<p>to look at the ED/SCEA results that came out this week. I literally cried for some of the students. Some of their hearts were broken with deferrals and rejections. They listed their stats and accomplishments and it is hard to see how a school would defer many of them. They were all truly amazing kids. I am sure that all of them will find great schools in April but for that day of deferral/rejection I just wanted to gather them all up in a hug.</p>
<p>I do not think I will look over there again, just too sad for this mom.</p>
<p>Been there, done that. You’re absolutely right on all scores: It’s incomprehensible how these kids don’t get accepted immediately, except that there are too many of them and the colleges have to pick and choose. But, still, it’s tough to see how tough it is. And, yes, there are enough slots at enough great colleges that all of them will find a good home in the spring, if they use a modicum of good sense.</p>
<p>As someone whose D went through that four years ago, let me assure you that in many cases the stories have very happy endings at non-Ivy schools. </p>
<p>Many students (and parents of students) applying to HYPSM schools make the mistake of looking at how strong their qualifications are and get waaay too optimistic. One should look at threads like the ones going on right now and get a sober view before one even applies. The results also point out how absolutely useless “Chances” threads are.</p>
<p>What is sad in this situation is that someone/something allowed these kids to believe they were likely to get in. Any student applying to the Ivies should assume that they most likely will not get in, which is a fact. It would prevent a lot of heartbreak.</p>
<p>Try as we may , bay, and here on the PF we do try - they just don’t listen. And when they don’t get in all we hear for weeks is how unfair the system is, how rigged, how biased, how racist, how …well… you get the picture.</p>
<p>I remember chancing one kid for SCEA on the Stanford forum and I thought he might get rejected but I watered it down to “deferred”. But some parents in the Stanford forum kept telling that kid that he was in, just like that. I think that must have got his hopes up. Sadly to say he was rejected and somewhat heartbroken/down.</p>
<p>No it wouldn’t. Once they go to the trouble of applying, it’s in the nature of most teenagers (and most of their parents too) to start getting their hopes up and believing that they’ll be the exception. This is especially true for these high-end kids who are used to succeeding at pretty much everything they do.</p>
<p>My experience is that the kids DO assume that they won’t get in. But, still, lots of these kids have never been rejected for anything. They are smart, hard-working, successful, their teachers love them, their peers respect them, they are head-and-shoulders above everyone else. Why shouldn’t they be accepted? (And, of course, they will be accepted, somewhere.)</p>
<p>Furthermore, the difference between many of the ones accepted and many of the ones not is very ephemeral.</p>
<p>Last spring, my son went 1-4 on decision day, and the girl he was sharing a computer with went 10-0. (They only had two schools in common, one of them the top choice of both, and both had been deferred there in the fall.) That was tough! On paper, they may have been Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In fact, she was a little more together, a little more focused than he – something he knew, and had cried about in the fall when it occurred to him that it was unlikely they would both get into #1 choice. But he had a lot more “leadership”, jobs, etc. You could have made an argument for either. In the context of their school, though, both were like little gods, trailing streams of groupies behind them.</p>
<p>In fact, one of the things they were looking for in college was a place where they would be just normal, in the middle of the pack, and not perched on some pinnacle waiting to fall off.</p>
<p>JHS, your last sentence is perfect. We sent our d to a selective summer program at a university after her sophomore year. My goal for her was to see just how she liked being in a competetive classroom with kids who were more astute, better-read, and harder-working than she is. Contrary to my assumption, she came home completely excited that she had found her people. She still keeps in touch with several by email, and they are all struggling to get into highly selective schools now, I believe so they can reproduce that culture.</p>
<p>Yes JHS, perfectly said. My D was in the same situation in high school, and wanted to go to a top-notch college not for the prestige factor, but because she wanted desperately to be with the kind of people she had found in her many summers doing CTY. Now she is, and she’s delighted to be in an environment where she isn’t the brightest kid in the room.</p>
<p>Having gone through the EA/ED merry-go-round 4 years ago, I am strongly suggesting to younger sib to forego EA. It wasn’t worth it!</p>
<p>Come spring, there will be Hooray envelopes and Bummer envelopes, and any disappointment can be mixed in with exultation. But a Bummer envelope (or email) in December means for a LONG, LONG winter of discontent.</p>
<p>For a few years, these kids have been told- you are amazing, you will go far, you are perfect…etc etc etc</p>
<p>no wonder they don’t listen to reality and are “shocked” when it comes up and bites them in the bottom</p>
<p>I don’t feel “sorry for them” this is life, yes its hard, but it is the reality of the process</p>
<p>Maybe a bit of humillty might do some good for those kids who never failed or got rejected for anything…</p>
<p>It is also a lesson to learn not to buy into the hype you hear about yourself</p>
<p>If anyone assumes they will get into those schools, they aren’t being realistic…less than one in ten among the very “best”</p>
<p>ANd somehow, I dislike the idea that it is harder or something for Ivy applicants than it is for them regular type kids…maybe the regular type are smarter sometimes in that they get it the way the process works</p>
<p>My Ds school had two boys, cousins, who were stars at everything they did- both got rejected from an IVY ED…it was a rude awakening, but a humbling one…and they went off to amazing schools</p>
<p>Not necessarily ellemenope. Last year I applied early to only one school but heard back unexpectedly from 3 of my RD schools by February, not long after my December early decision. I didn’t have to wait till March. Applying early was definitely worth it for me. I couldn’t have waited without news coming in periodically.</p>
<p>Me, too corranged.Me, too. If they were really as awful as all that, exactly why again did the kid apply? LOL. But every cycle it is the same refrain.</p>
<p>I agree with Bay. Heck, even for exceptional kids who succeed at all they do an Ivy is a long shot. There is always the kids with far better stats that don’t get accepted, and the kid with sub par credentials that is excepted. It’s a crapshoot reagrdless of how talented you are. Of course there are the students who will always get accepted anywhere they apple, and some people just have all the luck but those are exceptions to the rule. Generally it is not great to get your hopes up as it will just cause heartbreak and stress.</p>
<p>There are damn few of those. I remember last year, in April, a dad who quietly boasted that his D was accepted at Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Princeton – but those people are remarkably few and far between. For most of the outstanding kids, even if they apply to all the Ivies and Ivy-equivalents (MIT, Stanford, etc.), they might get accepted by one or two.</p>
<p>What bothers me about this process as much as anything else is how many supposedly intelligent people - both students and parents - buy into the notion that there’s this small group of schools out there that offer an educational experience that is demonstrably superior to what may be found elsewhere. </p>
<p>All of this has very little to do, it seems to me, with a genuine hunger for a high quality education - a hunger that can be satisfied at any number of schools (or even outside of formal schooling altogether). Instead, it’s just another sign of how consumer-driven and status-conscious our society is. College has become just another product. </p>
<p>And just as young people in our capitalist society are indoctrinated from an early age into thinking that they will never be truly desirable, or happy, or satisfied unless they buy this or that pair of jeans/CD/perfume/cologne/car/jacket/music system/cell phone/etc./etc./etc., so too do they enter the college-admissions marketplace believing that they will never be truly desirable, or happy, or satisfied unless they get into college X (or Y, or Z). </p>
<p>This would all seem simply absurd were it not also so sad.</p>
<p>I find it sad the amount of time and emotional capital these kids are spending on the whole process (including posting on these college admission boards). Maybe it is the rural environment - but the seniors I know (even the ones w/ great stats, applying to top schools) are getting their appls completed and doing regular high school/teenage activities. They know they will be going to some college in the fall and they want to enjoy this last year w/ their friends.</p>