@Joderbug36 I’m sorry your kid got a disappointing result in the ED round. She sounds like a good student and strong musician who will do well wherever she lands.
The first thing you need to do is reframe this for her. It’s not about something being “wrong.” It’s about a hugely competitive process where they get LOTS of great applicants, most of whom have nothing “wrong” either and they can only take some of them. The “holistic” admissions process is wildly unpredictable from the outside.
Read (and maybe have her read this article by Frank Bruni, who wrote “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be.”) https:// www.nytimes.com/ 2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-how-to-survive-the-college-admissions-madness.html
Make sure she has a good list of matches and safeties for the next round so she has good choices in the spring (people here can be very helpful with that), encourage her to keep up the good work, and assure her there was nothing wrong, it just wasn’t her day.
Also, a couple of other notes:
- Oberlin accepts fewer than 30% of applicants, meaning it's best framed as a reach for most students. Maybe a high match for some, but never a given. You apply, it's a roll of the dice.
- Mid-range SAT scores for a given school at best get the application on the table. At a selective school they're unlikely to tip the balance in favor of an ED admission unless there's something truly exceptional in the mix.
- Schools don't care whether a recommender has a PhD or not. They care whether the recommender has personal and specific knowledge of the the kid that makes them shine.
- All state is great, but there are a lot of kids in a lot of states, and Oberlin is on the radar for many musical kids.
Hope this helps a little. And make sure the rest of her list is nicely leavened with matches and safeties.