Helping child deal with unexpected results

Parents Forum
22

This is why you apply to multiple schools. Things will happen.

Having said that, you have smeared the kid who got in while admitting that you barely know him. How would the admitting AO know about his “drinking” and “meh community rep?” How do you know that the other kid isn’t straight As with a 1550 SAT?

You have also puffed up your kid’s ECs, but he has a 3.75 GPA which means that he has perhaps a few Bs on his transcript. I don’t know what school you are applying to, but getting ONE B can be fatal when applying to some top tier schools.

The ideal thing to do is…when applying to ANY top 50…prepare your kid mentally for rejection NO MATTER WHAT their quality is. Lots of “perfect” applicants get turned away. You simply do not know what the school is looking for or what will resonate with an AO.

8 Likes
23

Admissions at highly ranked colleges and universities in the US is very difficult or perhaps impossible to predict. Merit is important, but admissions is not strictly 100% based on merit, and merit can itself be subjective when kids are applying from a range of high schools with a range of course rigor. Universities are looking for students who are a good fit for them, and it is hard for us to predict what they think might be a good fit.

Just as one example of how arbitrary this process is, years ago the Stanford alumni magazine included an article on admissions. One example they gave involved a tuba player. The Stanford “marching” band (they have a loose definition of “marching”) needs a tuba player. In years where their tuba player is graduating, they might give preference to a few students who play tuba, in the hope that at least one of them will join the band. In years where the tuba player is a lower year student and is planning to stick with the band, they might not give preference to an applicant who plays tuba. How are you as a parent going to predict this? A: You don’t.

In my experience at highly ranked universities, the students came from a huge range of high schools. There did not seem to be any advantage at coming from a rigorous top tier high school. I did know one student at MIT who, if I am remembering this correctly, was only 7th in his high school class (out of about 500 students), but who had come from a very well known very rigorous high school that specializes in science and math. 7th would not have gotten a student admitted from most high schools. However, if this particular student had attended high school almost anywhere else, I think he would have been ranked higher than 7th out of 500 students.

A wide range of things can be considered a good EC. Taking care of a younger sibling or having a part time job is a good EC.

My freshman year roommate at MIT had attended a terrible high school, but was the top student in his high school. Excelling at an ordinary high school might get a student into a top college or university, but again this is difficult to predict.

Being deferred is not the same as being rejected. Top schools in the US do indeed mostly have holistic admissions, and you cannot accurately predict results.

You are going to need to wait and see how this comes out. However, your son absolutely positively needs to do two things (unless he has already done both). One is to get applications into other schools. The other is to understand that strong students can excel and can get great opportunities at a very wide range of colleges and universities.

If you do attend MIT or Stanford or Harvard or a top LAC, after graduation you will find yourself working alongside graduates from a huge range of colleges and universities, and no one will care where you got your degree. If you go to a highly ranked graduate program, then you will find yourself studying alongside students from a huge range of colleges and universities. MIT graduates routinely work alongside UNH and U.Mass graduates and no one cares where anyone got their degree. Sometimes a U.Mass graduate solves the really tough problem that had stumped two MIT graduates (and yes I was one of the MIT graduates who was stumped in at least one case). Sometimes the U.Mass graduate is also a great guy and you go to lunch with him after he explains how to solve the hard problem.

If your son is competitive for a highly ranked LAC, and if he has applied to a good range of schools including two safeties, then he will have a good school to attend in September.

The school cares about whatever it cares about, which probably includes finding students who are a good fit for them. If your son doesn’t get in, then he will get in somewhere else, and somewhere else will provide him with great opportunities and a strong education. Also, if your son does not get accepted to this one particular school, you will probably never really know why.

There really are hundreds of colleges and universities in the US which can provide a great education. Make sure that your son applies to at least one and preferably at least two where he will be accepted, and that you can afford to pay for. This will work out one way or another.

And support your son through this process. However stressful this process is for us parents, it is more stressful for our kids.

13 Likes
24

Focus on your kid and not anyone else. Don’t compare his admissions outcomes with other students. You simply don’t know what any other applicant’s complete picture is or what went into a decision. I really urge you to stop dwelling on it and put things into a different perspective.

7 Likes
25

I can relate to some degree to the feeling. My S24’s school list was very top heavy too. But even with that in mind, I felt terrible with every rejection. I had to really make an effort to adopt my son’s attitude - “it probably was not the right fit and the admissions officer saw that”

Ultimately what we all want is a school that fits well with our children, top tier or not.

Is this school your son’s top choice? If so, why? Is there an opportunity to update the application during the deferral period?

Are there other schools that he feels would be a great fit for him? Look to them and get comfortable with the possibility of attending there.

I remember last year I had a couple of moments of weakness in which I expressed bitterness over some schools that WL my kid (on hindsight, it was very arrogant of me to express that) and my son would remind me that he had a perfectly good group of schools to choose from and that he can only really attend one school.

My son ultimately picked a school that one might consider a lower tier than the rest of his options but it was about where he could see himself in the next 4 years or beyond. He is really happy there now. Your son will land somewhere good too and this time of the year next year, he will be happy with his school with no thought to any of the schools that did not choose him.

11 Likes
26

High school teacher here. I just want to provide a different viewpoint.
I teach in a title 1 campus. One student (A) in graduating class of 2024 is attending Cornell now. That’s the very first Ivy admission, ever, from this campus. A had top 10 GPA but not Val or Sal, SAT score < 1400 so applied test optional. A was a member of NHS, not on any sports team, not founder/president or even leader of any student organization, mostly kept to self tried the best to appear normal (for a good reason). A participated in some writing competition in Junior year and advanced to national level, which was about the only thing to brag about on paper. However, A grew up in an environment I could not begin to imagine. For someone with that kind of life experience, to finish high school is a great accomplishment, let alone finishing with all As and stood top 10 in a class of 700. I was not surprised to hear about this acceptance. A’s situation was not well-known. It’s not happy memory at all so naturally would be kept quiet. Many students were shocked to learn about the acceptance, especially the Valedictorian (B) who was in my class and made some loud and rude comments. I didn’t say A’s situation but asked B “how much do you credit your achievements to your mom driving you to and from school everyday, to and from sports every weekend, supply you books to read since you could talk, you never had to work, you always know where home is, etc.” B is by no means privileged but comparing to A we all are. B was rejected by MIT and is happily attending UT now.

34 Likes
27

Unfortunately it is so common to diminish another student who successfully accomplishes something our child doesn’t. Please don’t be that parent. A student from “a very low ranked high school” generally has less resources available to them, Colleges do look at school data . There are a wide range of things that are considered extracurriculars. There is a big difference between a 4.0 and a 3.75 GPA. Is it the 1950’s “reputation in the community” “low ranked H.S.” “Kid drinks” Your whole post comes off as privileged. You do not have the full profile ( test scores, essays LOR’s) of any other student that gets admitted over your Child. Focus on things you can control, your attitude, being positive, being loving and being realistic. Your kid is a rockstar unfortunately that being said college admissions are tough and they may not get in everywhere they apply. Tell them that that is the colleges loss, tell them they are amazing and give them a giant hug!

19 Likes
28

A low-ranked high school is ranked like that for a reason. This has nothing to do with being “privileged” and seriously, what does that mean anyway. It’s just coping, doesn’t make it right, but that’s all it is. JMTC

29

Where did I indicate that I did not understand why a high school is low ranked?
My read/ interpretation of the original poster’s comments, make me feel that their blindness to her own privilege is coloring their assessment of the difference between her child and the other that was accepted

5 Likes
32

I will take a pass on the back and forth. Wishing you an amazing day :kissing_heart:

1 Like
33

Not level in what sense? It seems to me that someone who gets in from a low-ranked high school where most likely the academic rigor is lower is the one who is privileged. What am I missing? How is the OP privileged if her son got deferred but the other kid didn’t…

34

Same. Have a blessed day!

35

Where essays and recommendations are used, they inject significant input into admission decisions that is not visible to outsiders (which means everyone outside that college’s admission office). While outsiders can compare GPA, test scores, rank, and ECs, those can be an incomplete picture of the applicants’ comparative strength.

But yes, 3.75 HS GPA tends to be significantly disadvantageous at the most selective colleges.

9 Likes
36

Low ranked HSs tend to be populated with relatively low income and/or other disadvantaged students.

Many selective colleges use CollegeBoard’s Landscape which provides index scores for both the HS and student’s neighborhood. Students with index scores that show disadvantage are institutional priorities for many selective colleges.

It’s misguided to suggest that because disadvantaged students might have an extra bump in admissions that they are ‘privileged’, when their lived experience has been far from privileged.

I agree with whomever said OP and anyone else who isn’t familiar with college admissions, read Jeff Selingo’s book.

27 Likes
37

Having a higher chance of getting admitted to a school only because of your background or your surroundings is literally the definition of privilege.

5 Likes
38

In this sense - yes - just as other similar type programs are.

But 100% agreed that the trade off they made is - hmmmm - not worth an admission bump.

Unfortunately no one here has caused hurt and pain that may emanate from hundreds of years ago.

There’s never going to be a happy answer on this subject.

While I’m glad to see some get a boost I also know others are being penalized due to nothing they’ve done.

I see it at work when they have said we are going to promote women and minorities and presented it in a way to basically say - white male, you have no chance.

I’m ok with the idea but not how the message is presented.

2 Likes
39

Well, it’s clearly not “only” because of background or surroundings, because this kid got a 4.0 GPA. I’m going to take a wild guess that getting a 4.0 is pretty unusual at that school (because it usually would be for low ranked schools). One of the things colleges like to look for is a person who can succeed in spite of adversity, which is not the same as being admitted because of adversity.

20 Likes
40

Wait, what? Are you really considering a student that may have had a hard life, fewer resources etc to be privileged???

13 Likes
41

The definition of privilege is having advantages you are so used to you can’t even see them. A disadvantage is the opposite: something you’re often painfully aware of… or might even not realize. So, a disadvantaged student or high school needs leveling out (or leveling up) so both applicants are level in comparison.
The concepts originate in the three estates and the abolition of privilege during the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Basically, democracies, especially those in Republic form, consider it important to level things so the best can be found not through blood (nobility), caste, or luck but through a variety of criteria. The ideal is of course far from realized, hence various ways to do this.

13 Likes