The problem is that the highly selective colleges urge kids to pour their hearts into their essays and promote the idea that they look at far more than just the numbers. Then they reject 94% of their applications.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1011-orlin-yale-alumni-interviews-20151011-story.html (The illustrated version on the author’s blog, Math with Bad Drawings, is even better, IMHO.)
I don’t want to let my kid wallow in rejection, but I shouldn’t try to talk her out of her feelings either. Take time to be disappointed, then ice cream sounds pretty good to me, too.