Hugs to you and to him. The SATs may not have made much difference, especially if some of the difference was in the writing section. If it was all in the math, it may have and sending revised scores and a note of high interest could help with the WL schools.
I agree that you shouldn’t bring it up to him and let him figure out the reason for himself.
You should not have micro-managed, since he didn’t want you to.
Hope he gets a good admittance today.
@Rosebudrc Gosh I know just how you feel! I helped my son a lot through the whole college application process, and still there were things that he/we did wrong. His essays could have been a lot stronger, and I didn’t push hard enough to make him re-do them again and again. There were also several errors on his common app that went out to nearly every school! Sigh… However, like your son, my son has some great offers from non-ivy schools and I’m excited about the next four years for him. Maybe everything happens for a reason and these are the schools our sons are meant to choose from. And for what it’s worth, your son has some fantastic acceptances. UCSB was actually my son’s dream school (mainly because of the beach, lol!), but we didn’t even apply there because as out-of-state folks there was no way we could afford it. Personally I’m just trying to relax (not easy on Ivy Day!) and let things play out however they do. With super-bright kids and several great schools to choose from, we can’t really go wrong. 
Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve been through the college admissions process twice now and each time ended with those nagging feelings that I hadn’t done enough as a parent. That being said, both kids had great schools to choose from and we all moved on. The best advice I’ve seen on CC is to make sure you have a safety that you can fall in love with. DD was initially upset after being waitlisted by her top choice, but she allowed herself to be wooed by her second choice and has decided to go there. We just attended their accepted students day and she toured the honors dorms, visited her planned major and talked with juniors and seniors about their experiences and generally just soaked it all in. Hopefully your son will soon be ready to fall in love with one of the terrific schools that he’s been accepted at. Good luck.
He has some terrific choices for engineering, and has some other people have said, you can’t live his life for him and you can’t grow up for him.
Also, this is a great learning experience as well; not only should you tell him that some kids with his stats turn down higher-ranked schools for schools like UMich, but also that, while he may not have gotten in to the schools he was rejected from if he was perfect anyway, he could have improved his chances if he hadn’t made mistakes but that this is something he should draw lessons from about the importance of being detail-oriented, especially when the stakes are higher.
Because, compared to other stuff he will do later on in life, this is small potatoes. Instead of going to wonderful school A, he will have to attend wonderful school B instead. Nobody died because of his mistakes. He wasn’t fired because of his mistakes. (And in the US, what he does post-graduation will matter a ton more than whether he went to UCSD/UMich/Case or some other school). It’s better if he falls down now and learns from it than if you had micromanaged the process and let him get away with being immature and then see him fall on his face once he starts working.
The name of the college has no effect on engineering career. Most engineering firms hire locally anyway.
If one is after having certain college name attahced to his for the rest of his life, then this goal has nothing to do with obtaining college engineering degree as well as most others. There are few exceptions where the name counts, engineering is not one of them. .
EXCUSE ME but Case Western (and those other fine colleges) are EXCELLENT engineering schools and there is nothing to be sad about. You have been spending too much time on CC, methinks.
What school does he want to go to? Or did he just want to be accepted everywhere? If he really wants to go to one of the schools he was accepted to, then no problem,let it go. There is nothing to be done about Stanford, but the better scores might have helped at the others and an appeal or update might work. Talk to the GA.
Think about it - why would you need to apply to 10 schools if there wasn’t the possibility of getting rejected by a few? If acceptance was guaranteed, you’d just apply to the one you wanted to attend.
No,no, no. You’re going about it wrong. The rejections make life a lot simpler. If your son had been accepted to every single school, your son would have maybe too many choices - that isn’t simpler. If he wants to still attend a waitlisted school (say, CMU), have him send the new scores and go for it.
I agree with the poster who says this is likely the first time a high achiever has received rejections. It’s a tough lesson to have. I personally think you’re a great mother. You allowed your son to “fail” (if you want to call it that) - if he truly wanted the prize, then he has to learn to be a bit more patient and a bit more thorough. That’s a good lesson to learn, if somewhat in a harsh context (college applications).
You hit the nail on the head for when I start to feel my kiddo’s outcomes are about me, and not about the kid – I feel that way when I start worrying that I should have done something. The worst was when we were applying for preschool, when, I’m sure!, the kiddo was rejected because we weren’t cool enough :-). Because kiddo was perfectly awesome. I had serious moments of self doubt over having gotten the wrong PhD and not having started that internet company.
And, as the kid got older, it was easy to shift that worry into not having worked hard enough to make them behave differently, to listen to me. I have a recurrent nightmare where my family is being chased by monsters and my child gets eaten because THEY WOULDN’T LISTEN TO ME (I tell them to run, and they stop to ask me why). I have been surprised to realize how common a nightmare this is.
There are times (i.e. when you are actually being chased by monsters or bears, or living in a war zone, or where opportunities are few and highly limited) where such worries might be realistic concerns. But, fortunately almost all of us are not living in that world. Your son has great options; he should follow up on any options that mean something to his future (and not just the final high school tournament that college admissions sometimes feel like). And we parents have to learn to let go.
It is so hard to see our kids suffering. But this is in no way your fault.
You can’t go to college with him. You can’t write his papers. You can’t make his friends. You can’t take his tests or show up for class for him.
Why in the world would you think it’s your fault he didn’t get into a certain college?
I think that as long as you are not adding to the disappointment by projecting disappointment too, he will recover. So don’t be disappointed! Accept and be happy. Many, many kids would love to trade places with him.
Nephew with great stats went to Purdue in engineering, thrived, and got a great job in New York City which he loves. You haven’t failed your son by any means, and I’m sure he will be fine.
It is a little hard at times not to question whether I should have been tougher on my kid and he would have worked harder and done better and would have arguably better options. Yet it is ultimately about him. He was given all the tools and support, options for ECs and sports, and a loving family. But the drive to be the best (or to not make mistakes on the application) has to come from within.
BTW, you may want to consider having him take a gap year or two to work or volunteer. Not in order to get in to better schools (I think his current options are fine) but in order to mature more before college starts (when he will really be on his own). Boys tend to mature later than girls (emotionally) anyway, and at his age, 1-2 years makes a big difference. I was young for my cohort as well, and in retrospect, I think that going to college when I was older would have been better.
Yes. Perspective, perspective, perspective. That said, from our perspective as parents, you seem to have done a fine job. I have a freshman so I know about the letting go thing. It hurts but other parents on here will tell you that it is such a great feeling to watch our children mature and blossom on their own. And, it shows that all the nagging and cajoling was not in vain and that they were listening despite the eye rolls.
He’s going to have a great freshman year. Good luck.
The opportunities are obviously staring him in the face. Step aside. Let him grow up.
Many good comments have been posted by other parents. Take them and embrace them. I struggled myself a few weeks ago when results of merit scholarships at selective schools were not what my kiddo was hoping to hear. It was a rough time but we have come out on the other side it stronger I think. I know that you and your son will too!!!
Even I wouldn’t stop payment on the checks, nor change the locks over this one.
I might consider telling him he has to reimburse me for the application fees to those schools where he didn’t send them - not to severely punish him, but just to let him know wasting your money is not appreciated.
I think that we all look back and know that there were certain things that we could have done differently that might have resulted in a better outcome, but as others have said, your end result isn’t disastrous by any means, and the lessons your son has walked away from this with will hopefully serve him well in days to come, when he’s applying for jobs or graduate schools, or even just registering for classes. Dot every i, cross every t, then double check them again. My daughter surely walked away from the college selection and application process with some lessons; in some cases they were things that I knew that her dad disagreed with so I didn’t want to push the issue (choosing one’s battles, which most of the married population is probably familiar with! – example – I wanted her to tour and interview at the non-safety schools; hubby thought that interviews and tours were a waste of time). Anyway, be easy on yourself and know that your son will thrive wherever he is. As someone who went to a very competitive school myself, I think that gifted kids can be served just as well if not better to be somewhere that’s less competitive and where they are able to excel without feeling the pressure of keeping up with the 14-yo sophomore down the hall who just found the cure for Ebola.
Holy cow. I hesitated this morning to post, feeling vulnerable and ashamed of what had transpired, but now I just feel supported and heard, and stronger in the face of more to come. Thank you all so much for your wise and calm words! I know these lessons will make him more careful and thorough in the future. I do wish we had waited to send him to school, however - he will not hear of a gap year, and yes, I think he could use the maturing time. But he’ll have to balance his fierce independence with this humbling, and be grateful instead. And thank you @spendingTooMuch, I do like the idea of him being on solid footing instead of barely staying afloat. So much wisdom and great suggestions - Thanks again to you all!
I was feeling a bit like you during the admission process. Did I push my daughter enough? Did her choices suffer because I expected her to take the lead? She worked hard in high school, is third in her class, has tons of ECs and some leadership, and got solid but not the best test scores, but she never really overdid the effort with her applications (or prepping for the SATs). I thought both our hearts would break last week when she got rejected from her dream school, but I think she’s learned a valuable lesson in the process. She still has great choices and is learning to adjust to her new options. I think the whole process and experiencing failure for the first time has helped her mature and develop as a young adult.