When the Dream School Doesn't Happen

“because he is truly qualified and yet got bulldozed for some under or over privileged quota applicant."

Classes don’t only have space for one of each kind. Even if your statement about quotas is true, and let’s say… your son is just another white middle class boy from suburbs. If he got rejected, it’s because they preferred a bunch of other white middle class boys from the suburbs.

Clearly your son has worked exceptionally hard with outstanding results, as have the majority of ivy-level applicants, and I hope he succeeds. But I have also picked up a sense of something between ego and entitlement here, and if any hint of this got through into his essays (not saying it did - the son’s attitude could be totally different to the parent here), that could be an issue. Totally agree that the wrong way to deal with any rejection is to blame it on some unspecified grouping stealing his place. Blame it on what it is: that at colleges with single digit acceptance rates and overwhelmingly qualified applicant pools, it becomes a lottery.

@cptofthehouse I think you hit on something that is often unrecognized. The competition for tenure track jobs is so fierce in the US that even schools far down in the rankings often have superb faculty members. So while fellow students may be more hit & miss in terms of academic quality at lower ranked schools, faculty members are still often very strong.

@blossom: What countries are your cousins in? A lot of European countries now have ways that allow what we call non-trads here in to their unis.

It’s probably safe to address the one concern discussed several times above and we’re pretty much all in with the benefits of diversity. People mention this to us all the time - If he doesn’t get in it’s because of…
We really understand the entire topic and definitely won’t feel like a victim. I know that this, too, gets political. For discussion sake (and I think worth mentioning because this topic is often viewed as a “bleeding heart” sort of thing), but I’m personally (not going to speak for others) as Conservative as it gets across the board on every single issue and I applaud these schools’ efforts to be diverse. We’re all fundamentally 100% equal. Not sure exactly how the Admissions offices work through this and there’s likely not a set formula, but that’s one issue that we definitely don’t have a problem with. I celebrate those who get the opportunity.
Put another way - It’s not a competition - I hope that everyone makes it.
On a related note - I’m a former full-time Marine Corps Officer and somehow the qualities of good character and impeccable integrity rubbed off in a way that blows the doors off of where I was when I was 17. And, I see a lot of young people with the same attitude SO, I think we’re all in good hands regardless of what others may say.
I think I may have gone way off topic. Not totally sure, but it’s all your fault if I did.

Is this post really by a parent? I’m not convinced…

But if it is, then the OP’s child will be in good company. Thousands of stellar students won’t get into HYPSM and the like. I like to bring out this chestnut right around this time of year: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1891200-asian-rejected-from-everywhere-postmortem-p1.html

I hope your kid’s dreams come true, but he has other good options. He will have to lick his wounds and move on.

Back to the original question of what to do if your qualified child gets rejected. It is the time to muster up your strongest mama bear stance and pronounce “it is THEIR loss!” With conviction, heart, and repetition. Your son needs to know you feel no disappointment in him, only frustration that the college wasn’t smart enough to recognize his qualities. Then, after a day or two, shift your laser focus to his accepted school and dive into issues of admitted students weekends, housing,
and online fellow acceptees. As suggested above, order him the hoodie and ply him with all the pizza, sushi, and goodies he craves.

Good luck!

Truly, if the “dream” school happens to be an ivy or one of the colleges with low acceptance rates, the vast majority of applicants WILL be disappointed. But here’s the thing: there are thousands of bright, interesting, hard-working engaged students at public universities. Discounting the value add of those students is a mistake.

My daughter did end up at an ivy. But we just assumed she would not get in, because so few kids do. Honestly, she was just waiting for that last rejection before accepting her spot in the honors program at our state flagship. Had she not gotten in to the ivy (which feels very much like winning the lottery despite the perfect test scores and GPA), she would be exactly the same student at a public university instead. She would have thrived there and been happy, of this I have no doubt.

So if the dream does not happen for your child, there is no other option than to move forward and take advantage of the one of the wonderful opportunities he does have. Success isn’t just measured in GPA and test scores- it is also measure in resilience.

Well, there are a whole lot of reasons why there are fewer seats than the whole deck at these schools and it is not a level playing field for everyone. There are development, legacy, athletic, special status, local area, disadvantaged, geographic, special talent, celebrity status, and yes diversity, whether it is for some gender balance in a program, cultural, racial, diversity, and combinations of the same. If there are too many applications very similar to yours, you go in a stack where they aren’t like to take them all.

When the dream school doesn’t happen - don’t blame others. Don’t proclaim “it’s their loss!”
Truth is this is life. You don’t always get what you want and you might not be as deserving as you think. I wouldn’t say all that, but this is the reality. I really think the parents have a tougher time with the reality than the kids.
You say sorry, you commiserate and then you quickly cheer up because in this case there’s an outstanding second option.

Just to pile on to blossom’s post. My son’s girlfriend is from Hong Kong they were very happy to have her go to a top American LAC rather than a university in Hong Kong or China, or even one in the UK (which is where her sister went.)

I have a good friend in Germany who was closed out of higher education at an early age. In our country she was absolutely smart enough for a college education.

So best wishes for Ivy Day. If he gets accepted that’s great. If not the message is, IMO, simple: “You made a good run at it, now lets turn to getting ready to excl at FillintheBlank”.

Students deal with this each year and i think that involved parents can do a lot to help if they concentrate early on in helping their kids develop a list of schools/programs that they love.

@mathmom, in Germany now, there are now many ways for those who didn’t go down the traditional uni-prep secondary school curriculum to enter uni.

Did they not exist when they were younger or she didn’t know of them?

Oh she did, but when you also have to support yourself and are trying to get your Abitur it’s not so easy. That was a long time ago though. Things may have changed. At the same time there was a kid who was an apprentice draftsman in our office who did a real turnaround when he realized he’d much rather be an architect. He was able to change tracks. Anyway the point is there’s good and bad in every system. Germany does a lot better at training people who don’t need to go to college, but we give more people opportunities with so many options from community colleges to the super selective ones.

However, educational opportunity in the US is strongly based on parental SES and education, and the influence of such “inherited” factors appears to be increasing relative to that of the student’s own ability and motivation. (Obviously, going to an early tracking system like in Germany would make things worse in the current state of the US, where opportunities are more limited without post secondary education, and economic inequality is higher and rising.)

I don’t want to be obtuse, but I completely don’t understand what you are saying. How is it that we are measuring “the student’s own ability and motivation”? I thought one of our persistent issues is that every time we try to measure those things in some objective, consistent way, we wind up (to a large extent) measuring parental SES and education.

As between two kids with the same level of ability and motivation (however we measure it), the one whose family has lots of money will generally have more educational opportunity than the one whose family has little or no money. But, at least until very recently, I think our system has provided pretty high quality opportunity to the less wealthy kid, too, especially at the higher levels of ability and motivation.

There are dream schools. The reality is that most students who could do well at them will not be accepted because the demand far exceeds the supply of spots. You need make no apologies for your son if he ends up at the outstanding school instead. He will find his peer group and likely find those smarter than he is.

My gifted (top test scores, rigorous classes but not always A’s, 2 grades ahead) son did not get accepted to his dream school. Found his peer group in honors at flagship. In fact, he was not the youngest at still 16 in his fall honors physics class- there was a 14 year old HS girl taking the class. Plus, he was not the best among honors math majors although he did well- he once told us a professor mixed him up with another with the same first name who had better credentials. He had an excellent education, did as well as he wanted to, found his niche and being intellectually satisfied with his job. Life is for living, not just getting into and going to the most elite school.

I predict your son will also do well. Attitude means a lot. I’ll bet his outstanding choice will be a good fit. It could be a blessing if he does not get into dream schools as the fit may not be as great as the prestige factor (be wary of that).

There are NO guarantees in life, period. Even when you are told everything you need to do to optimize your chances and you do those things, the key word here is “optimize”. That does not mean “guarantee”. With the number of outstanding students applying to a limited number of spots in elite schools, there will ALWAYS be kids with stats as good or better than OP’s S who will be disappointed. The greatest gift this kid could get is to not let him board the victim train. He will be successful wherever he winds up as long as he’s allowed to leave (possible) disappointment where it belongs: in the rearview mirror.

If there’s any inquiring minds - It was a cavalcade of Rejections, but with one Wait List. What struck me most, though, were all of his friends calling and texting before, during and after. From what I can tell the kids of today are among the best ever. It’s really noticeable. Super great kids and there’s a lot of them.
All-in with the back-up school and all good.

Not to be negative in any way, shape or form, but I think there’s a lot of games (both political and otherwise) that I’m glad we won’t be part of and there’s a school that’s getting one more profoundly outstanding student and person. And many, if not most or all, of the others Rejected will be other schools’ gains.

Good attitude.

I was going to answer “Don’t have any dream schools” from the start.

And it is important to understand that grades and scores don’t get you in, they just get you considered.

Local schools make a big deal about some kids, only to set them up for disappointment.

This parent sounds well-prepared to offer a wonderful experience for her son in the next 4 years.

D1 was also shut out of all top 20 schools on the Ivy day with near perfect GPA at a top private school, even her GC was puzzled. We were naive back then to think with good stats, ECs and LORs would get her into many top tier schools. I still remember that night. I came home from an overseas business trip and D1 was curled into a ball sobbing in her room. It was the first time in many years that I had to put her to sleep. So I get the disappointment and devastation of not getting into one of those schools.

D1 rallied, picked herself to come up with a game plan - it included in getting off the WL and possibly transfer after one year. She kept up her grades through out senior year for “just in case.” She eventually did get off those 2 WL schools and went to one of them. It was not her dream school, but she flourished there and has since done well in her career.

D1 still remembers the Ivy day. She took a lot of lessons from that day - work hard, but do not take anything for granted and try to make the most of what you have.

Your son will be fine. He will do great at his “OUTSTANDING” choice school.