Tonight my son received a rejection letter to the school where he was supposed to play football. It’s a D3 school so the football coach doesn’t have much influence in getting him in. His friend who is not planning on doing any sports who also applied to the school was accepted weeks ago. My son’s friend’s grades and SAT scores were much lower than my sons. The only thing I can think of is that the child’s mother who works for another college was able to pull some strings. We are both heart broken because he should have got in. This is also an in state school who seems to prefer out of state applicants for the money. It just doesn’t seem right and my son’s dreams of playing football there and going to their business program have been crushed. It would not be as big of a deal if his friend who I’m 110% sure has not done nearly as well as my son in school or on the SATs got in.
Agonizing over your friend’s son will only make it worse, though. You have to just let it go. College admissions are a strange endeavor, especially if they are at all selective. Besides, how much “worse” are we talking here, 100 points on the SAT or 500? What is the exact GPA difference? Does your son have a 4.0 and your friend’s son have a 2.0? Or is it more like 3.7 versus 3.3? Also, if the kid’s mom works for a different college, how would she pull strings at that college. And tell me, if you were in her position and could pull strings for your son, would you have?
Did they both apply under the same major? If they chose different majors & your son’s had more applicants that could explain why he was not admitted, while his friend w/ a less impacted major was admitted. Although colleges often say that a student’s selected major will not impact their admission decision, that is just not true. I’ve seen many examples of kids not being accepted in certain majors (engineering for example) with 4+ gpa’s & great test scores, while other students with GPA’s of 3.7 get into the biological science majors. Just something to think about.
College anymore is becoming a holistic process. The adcoms don’t just look at SAT and GPA. While those factors do play a part, they don’t exactly paint the whole picture. We don’t know the whole story. The friend’s EC’s, essay, recommendations, rigor etc. may have been better in the adcoms’ eyes. Or the adcoms may have thought that the friend would overall be a better addition to the college. I’m sorry that this happened to your son, but there is no point in dwelling on it or theorizing that the mother unethically pulled strings (although the rhetorical question @albert69 poses at the end of his post is a perfect question)
Rejections don’t define the student and shouldn’t demoralize your son. There is a college out there for him, and while it is a shame he will not be able to play football and study under the school’s business program, this is only a bump in the road. If you and your family are still questioning the situation and believe your son should have been a shoo-in/should have been accepted, you possibly can bring it up to the college coach and asked him what happened in the room and ask for a clarification.
I don’t know the depths of your conversation but unless he specifically told you he couldn’t support your son in admissions, I can understand you having resentment for the rejection. If he seemed very positive and receptive to your son and seems to anticipate having your son on his team in a rather non-committal way, I certainly don’t see why you couldn’t update the coach on what happened and possibly asking why,
You brought up a good point about the major. They are both majoring in business. My son has been working a very long time and is so responsible. In fact he got his friend who got accepted a position at his job and my son trained him. All we ever heard was how smart my son is from the other boy. My son took AP courses and did well in them and the other boy did not. The other boy also did not have any additional activities.
This is embarrassing to my son and his football dreams are crushed. The only other school that wanted him for football due to his position is not a good fit for my son.
If anyone can give me suggestions on how to comfort my son in this situation I’d appreciate it.
OP you say: “The only thing I can think of is that the child’s mother who works for another college was able to pull some strings. We are both heart broken because he should have got in”
Sorry that he didn’t get accepted, but there is no sure thing. Many, many well qualified kids will be or already have been rejected at their dream school. It’s just a fact of life in college admissions. Too many applicants, not enough spots. You CAN’T say that he “should have gotten in” because nothing is sure in college admissions. What you CAN say is that he had the credentials to be admitted. Admissions is not so formulaic if it’s a holistic process.
And saying that the other mom pulled some strings may be true, although you will never know. Stuff like this happens all the time.
As parents, our hearts are crushed for our kids when things like this happen, but he will do great some place else. He may not think so at this very moment, but he will. Don’t let this fester since there is not much you/he can do about it.
If you call the school you probably will not get the answers you want anyway. Adcoms are sort of tight lipped about this. IMO, now it’s time to move on. Possibly your son can transfer next year.
Calling the coach may be a good idea to see if you can get some clarity, as someone mentioned, but it could just lead to more disappointment also.
The mom may not have needed to pull strings. Some colleges have agreements with other local schools to accept a certain # of the children of the other college’s staff in return for a similar # of acceptances for the children of their staff.
In my opinion, it was a mistake on your part to assume your son would get in. It’s a mistake to assume he was a better choice than his friend, that the mom pulled strings, or to let him know you thought any of those things. It wasn’t a choice between your son and his friend. They’re independent decisions. Had the other boy been rejected, that’s still no guarantee that your son would have been accepted.
I’m sorry your son feels badly. You can contact the coach to try to get more information, but in the meantime I’d actively pursue other options.
Does he know for a fact that the coaches supported his application? We were told by one coach that he was allowed to support (in this case, “support” was a letter from the coach to admissions) 100 boys for the football team, and he would get about 25 of them.
I sympathize but you’ve got to completely remove comparisons w/the other kid out of the equation from here on out. It’ll do no one any good and can only cause a rift due to yours and your son’s disappointment. Your disappointment and resentment are very obvious in your posts. YOU need to get over this before you can be of any help to your son.
Also DO NOT CALL. Hippobirdy makes an excellent suggestion in post #5: have your GC call. If GC suggests it, have your son call. This is not something for mom/dad to interject themselves – that WILL NOT go over well whatsoever.
If you need more commiseration, post again in the Parents Forum – lots of wise voices there – many who have experienced what you’re experiencing. Best of luck to you and your son.
You are basing this “should” on a comparison to exactly one other kid. Are you saying every kid that has better SAT and GPA than that kid “should” get in? Seems like a pretty flimsy yardstick, and it is still pretty flimsy even if you add in AP classes and sports.
The adcoms, who looked at all the applicants, don’t seem to agree with your “should”.
Between your son and you someone needs to be the adult here, my guess is it falls on you. You’re not helping him any by wringing your hands and complaining how unfair this all is. Hopefully you encouraged him to apply to a set of schools including a safety, so he should still have some fine choices available. Might I suggest helping him be excited about where he will go instead of bemoaning where he won’t?
I would not look at the friend. Whether it was a favor or a great essay does not matter. I would look at the school statistics (admitted Sats etc) as well as your specific hs statistics from prior years for this college. If your son is over the 75th% for admitted stats then I would have your guidance counselor inquire and your coach. Strange mistakes do happen, does your son have a common name? Did they not receive something? Forget about the other kid but do look at your stats as against the admitted rates. Also see if there is an appeal
I’m sorry for both of you… especially your son. Not fun watching your kid deal with that kind of rejection. My advice is not to kill yourself trying to make sense of it. You guys don’t know the whole story. Grades and test scores don’t always line up with the potential of a student. Some of the most passionate learners within a class aren’t getting the top grades. You don’t know what this boy was able to express about himself nor if there are any circumstances to why he didn’t take AP’s and didn’t have extra-curriculars (if that is indeed the case…and it might not be… people don’t tell everything to everyone.) His saying your son is “smart” only means he’s gracious… not less capable. Could his mother have pulled strings? Perhaps but then we watched the valedictorian and D’s high school get rejected from the public university her own mother worked at last year… not even a wait-list… and it was her top choice of school… and several other classmates were accepted over her. I know that was painful for the family. Whose to say who really has pull anymore.
Your son may not get to play football freshman year… he may need to play on the rec level teams for exercise and athletic outlet. That doesn’t mean there isn’t something else wonderful waiting for him at a different school… something he would not have had TIME for if he’d been tied to the football team schedule (which can be grueling.) I do wish you guys luck. I do know that some people choose to appeal. If his stats are on the high end for this school, maybe that is an option.
More seriously, the worst questions on this site are "why didn’t [I/my friend/my kid] get accepted. Because the answer is always the same: **Admissions is subjective, there is a lot of luck involved, and anything else is destined to remain unknowable. **
It could be legacy, URM, and other factors. It is hard to tell. It can be very subjective too. For SAT score, they may look at certain section score instead of composite.