Early Action #1 decision comes out next week and was looking for advice on the best way to navigate the likely disappointment headed S’s way, since it’s a high reach. I’m sure he’ll bounce back, he’s a realist, but would love to know what has worked for those that have been through this…
Only thing I can think of is to have apps for a few other schools he’s loved ready to go, so there’s something he can do to look past it.
Yup. An early app to a school he’s likely to get into helps too.
Did he already get accepted to UMass?
He will be fine…he knows Yale SCEA is a reach, right? Hoping he has everything ready to hit the send button if it is not an acceptance.
What to do? be a good listener.
Hopefully the apps for the other schools are already well underway. If all those other essays have not yet been started, your kid is not going to have much time to mope around. Since January 1 will be only two weeks away.
One thing I’ve been doing in the weeks leading up to receiving the response from the ED school is to keep up the conversation about all the cool little things we like so much about the other 5 schools she applied to. What’s nice is there kind of different things for each school; for example, one has a fantastic curved glass wall with a great view in front of the cardio machines at the gym, one has a vibrant surrounding neighborhood, One has a theme house for people who want to foster therapy dogs, another looks like Hogwarts, etc.
I also made sure to have my D submit her other applications in addition to her early decision application, even though when acceptance would of course mean that she has to withdraw all of those. I thought that it would be good psychologically for her, you know, not to feel like all of her eggs were in one basket. Of course, this was made easier by the fact that, other than one early action school, the others had no application fees. We are holding out on one that does have an application fee until we hear back.
Best of luck to your son, whatever the outcome is! I think very often our children can be more levelheaded about these things than we are as their parents. 
Great tips…thanks!
Won’t hear from UMass until mid-Jan… Yes, most apps/essays are well underway so should be able to send out a bunch right after. Great idea to keep the conversation up about cool things at other schools.
I do think they’re more level headed and resilient than us overall!
I’ve posted some variation of this for years so forgive me for quoting myself. But it’s important to remember that in the grand scheme of things, a disappointing college result is a minor blip. But it’s possibly the last opportunity you will have with your kid under your roof to model the kind of behavior that allows your child to feel authentic disappointment and then move on.
Sad? For sure. Walk around the block for the two of you to vent, and then head over to the grocery store to pick out a tub of chunky monkey? A little scared that now he’ll never get in to ANY college? of course. Bake a batch of cookies together and reassure each other that this was the lottery ticket- but that there are plenty of fine choices in the pile and he can only attend one college after all. Dreading going back to school the next day? Only natural. So ask him to pop up a bowl of popcorn while you put on some corny holiday music and then talk about something- anything- that has nothing to do with college. Your cute two year old next door neighbor who is going to be so excited at the first snow fall. Your dog.
I’ve observed that parents who allow the kid to feel sadness and any other emotion that’s appropriate-- and then provide the love and support that “we are always in your corner” says do a much better job than the parents who become highly emotional “How could they reject you with your fabulous essay and high scores” or insist on “that’s life, move on”. If you lost out on a promotion at work, you’d want your work buddy to agree with you that it’s ok to feel disappointment, sadness, frustration (or whatever else) and they take you to lunch where you order something caloric and get extra dressing on your salad.
And maybe give the college talk a rest for a day or two. Your son needs to feel that you value him for so many other things besides where he ends up.
I was going to suggest ice cream.
Last year DS and friends went through this. When the HYPS decisions came out it was a bloodbath for about 20 of his ridiculously talented, intelligent, and driven friends who all had perfect or near perfect scores, 5.0 GPAs and tons of great ECs. The only kids that got in were a huge financial legacy at S and two URM kids. Made it a lot easier for the kids to deal with the rejection knowing that they weren’t alone. The deferral rates are pretty high too for all but Stanford so the kids get a few months to get used to the idea that reach number 1 isn’t going to happen.
Thanks for your thoughtful response @blossom You’re so right about it being a last chance to model moving past disappointment.
Funny, I was thinking a long walk with the dog and bringing over the boxes of books and games we’ve been putting aside for the neighbor’s three year old (Toy Story #3 style) might be a good idea. Cookies, ice cream, holiday music all on standby. We’ll see what he feels up for. Also apologies for making you repeat yourself…
@notveryzen S’s friends are very supportive and I’ve no doubt they’ll be there for each other through this. Lots of deferrals would be very nice so they have some time to let go. Also DD, a junior right now, has a pretty level head and can definitely help him cope. Thanks for sharing your experience.
I think that facing the peers might be the toughest thing. I know in the case of my D it might be the hardest part because she has a core group of 4-5 friends - 1 got into Cornell last night, I’m pretty positive 1 will get Penn today. She and another are SCEA Princeton and if the friend gets in and she doesn’t that’s going to be a tough crowd to face. There are some natural emotions to work through there but hopefully she can handle it well and look forward to the options she will have come spring. Her little bro is an 11 yo Monty Python fan - I’m sure he’ll ‘delight’ her with ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ over and over.
What a fantastic post by @blossom!
This is where I think athletics, theater, music and other competitive activities really help kids. Kids who have competed understand that sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. Over the years the youth/HS coaches typically tell the kids that you can be upset that you lost but there is another game in X days and we have to get ready for that game. For the most part they learn to be disappointed and still move forward.
Yes! Expanding on what @blossom and @Proudpatriot said, one of the big lessons we learned in our house is the result of watching our dancer go through ballet auditions. What we learned is that sometimes you don’t get what you want (or even what you deserve), but it doesn’t negate your past accomplishments. Your child may well have gotten into that HYPS the year before or the year after with the same credentials, but maybe this year the school wanted more art history majors … or more students from mid-western states … or 48 other kids also were first chair violins in all-state orchestras. Maybe there were just more students applying. But here’s the kicker … there will also be times when the odds are in your favor. Maybe your child is the art history major from Nebraska who plays the bassoon.
It does help to have experience with setbacks and working past them that competing at anything provides @Proudpatriot @tutumom2001. I’m sure many life lessons will be learned as we go through this process and hopefully we’ll be better prepared for round #2 when it’s DD’s turn.
Facing peers will be pretty hard I’m sure, and it’s unavoidable. 
Can only hope they’re all kind to and supportive of each other. Good luck with Princeton @Dolemite !
We told our D we loved her and we were proud of her, no matter how the December decisions went.
we spoke to my D the night before she received her outcome. as @Dolemite suggested, she said the hardest thing would be dealing with peers. If rejected or deferred, she planned to post the result on social media so she wouldn’t have to answer the questions “did u get into cornell” a 100 times. We also talked how she’d be able to weigh offers from different schools.
We really worked with our kids to have s full list of schools they would be happy to attend. We encouraged them to see where they got accepted and go back for accepted days at their top choices from those schools. We strongly discouraged the idea of a “dream school” or letting them get too emotionally tied up with one school. In fact, both ended up attending schools that were not the highest ranked schools they were accepted to, and both had fantastic experiences. We also discouraged them from telling others where they applied, or posting results on social media. Especially acceptances – that just rubs it in for their friends who didn’t get in. They only posted their final decision when they had committed.