<p>All of this is true, ChoatieMom. The only trick will be remembering it and sticking to it during your child’s senior year.</p>
<p>You’re asking people why they’re acting irrationally…as if there’s supposed to be a rational answer. And, for boarding school, where parents are more disconnected from the application process than most other parents (who are equally interested in being involved), the likelihood of immersing one’s self in the daunting details of college admissions is probably all the greater.</p>
<p>While I’m encouraging parents to keep their heads about them – and, in particular, to avoid doing things that outmaneuver their kids into a worse position (such as foregoing possible merit aid by trying to game the ED round admit rates) – I don’t see a character flaw or anything else out of the ordinary going on when parents take a keen interest in the admission process and refuse to embrace the “let the chips fall where they may” attitude you’re advocating.</p>
<p>Totally agree, @D’yer Maker. I hope I didn’t come across as implying character flaws. I will certainly take a keen interest when our son goes through the process, but I don’t plan to lose any sleep over it or allow it to affect my blood pressure. From these threads and lurking on both the prep school and college parents forums, I’ve learned that my best strategy will be to never look at that evil Naviance tool thing or read any NYT or WSJ articles. ;)</p>
<p>Naviance = Evil haha. Just the reality check I needed to prevent me from printing and pasting these scattergrams all over the dining room wall. (Although, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit to being overwhelmed with anticipation of our first College Guidance meeting in a few weeks.)</p>
<p>Naviance was awesome! Looking at it made it real- wow- my kid really does have a chance at getting into these great colleges. I feel sorry for the outliers though (really? someone got in there with those grades and scores? you do have those kinds of thoughts when you see it all laid out in red, blue and green LOL)</p>
<p>I agree with baystateresident, Naviance was fun. I looked at it much more than my daughter, I’m sure. At her school, you can’t see a scattergram unless enough kids have applied to afford some degree of anonymity to the dots. I only feel sorry for the outliers who were higher scoring but didn’t get in—the low scoring admits are the lucky ones! Overall, I thought the whole process was great. Traveling with my daughter to interesting schools, enjoying all the possibilities, imagining visiting her in great cities…Eventually all those nice fantasies go away and it all boils down to one!</p>
<p>Nice, lemonade! In all things, gotta enjoy the journey…</p>
<p>Bump for Rubricon.</p>
<p>I spent the bucks to buy “40 colleges that change lives”. Hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.</p>
<p>Just want to send out positive, soothing vibes to all the boarding school parents of seniors – and boarding school students in general. Today is notification day for the Ivies and several other very competitive colleges and universities. There will be a lot of tears and screams of joy later today (5 pm EST to be exact). It’s nerve wracking enough to get the news while in the bosom of one’s family, but to get the news when one is far away, and surrounded by fellow students… that’s intense. </p>
<p>DD is coping by having dinner off campus with her best friends.</p>
<p>Reading the college Parent board, and seeing the number of posters lamenting all rejections, puts into perspective how much more difficult it is it to get kids into a top tier college, as compared to a top tier BS…</p>
<p>Seems really hard to do either----get into top tier college or prep school. (In fact, with the luxury of early action, my daughter wrote fewer applications for college than for boarding school!) But I agree with GMT that there are lots of cautionary tales to be found on the Parents Board, which make me grateful for the excellent college counseling at prep school, and the opportunities that her school afforded her. These contributed to a good college list (albeit mostly not used) and strong application, respectively, so that she would have options no matter how the dice fell. </p>
<p>It’s nice to have the results in and move on to the revisits (sans parents but with a posse of co-admits from her school).</p>
<p>I hope all the other families of seniors are happy with how things turned out.</p>