<p>Oh and kitkat, I hope you get the FA you need! Didn’t mean to skip over you there. </p>
<p>Emory and CMU are both awesome!</p>
<p>What a fun and friendly group you guys are! I only wish I had found you earlier in this process . . .</p>
<p>Okay, so I basically need to back off. My S comes home from school today and I mention that I printed out a Forbes article about college admissions this year and that he’ll be able to finish college in 3 years at Cal and then go to grad school. He gave me a respectful but firm reply, “I’ll check it out, Mom,” as he scurried out the door to his next activity. </p>
<p>I’m pathetic! He’s totally fine and he’s moved on, so I should too. I vow that I’ve printed out the last article about how “brutal” this year’s admissions process was at the Ivies.</p>
<p>Truth be told, I still find solace in posts that point out that “unhooked” applicants like my S basically had a 4% chance of getting into Princeton. Really, I’m letting it go!!!</p>
<p>Hey, I was on the scene too late to know what the deal is with the fireman jumping out of the cake. Sounds very intriguing . . . </p>
<p>Any chance he’ll be visiting Cali any time soon? hehe</p>
<p>Where did the hunky firefighter and the birthday cake go?</p>
<p>LOL, purplexed! There’s still some cake over on the buffet table. Rumor has it the fireman hasn’t been seen since entering mythmom’s guest bedroom.</p>
<p>Kitkat, congratulations to your son! Here’ s hoping Emory gives you a break on tuition. Okay, it’s a terrible pun on a commercial, but I stopped by the potent potables. </p>
<p>Good for your son, lextaliionis. What a great school.</p>
<p>DadII – I want to congratulate your d. on her Stanford admissions & I am delighted that they are offering generous financial aid! I think Stanford is an excellent place for your daughter and I’m hoping she she will decide to come out west, socks & all. Let us know when the final decision is made!</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone - even with the inevitable disappointments and letdowns, it sounds like we all have a great group of kids with alot of choices and a very bright future ahead of them.</p>
<p>I read this entire thread this evening and wish I had found it earlier. My condolences to those who were/are sad and disappointed. Congratulations to those who received good and great news. </p>
<p>It has been such a roller coaster - he has a chance, there’s no chance, let’s just assume he won’t get in - those are all ways we tried to look at it in my family.</p>
<p>Our son and only child has been lucky and blessed with positive news for the most part. It felt as if we won the lottery when he was accepted to his first choice. We had a glimmer of hope that he would get in, but just that. And of course we discussed his chances ad nauseum leading up to the decision. He was waitlisted and rejected from two other Ivies.</p>
<p>Today he said that getting into his first choice Princeton was more stressful than not getting in. He feels as if the other students will somehow be better and smarter and more prepared than he is. He seems to feel compelled to go there. </p>
<p>Thanks for listening. I regret that I missed the cocktails and brownies last evening. My best wishes to all parents and students.</p>
<p>Dad II-</p>
<p>I am so happy for your D!! And I wanted to mention how nice your earlier post was…although I felt I understood you anyway…</p>
<p>Is your D going to admit weekend?</p>
<p>To jnsq and anyone else with disappointments: I am so sorry…IMO there are just too many wonderful kids graduating this year…there is nothing wrong with your S/D…they are still among the best and brightest in this country! And I believe they will succeed, if only because they are willing to work for it! </p>
<p>The pain in this thread makes me understand why my D absolutely refused to consider any “eggs” until they were already hatched and in her basket…</p>
<p>Firstly best wishes to all on the results of this years roller coaster…as said so many times on here, all these kids are bright and wonderful and will find their place. I would have been in a much worse state if not for this board, and especially this thread. When I wanted to just keep asking my son questions, or make comments, I would come here instead. Probably need to continue that process of substitution!
He has been blessed with admission to his first choice (Tufts) and the relief in our house was palpable. Any other decisions seemed inconsequential. I do wonder why he applied to those other schools sometimes…
Now starts the process of letting go, letting him make the decisions on the things within his sphere of influence. After 18 years, this to me seems the hardest part. I spent part of last evening, quietly alone looking at pictures, from birth all the way through…retracing the journey so to speak.
so soon, can we have a thread to post on all those moments, yet to come, when this wonderful community of parents will probably be the only ones who understand?</p>
<p>Had a nightmare last night that S decided he did not want to attend any of the colleges that accepted him! Why do I torture myself so?</p>
<p>Dad II - I am so glad things worked out; forget Harvard, your daughter will shine in Stanford.</p>
<p>Expatme, congrats on Tufts
mountains-- we are all so stressed that a few nightmares still creep in. We have to learn to let go as the kids move on. They will choose one of their acceptances. Who among them would want to forego something they’ve anticipated for so long?</p>
<p>My dear friends,</p>
<p>It all works out. Both kids were home together for a week and as I look around the house at all the detritus my D left after she went to NYC to visit friends I know that we are still their parents, and they our children.</p>
<p>Remember pre-school or kindergarten? Or some early daycare? Suddenly they were away for a long stretch of day in someone else’s care. I’d wait for that bus to get home, the last five minutes were always an agony of fear that something had happened to one of my precious children.</p>
<p>Now the times away just get longer. Didn’t see D for three months while she was in London and then she came home and all was restored. She got herself a wonderful internship in NYC for summer. S called late last night to tell me he had worked out his housing arrangements for next year. </p>
<p>It is quiet here this morning before I go to work. No kids to look forward to today, but they are still here.</p>
<p>It’s a painful transition but much joy too.</p>
<p>I spent too much money of the perfect comforter, etc etc, when each said s/he would be okay with the uglier, cheaper one. But it made me happy, and they eventually said their room decor made them happy too. So there is still much to put your efforts into.</p>
<p>Good luck to all your children, and even more, good luck to you. I wrote a novel in three months now that both are gone. None as good as kids, but not a shabby substitute either!</p>
<p>Mythmom:</p>
<p>Your post was so sweet. It made me tear up a bit. Time passes and continues passing way too quickly!</p>
<p>DD is still away on her class trip, although we talk daily. She’s moved on from her Ivy rejection, the only “elite” she applied to, even though she had the stellar stats to apply anywhere. Had she applied to more than one, she may have fared better, but it was her choice to just throw out the one line as opposed to casting a wide net. This was her process, after all. Her final tally is 4/5 acceptances. Her final choice is pretty evident to us right now, an excellent choice and a top ten in her major… DH wanted to send the deposit yesterday, but I told him that we need to wait for DD to get back and do it on her own. She’s now an adult and needs to own this decision completely. (Well, its still our check and our money . . . but, I hope you guys understand what I mean!!) :)</p>
<p>lextalionis, I too have been <em>helping</em> my daughter with her accepts and rejects and decision-making, and am quickly coming to the realization that my daughter is JUST FINE, and doesn’t need any help. Last night I was telling her ‘oh, I read this thing about the science program at this college’ and ‘hey, I forwarded you an article I found’ and she was doing her homework at the kitchen table and kept saying, ok, yeah, ok, and finally it was ‘YEAH, MOM’, and it hit me that this is all for ME, <em>I’M</em> the one who is worried about her being ok with her rejections and which of her accepts is going to love and nurture her and on and on…</p>
<p>SHE is looking forward to prom and senior trip and passing her AP exams. SHE already knows that she’ll be fine at any of her accepts. SHE is working on meeting her short-term goals, getting a summer job, and gathering information to make her final college decision. So while for ME the college decision is the Big Deal, for her it’s just another item on her to-do list. </p>
<p>I’m trying to emulate her.</p>
<p>I was thinking of starting a thread entitled: “My daughter is over it, why aren’t I?” so we are obviously in the same boat here.</p>
<p>D mailed out letters to five colleges yesterday, declining their offers. We packed away all the files relating to them. It was sort of sad. They have been part of our lives for so long that it was like saying goodbye to a family member. One of them was the school that sent her the very first acceptance and I remember how excited she was: She was going to college!! That one will always have a particularly special place in my heart.</p>
<p>Hi Jude_36!</p>
<p>You and I sound a lot alike, on opposite sides of the country!</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right, our kids have moved on and are planning and <em>living</em> the rest of their senior year. </p>
<p>The only strange thing now is that I’m actually so excited for him to go to Cal (my alma mater) because I know how much FUN he has in store for him (besides the excellent Engineering degree he’ll earn, of course). But, again, this needs to be HIS experience and no doubt many things have changed since I went there back in the 60’s (jk, the 80’s . . . just feels that long ago sometimes . . . like it was a different lifetime!).</p>
<p>jje-ne-sais, I’ll meet you on that thread soon, I hope!</p>
<p>Well you guys are a little ahead of us - in that many decisions are made - but still…today DS#2 called from school with stomach ache. I told him it was probably nerves (because heaven knows I HAVE HAD a STOMACH ACHE for several days). He said (and I quote) what would I possibly have to be nervous about? He knows it will work out - that all of his choices are decent…its just me fussing about what can’t be changed (the amount of money that I can pay for college). </p>
<p>I told him to go home and go to sleep - that he probably has a stomach bug.</p>
<p>kitkat, it certainly has crossed my mind that part of the reason that D can be so cavalier about this whole process is that, really, she has NO IDEA what all this means in terms of her financial future, and MY financial future, etc, etc. Not that she’s unaware, just that at her age she really can’t see things the way I see them on this side of 40.</p>