<p>Don’t be angry. There are plenty of very wealthy kids from New York City (or the upscale suburbs of other major cities) whose parents (or grandparents) can pay full freight, who have attended “top” competitive high schools or boarding schools, who have excellent grades, lots of APs/honors, and top test scores, who have interesting extra curriculars and “community service” experience. These kids are a dime a dozen. They all expect to get into the college of their choice. Well, guess what? Many of them get rejected! We have seen athletes rejected, legacies rejected, and we’ve even seen a billionaire philanthropist’s kid rejected. These kids are all pretty devastated right now too (not that I feel so much for them as I feel for others who don’t have what they do). One reason we have heard is that some small colleges won’t take more than one or two from any one particular elite private school.</p>
<p>Admissions, with or without aid, is a patchwork. Top colleges are concerned with many factors. They only have so many slots to offer; they want the brightest kids. They also want diversity. That’s diversity of every sort. They have particular academic programs to fill. They also populate athletic programs. They also need a certain percentage of students to pay tuition (not that it’s easy to pay for all of the people who get in but whose aid request is rejected). </p>
<p>I’m on the college’s side on this one. Very few schools have declared themselves to be 100% “need blind” in the application process. I recall only Amherst and Bowdoin in our search.</p>
<p>Deferred isn’t rejected. Hang in there, but plan for contingencies. Hopefully you broadened your reach in the RD round. There are a lot of fantastic colleges out there.</p>
<p>If you are as excellent as you describe, there will be a school for you with an aid package if you need it. As with all things, do excellent work and then focus on getting into a top graduate program.</p>