Let me rephrase this as a hypothetical. Say that a competitive school accepts 100 out of 1000 applicants.
Of the 100 accepted, how many parents were positively surprised? And of the 900 denied, how many parents had a negative surprise? – if you were to guess?
I understand there’s always positive and negative surprises, and that those stories will be overly-represented in forums; but I’m curious how common it might be - again, if you were to guess.
Separately, your story of two AD’s gushing over your son is upsetting. I don’t understand their motivation. In retrospect how have you made sense of that conversation?
Our kids are younger than most here - so they can only apply to day schools. I’m not sure how to calibrate the comments relating to boarding schools or colleges back to day schools for much younger kids. Obviously a boarding school or college is pulling from the whole country, but we’re only looking at the best 2-3 schools in our area (but this can still be very competitive).
P.S. happy to hear from college applicants too! I wrote the questions broadly to include you.