because I have a blase attitude toward those schools, which are my family's legacy schools, to find out that both Carleton and St. Olar rank WELL above a lot of otherwise similar schools in the esteem of mathematicians. Precisely because my grandfather and father before me went to those schools (NOT majoring in math), I am more interested in having my son apply out of state if he continues to have an interest in studying math in college. But it's his call, and if he would really like to stay in state (contrary to my advice ;) ) and not attend our state university, he could certainly have a very good experience at either school in Northfield, MN as a math major, and definitely keep himself on track to get into the top graduate schools by doing so. </p>
<p>St. Olaf is conspicuously a school with a strong music program--that is very built into the school's culture. So when I hear about young people interested in both music and math, I think about them applying to St. Olaf. The stats at St. Olaf aren't especially awe-inspiring (partly because Carleton, in the same town, bags many of the higher-stat Minnesotan applicants), but St. Olaf has CREDIBILITY as both a math school and as a music school, and that should put it on the list of someone who is interested in both subjects. </p>
<p>I'm sure there are other schools that allow pursuit of both interests without being quite as forbiddingly selective as the schools to which Andi's son applied. Any school that is better than not getting admitted to school is a school worth applying to SERIOUSLY, with some attention to the details of the application. </p>
<p>Best wishes to Andi and son in pursuing a wait list strategy. My son is on a wait list right now for a summer program (in math, of course :) ) and it looks like he has a pretty good chance of getting off the wait list, which I hope is also the result that Andi's son sees.</p>
<p>Jamimom, yes, my counselor agrees that visiting is important where small LACs are concerned and that interviews there count for more than at most schools.</p>
<p>Counselor also thinks that if all is fine with recs and application, Andi's son could easily be admitted to Oberlin with a phone call. Good luck Andi!!</p>
<p>Andi, Im on the other side of the world so I read these threads in clumps. I see that your son has eliminated the Scotland option and that youve decided that going after the waitlists with vigor is the best strategy. I certainly agree that it is the best approach; however, it shouldnt be the only! As unappealing as it may be, your son needs a Plan B. You know, hope for the best, but plan for the worst.</p>
<p>If (and again I dont mean to be a prophet of doom: I think the chance of a waitlist turnaround is reasonably good) the waitlists dont metamorphose into acceptances then hes going to really have to scramble. </p>
<p>Please dont take this as an excessively negative comment, but it seems to me that you are putting too much emphasis on what he did wrong and not enough on what to do next in the event that the waitlists do not come through. Not having an insurance policy caused trouble the first time around and not having one again is folly.</p>
<p>A gap year or alternative school plus a new application cycle is a viable option and I think he needs to face, now, the chance that it may be the only option. Planning a meaningful, inexpensive gap year is a very difficult and time consuming project. It takes a lot of initiative and creativity, which, I understand, is difficult to summon up after a kick in the stomach. Since in a case like your sons the gappee would want to do something interesting at the same time that he would be re-applying is logistically complicated. Attending a community college or a low tier school is also dispiriting but could still be spun into a positive experience.</p>
<p>In short, its not the best route or the easiest route but may well be the only route. I urge you to work on a worst case scenario SIMULTANEOUSLY with pursuing the waitlist schools.</p>
<p>Andi, I sincerely wish the best for your son and believe that he deserves a break. He sounds like a wonderful kid who got some bad advice compounded by bad luck. In spite of everything he tries at this point, getting off a waitlist is a longshot. He needs a slamdunk now.</p>
<p>If your son does a gap year, look into the City Year program in Boston, It is one of the country's top Americorps program. I spent several hours visiting it including talking with the founders, and was extremely impressed. That's the kind of place that an assertive, smart person like your son would do very well in, and also could create and participate in some projects that would provide a wonderful community service while differentiating his college applications.</p>
<p>Andi:</p>
<p>A lower-cost alternative to Edinburgh might be a Canadian university. Its worth checking whether deadlines have passed for McGill, University of Toronto, Queens, etc. For a non-resident student the price should be under Can $15,000, including room and board. For universities in Ontario there is a unified application. Check out <a href="http://www.ouac.ca%5B/url%5D">www.ouac.ca</a> It sounds like your son is more than ready for collegenot the kind of person who would benefit from a PG year at a prep school (which is very expensive). Maybe a gap year, but Peace Corps, which one person suggested, requires a minimum of a college degree. </p>
<p>You asked what went wrong? and it may be impossible ever to know. But one problem that several posters have hinted at, perhaps too politely, is that his list was irresponsible. Basically, he had 7 reaches and 1 match. That doesnt work for anyone these days except maybe Chelsea Clinton. Did your GC really think this was an appropriate list? Did she urge you to add more matches and some safeties? Did she make the point that since you needed financial aid that he would need financial safeties as well? If she didnt, then she did not do her job. The list one of the posters provided, showing chances of 5% and 10%, is probably pretty accurate. </p>
<p>Michelle Hernandez, the former Dartmouth adcom who wrote a tell-all book a few years ago, posted a reality-check comment here last December, after ED/EA decisions came out. (I think its on the Dartmouth or Yale board on this site: you could probably search her name.) Her message to all the students bemoaning their deferrals/rejections after years of hard work and dedication was that they were the classic hook-less applicants: outstanding in every way but not exceptional. The published admissions percentages include students with hooks: recruited athletes, legacies, URMs, faculty kids, Natalie Portman-level celebrities. For hook-less applicants, the admissions rates are lower, sometimes significantly so.</p>
<p>At a prominent suburban Boston HS like yourswhere location works against you--the GC should know all this and advise you accordingly. </p>
<p>My daughter attends a well known prep school and last spring the college office gave all the parents our marching orders: Every student had to apply to THREE safety schools, to be sure that they would have at least two admissions, and therefore a choice, in the spring. Wash Us predilection for waitlisting outstanding RD applicants who dont show interest was well knownthe preceding year Wash U had admitted students from her school ED but none RD. (They did take 3 from the waitlist, however, which might be good news for your son. All 3 are very happy there.) So when my D told her counselor that Wash U was one of her top choices she advised her strongly to apply ED1 or ED2.</p>
<p>In working his waitlists, your sons focus should not be on what the college can do for him but what he can bring to the table. I would imagine his chances are better at Oberlin and Wash U than Swarthmore (where my son attends). Swat had a surge in applications this year and has a bit of a housing crunch because of delays in renovations to Parrish and fewer students that usual going abroad. So Swat could conceivably not go to the waitlist at all this year, which did happen in the not too distant past. If they do, it might be to meet a specific need, engineering majors, for example. My son told me that the class of 2008 had the fewest would be engineers in many years, a result they arent happy about. </p>
<p>I hope all turns out well for him in the end.</p>
<p>momrath,
excellent post. Things have been changing by the minute around here- like the New England weather- but our plan now is to pursue only one school's waitlist just on the off chance that he can get in (however we'll go full steam ahead with that) and talk about a plan B, which will likely be music study and some sort of internship or job. Money is definitely a factor for us, so travel or that sort of thing is out of the question. If he's around here, he can regroup and apply to schools again for next year. It may be depressing for him when his brother and friends go off to school in September so I'm going to try to help him find something that he will really enjoy doing. I realize that it's not that likely that he'll get in off the waitlist but at least it will keep us going forward.</p>
<p>It is my belief that if a commitment to Oberlin is made, a phonecall could make the difference. However, if such a commitment is not forthcoming, it becomes dubious. I also believe that Andi's son is at this point uncertain what he wants to do. Does he truly want to make a binding commitment to Oberlin, or hope that Wash U and Swarthmore will come through? That is the way it usually plays out. The young man certainly has the profile to be admitted to Swarthmore and Wash U, but their selectivity index is such that they are not schools that are going to be as easily swayed by a phone call promising to come. Now Swarthmore accepted a decent number off the waitlist last year, so it is indeed a possibility. He is a male so his chances are slightly better, and academically he are not going to hurt their numbers. I do not know if Swarthmore has financial aid for their waitlisted kids, and Andi, if you are reading this, you may want to check that, as well for each of the waitlisted schools. Wash U is not needblind, and that does not bode well for those on the waitlist as they are generally considered "borderline" for admission just by definition of where they are --waitlisted. Because his stats are on the high end for Oberlin, they are the most apt to take him IF he says he'll go there, and they just might cough up the financial aid. I doubt very much that he was an academic deferral at Oberlin; I truly believe that demonstrated interest was an issue. </p>
<p>I worked with a family in a similar situation though the kid was not nearly as high powered in specs. I was reasonably certain he would get into a certain school where he was deferred EA IF he made a commitment to go there in writing backed up by the GC. But he had a first choice school in the wings there that just might take him and he did not want to take that chance. So he did not make the commitment, was turned down by the EA school, and waitlisted on the RD school that couldn't care less if he made a commitment or not as it had a long list of kids that would love to make that commitment to get in. </p>
<p>As for not having a true safety, that is now water under the bridge, and for some of the safeties I was suggesting, they would probably take him now. UPitt, for example, is rolling in admissions and usually has some spots for the right kids open at the end of the season, as does Rutgers. If he really wants to go SOMEWHERE in the United States, there will certainly be a number of schools that would love to have him. And if he does well his first term, he will also have excellent transfer chances. He is not stuck, by any means. Had he applied to such a school up front, he could have saved himself the trouble and stress at the tail end of the process and had a bit more choice on which school he picked, but if he really doesn't like any of them equally, it's not going to make that much of a difference in that area for him. There is a thread where a kids is so depressed that he is "only" accepted to UVA, Wm &Mary and VTech. Schools that many kids would love to have in consideration. So it is all a matter of perspective. But, Suze, I do agree with you that the right phone call to Oberlin could get him in there.</p>
<p>Hi Andi:
I was just up your way for Spring Break and realize being from Boston can be a big disadvantage for highly qualified students like your boy. It is true that you might not seen the tide against "too many great kids from Boston" turning against you in time and that you did not have true matches built in with enough quantities to cover Flukes. </p>
<p>I live in a part of the USA that is a bit more gently considered by admissions people looking for geographic diversity...and we had better luck with Matches and Reaches although it is glaringly obvious that your boy merits the exact same good fortune.</p>
<p>So in the interest of Life isn't Fair But This is Ridiculous!!! we are all pulling for you! I am sure your son will be in a LAC by May. It's not over! Please share this with your guidance dept and see if they can do some major remedy work somewhere, and it might be best to allow them to share the whole story, with a big pitch that his application file is flawless. It may be the moment you actually hire a consultant to help get him the balanced review and attention he deserves on a Wait List.</p>
<p>This story has just consumed my thoughts today. If it were me, I would hope I wouldn't feel desperate and settle for a school I would not be happy at. When I took a look at the list of schools someone posted that still had space last year, it was clear that they are not names that would have been uttered by your son, Andi. Gap years are in vogue, and I hope I would not lose it and go to a college when I knew I could most probably do better in one short year with a new strategy. There are so many things to do that cost little or no money. Just google gap year to see the many European sites filled with ideas because they are so popular there. The collective hearts of my dorm are with you and your son!!</p>
<p>thanks suze- don't worry he's definitely NOT going to settle for someplace unless he really wants to go there. What's the point? I'm glad you wrote back because I also wanted to tell you and your friends not to be put off by what happened to him! Go for the schools you really like and have a back up plan, even if it's a gap year too.<br>
I'm feeling encouraged by all the good ideas I've sifted out from these posts and also all the well wishes from people.</p>
<p>Northstarmom- yes, I've heard excellent things about City Year. A neighbor's kids did that many years ago.</p>
<p>And thanks to all other posters Faline2, jamimom, janesmith, momrath, lefthandofdog, and mominva...... insurance was the furthest thing from my mind. I'll check out the policy. </p>
<p>tokanadult, interesting and thoughtful post about those schools.</p>
<p>thanks everyone. Tomorrow morning we'll launch the campaign to overcome reject catastrophe.
andi</p>
<p>Andi,
I don't really feel that I have any words of wisdom to add, as you've received so many great suggestions already. I, too, have been consumed with thinking about your son who I don't even know. I want to thank you for sharing your intimate experience with us so that we may also learn from it. I know that isn't easy to do.</p>
<p>I do wish your son the best of luck and feel confident that he will find success and his dreams.</p>