<p>mythmom, I understand what you are saying completely, and agree with it. My son was very successful in high school. Before that, he had always been very much in the shadow of his older sister (whom he openly worshiped), and of his middle-school girlfriend who was perhaps the most impressive 13-year-old I have ever met. He thought of himself as the dumb, social one. So when he went to high school and had academic success, and started to strut a little, I was thrilled. But it was sobering to see how, over the years, he got addicted to the status his academic success brought him, to the point where sometimes he was nearly paralyzed by the fear of losing it. So it wasn’t a terrible thing for him to get a little public egg on his face and to realize that his friends and teachers still liked and respected him and he didn’t really care what kids he barely spoke to thought. It also gave him permission to let his college life be governed by what he wanted to learn, not what he thought his GPA should be.</p>
<p>The other good part of that really tough HS program: PLENTY of kids applied to top schools, so noone was alone in being rejected by Harvard, MIT, et al. At S1’s school, there was not a lot of talk about where kids apply. They wanted to keep their friendships free of that competition and stress. At S2’s school, there was a lot more talk about college lists. </p>
<p>Fortunately, the flagship loves kids from both programs and is good with merit $$, so a sizeable proportion of both classes will take the merit money and turn down bigger name schools for UG. For example, our flagship consistently wins Cornell and CMU (engineering, sciences, CS) admits in head-to-head competition. They also win some Harvard and MIT admits.</p>
<p>My older son was deferred from two EA schools in the fall - so to some extent I think he was already prepared for mixed news in the spring. I was definitely sadder than he was about the schools that rejected him. My younger son has really done a great job falling in love with his safety and hitting it out of the ballpark with his EA Chicago application. Even if he gets rejected from every school but his safety, I think he’s going to be fine. He knows plenty of kids who have already been rejected from their ED schools, and he saw that his brother with a much less bumpy transcript got several rejections as well, so I think emotionally he’s as prepared as one can be for bad news.</p>
<p>Kids definitely talk about college lists, but things don’t seem to be too crazy and competitive.</p>
<p>This may help her a bit. </p>
<p>One girl went to an average college while her friend went to a top school. Very disappointed for sure. However, with a 4.0 GPA 4 years later, she will meet her friend at the same medical school.</p>
<p>That’s very sweet lake42ks.</p>
<p>To the OP: Congratulations on your daughter’s acceptance! I would be very pragmatic and start looking together online at the dorms, classes, etc. at the school where she has been accepted. You could just say something like, “Well, I’m just curious about the classes at x college. If you do end up going there, what do you think you might want to take the first semester?” If they offer a choice of dorms: “Which dorm do you like?” You could check the college colors and if you have to buy extra-long sheets, check out where you could buy them in those college colors. You could look at the student organizations. Etc. This might just get her excited about this college, and then any other acceptances are bonuses.
I agree with the poster who said, though, that you should step back from the situation and not be too disappointed yourself.
And, casually mention the crap-shoot nature of this whole thing once in a while, to make her understand as another poster pointed out that this is not a rejection of HER.
Most rejection letters are quite kind. We have only run across one (Northwestern, many years ago, I hope that they have changed it) that was outright mean.</p>
<p>^It is not just sweet, it is very true fact especially applying for Med. School. Med. School is expensive, might as well go to state school on full tuition Merit scholarship, get your GPA=4.0 and fullfil dreams of going to Med. School, admissions are giving much more credit to college GPA and MCA score than name of UG school.</p>