<p>Downing the rum jumby. Nothing’s touching this right now. I can hear my daughter on the phone with a friend, trying to make sense of it all. I have tried to keep it together, keep a positive attitude, but this latest round has done me in. Sorry, I think I’m leaving the party to have a good cry. If anyone has any help or advice, please post it or private message me and I’ll read it tomorrow. I truly need to pull myself together.</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>, your D is in at Smith, yes? Where else did she apply, and did all of her classmates apply to all those same schools, too?</p>
<p>:: sighs ::</p>
<p>I need to type faster. je_ne, I hope you got a box of the good tissues from the end table… and took a bottle o’ rum, too. :-(</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sas_quoi,
It doesn’t make any sense!!!</p>
<p>Do we open a new lounge for the waitlist vigil? I’ll buy the drinks!</p>
<p>owlice: Thanks for correcting my rotten spelling. Of course, leave out the part about the other 1000 people. It’s a great story. And choral music is the most beautiful in my book.</p>
<p>You are one creative person – cook, singer, baker, friend extraordinaire.</p>
<p>Mothers of girls: Don’t compare girl acceptances to boy acceptances.</p>
<p>Congrats on late comers with good news. </p>
<p>je ne sais quoi: I PM’ed you. You can read today or tomorrow. Things will look better. It’s okay to cry – a mixture of disappointment, anger and stress, and maybe a little fear. But the fear will vanish and the others will grow less.</p>
<p>For some reason your D is being sent east. If she comes, we’ll take care of her. My D has had a spectacular experience at a woman’s college. She was actually happy about her Brown rejection because she didn’t think she’d have the fortitude to turn it down, but she knew Barnard was a better fit.</p>
<p>Oh, je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, I am so, so sorry. I checked out your previous posts and what a rough time you’ve had this week. I think the poster who pointed out it was boys they took at your alma mater probably was on the mark. It wasn’t anything with your daughter, that’s for sure. She sounds absolutely wonderful. I hope the cry helps. Lots of hugs coming your way. Lots of 'em.</p>
<p>Aww, je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, hugs to you and your daughter. What a painful experience to go through. Will she pursue the NU waitlist actively?</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, hang in there. Sending you virtual hugs.</p>
<p>Girls do have a rougher sailing in the seas of college admissions. My D was shocked to get into as many colleges as she did. However, the latest check of the mailbox revealed that the spaghetti did not stick. D ripped up the skinny letters and said a couple of choice words, I think, judging by the movement of her lips.</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, did you mention that your D applied FA for your alma mater?
Here is the link talk about the different treatment to alumni’s kids. Feels for your D it was a rough week. Hope she will get off from the wl in some of her top choice late on.</p>
<p><a href=“U.S. Senate: 404 Error Page”>U.S. Senate: 404 Error Page;
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi - I am numb and struggling here with you. Final tally for son is 5 waitlists (2 presumed safeties, 3 presumed matches), 3 rejects (2 were uber-reaches so - ok, expected) and 3 accepts at earlies only (safeties). There was clearly something in his application that did not sell well. I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with the waitlists, especially for engineering programs. I have been told that schools will go to the waitlist to round out the class so presumably they will go first to females for engineering - is it really worth pursuing any of them? One of the waitlists has 3000 kids on it so I know that is not worth pursuing. My son feels as though he got sucker punched and I feel as though I contributed to it. He is seeing friends with disappointments but he didn’t get in anywhere RD! I saw how hard he worked at all those damn essays and all the time he put into this process.</p>
<p>Rileydog and je<em>ne-sais</em>quoi - I am so sorry. These college admission is such a crapshoot and yet so many are left devastated. It is so heart-wrenching. We do need to believe that our kids will be happy wherever they land. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is posted elsewhere, but here’s an article on the Globe about waitlist:
[Student</a> agony grows along with top colleges’ wait lists - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/27/student_agony_grows_along_with_top_colleges_wait_lists/]Student”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/03/27/student_agony_grows_along_with_top_colleges_wait_lists/)</p>
<p>Also, here’s wonderful advice from a Colby Admissions Officer on what to do if waitlisted:
[Colby</a> College | News & Events | Read Blog Item](<a href=“http://www.colby.edu/news_events/feeds/feed-item.cfm?feedname=Behind%20the%20Decision&postid=1410503]Colby”>http://www.colby.edu/news_events/feeds/feed-item.cfm?feedname=Behind%20the%20Decision&postid=1410503)</p>
<p>I wish I could make the hurt go away…</p>
<p>jude_36 - We’re planning to visit Bard, Colby and Conn College again, but I have a feeling he wants to go to Wes if he is taken off the waitlist. We’ll see; he is in incredibly good spirits.</p>
<p>Good morning, y’all.
Hope the hangovers aren’t too bad. I couldn’t get to the computer last night (much) because the youngster was monopolizing it.</p>
<p>Final tally for the young accomplished lady: two acceptances, three wait lists, two rejections (both very reachy). Acceptances were safeties, but one is a well-loved rather reachy safety this year. Daughter insisted I write the deposit check last night and then took over the computer to join the FB group, look for roomies and apparel, etc.</p>
<p>I’m not going to stomp on that enthusiam. Still, she’s on one very fine waitlist and I’ll encourage her to follow up. The other two waitlist cards await a decision on the kitchen table. She’ll probably decline them.</p>
<p>Like some others, I’m disappointed in the process. I think we should broaden our vision and compare it to some other countries to get better ideas.</p>
<p>Perhaps I fell for the fervor here or the PR from the colleges, but can’t help wonder whether I could’ve saved a few hundred dollars, lots of time and emotion by doing things the old-fashioned way – have the kid stick to her class level and not try to reach. At the moment, it feels as if the game is rigged. And we’ve received no FA information, despite providing everything the colleges wanted by deadlines.</p>
<p>But I need to process more and will not share that opinion with the kid. I know many others are very very happy, successfully reaching high (mostly boys), and many are suffering great disappointment.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you, especially owlice, for a great support place.</p>
<p>Rileydog: Don’t fall for letting the kid blame you. I know that game. You did your best, as did your son. Targeting you as the object of his anger and disappointment now might be his way of dealing, but put on your thick skin. Besides, our role to to make sure the kids make enough money to afford therapy later, right?</p>
<p>Everybody: A caution. I know a highly motivated young lady who ended up at a safety last year. The application process made her feel like a failure and that she “settled” for second best. She got a waitlist acceptance late in the game but already committed to her safety. Now she’s unhappy, disengaged and thinking of transferring. Don’t do that to your kids.</p>
<p>The good lessons that I will share with my kid eventually:
- Perhaps the game IS rigged. But not always. When applying for jobs, grants, whatever in the future, one needs to reach high, work hard and be ready to deal with disappointments. Sometimes people reach those high goals. Thank goodness my D has some friends who are concrete examples of this.
- Young men have an edge. It has always been thus. The young women who think that’s over for their generation (I think it was a recent Newsweek on Clinton vs. Obama) should remember that they still have to be twice as strong to be thought half as good.</p>
<p>Long-winded, but cathartic. Good thoughts to all.</p>
<p>I’ve brought more alka seltzer, an excellent idea, fireflyscout.</p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind with the gender gap in admissions, is that there are fewer males applying to college, so they have an advantage not necessarily due to inherent prejudice against women but because colleges are looking to have an evenly distributed class.</p>
<p>Here are a couple of articles in the NY Times about this:</p>
<p>[Whats</a> Behind the Gender Gap in Education? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog](<a href=“What's Behind the Gender Gap in Education? - Freakonomics”>What's Behind the Gender Gap in Education? - Freakonomics)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?st=cse&sq=males+females+college+education&scp=2[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?st=cse&sq=males+females+college+education&scp=2</a></p>
<p>All your kids are wonderful; they’re all going to do well. Hang in there.</p>
<p>I’ve been with you in spirit through this vigil. I did it three years ago with DS#1, and then last year with DS#2. Next year I do it again with DS#3.</p>
<p>Lots of folks here are successfully looking at the big picture - we have beautiful, bright children with wonderful futures awaiting them. We are the lucky ones. </p>
<p>Congratulations to all of you - you have raised terrific kids with outstanding accomplishments. I teach high school. I can tell you - you have much to be proud and thankful for.</p>
<p>If in doubt, go find the BD vs. BFD thread.</p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>limner: good point on gender gap.</p>
<p>I tried the “girls’ school” sell on daughter, but it didn’t work. For some strange reason, it seems these young folks like hanging with the opposite gender.</p>
<p>Highly recommend to future female applicants that they look hard at all-female schools, or the engineering schools. Kid could’ve written her own ticket at some engineering schools, but it was not to be.</p>
<p>I sympathize with everyone trying to make sense of the results of the past week or so. I cringe every time I read about how much easier boys have it than girls, because my daughter fared much better two years ago than my son did this year, and they had comparable records. While I understand that a lot of schools do have a surplus of female applicants, especially LACs, not all do. For example, among Ivy League schools, I believe I have seen figures that show that Dartmouth, Cornell and Princeton receive a surplus of male applications. Reading how much easier boys have it makes the boys who were waitlisted or rejected feel doubly bad. It may be true, but I guess this is just a plea for a little sensitivity towards the boys who applied this year (and their moms!)</p>
<p>Everyone is grasping for explanations that simply don’t exist. That leads to some rationalizing. Which can lead to inadvertent insensitivity toward someone else who has to pick another explanation.</p>
<p>Repeat after me: there really WERE too many qualified applicants. My wonderful, outstanding S/D was one of them. He/she is going to be FINE. This feeling (of being punched in the stomach) WILL pass.</p>
<p>:: stacks the chocolate chocolate-chip muffins ::</p>
<p>:: makes apple pancakes ::</p>
<p>:: brews more coffee ::</p>
<p>Good morning, all. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, lest she be 40 and wonder why she hadn’t reached. You did the right thing; though it’s painful now, it really IS better that she reached.</p>
<p>:: needs a tissue ::</p>
<p>The second round of agony is not about my daughter’s rejection/waitlist result, but finding out who from her school got into those schools. We simply cannot make sense of some decisions. In my daughter’s class there is a GIRL who also got into NU that no one, not even herself, expected to be accepted there. She was deferred from Michigan, waitlisted at Tulane and WashU, accepted to University of San Francisco, University of Vermont as well as NU. This girl’s family is wealthy, I’m sure she doesn’t need FA, and we do. Is that it again? </p>
<p>The good/bad thing about my daughter’s high school is even if you don’t already know who stands where in relation to whom, you can easily check. Virtually everything anyone does from music to athletics to clubs/activities, honors/awards, etc. is written up in a monthly newsletter, and put in our local newspaper (searchable) and on our school’s web site (searchable). We live in a smallish town where there is not a great deal of moving in and out so almost everyone knows almost everyone else. Plus, kids are posting their results on facebook, so it’s easy to find out there, too. </p>
<p>So yesterday my daughter came home from school, first day after spring break, and of course kids were sharing their college news. More grief for my daughter who was still raw and trying to get over the sting of her results. The classmate who is most similar in stats, EC’s, etc. got into Harvard and Princeton. He had already been accepted to Yale. I’m sure he also got into a few other places, but those are the ones “everyone” is talking about. </p>
<p>A while back I posted a question about rec letters. My daughter never saw hers. It seemed that they are truly never (or extremely rarely, like one in a million) negative. Boy, we really ****ed off the college gods this year, though I cannot imagine how.</p>
<p>I am driving myself crazy trying to understand this! Perhaps it’s my scientific and analytical way of looking at things, but it just doesn’t add up.</p>