<p>Hang in there. If you are deferred, you still have a good chance. If not, you will find the perfect school for you. Having been through this with older children I can tell you if you are turned down by a school, 90% of the time it will turn out to be a good thing. You will later see that it really wasn’t a very good fit and the admissions office is able to tell these things. </p>
<p>My oldest son was heartbroken also, but his friends have gone on to struggle at the school he wanted, while he is thriving where he is and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. </p>
<p>I am sure these thoughts seem impossible right now, but you will get over it and you will re-start your search. Open your view to include schools you rejected previously. Visit them. Meet current students. You will fall in love again. Promise.</p>
<p>Hart’s advice is very true. I didn’t get into my number one choice 29 years ago. I had my heart set on going to Duke. Northwestern wasn’t my first choice school. Looking back, I can’t imagine having as great an experience at Duke. Truly, I’m a better fit with Northwestern, and I adored the school (still do, note my screen name.)</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s basically a psychological mechanism. You learn to fall in love with other schools, in the process convincing yourself your first choice wasn’t a good fit after all. There are many cases, though, when the student’s original first choice truly isn’t a great fit. </p>
<p>What’s heartbreaking is that schools turn down plenty of excellent fits. </p>
<p>Also, fit is really hard to ascertain. Could one really say that WashU is a better fit than Northwestern when they attract the same applicants (and often admit the same ones as well)? (A lot of determining which school is a good “fit” has to do with the people there, though policies and campus aesthetics/location play a role as well.)</p>
<p>I think Wash U wasn’t the right fit for me. I am taking the deferral as a blessing to find my school, and I think I may have just done that. So, in retrospect, I am actually HAPPY to not have been accepted.</p>
<p>woohaa, I’ve started to look at things the same way. This girl at my school just signed her letter of intent to swim at UVA and she’s now regretting not being able to see where else she would have gotten in. It was after she said that that I realized that I was sort of lucky to not get deferred</p>