<p>Dear grade13: I am very sorry that your parents made this decision for you in this way. I can imagine how this hurts right now, especially being told you are immature. However, since this is where you are now, you can’t go back and change it. I would like to offer you some things to think about:</p>
<p>1) People often project their attributes, especially their negative attributes onto to others. I want to stress that you don’t sound immature to me at all, but it is possible that your mother is immature and can’t bear to be separated from you. I might interpret her comment that way. Some families have the kind of dynamic that doesn’t allow its strong members to go off. Since this decision was made you don’t have to compound the hurt by believing you are insecure.</p>
<p>2) Perhaps this was all your parents were willing to pay and didn’t want to disc uss this with you.</p>
<p>3) Through very convoluted circumstances I ended up at a public college not as well-ranked as yours even though I had stats etc. to attend a much more prestigious institution. I had to watch less qualified class mates attend schools that made me drool. However, there were benefits:
I graduated with a 3.8 GPA; 3.9 in my major (a humanities major difficult to
earn these grades in)
I was the only person to graduate with honors in my discipline.
I met a dear mentor who changed my entire life.
I met my beloved first husband.
I developed a second major in a dept. with cutting-edge curriculum.
*Perhaps most important, I WAS ACCEPTED INTO AN IVY GRAD SCHOOL.</p>
<p>I chose not to go for very complicated reasons, but in 1987 my dissertation was named best of the year of all US humanities dissertations by University Microfiche.</p>
<p>Now, I don’t teach at a prestigious institution either, but I have come to accept the fact that I just am not a “brand name” kind of person.</p>
<p>his may be true of you, or you may go to Harvard for grad school debt free. The sky’s the limit. Go for it!</p>
<p>The more I observe, the more it seems that there is something providential about college placements. I don’t think Providence has excluded you. Maybe a dear mentor or darling husband are waiting for you too. I can’t guarantee I would have proced these results at a more elite institution.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>