Is college rejection the worst experience your child has met so far in their lives?

[Anonymous]

if it is, it's likely to continue into college, the workforce, personal lives etc. In the grand scheme of things, getting rejected from a college is really no big deal.

[Anonymous]

I try to limit exposure to older peoples comments like, “he should apply to Duke, Grandpa taught there in the 1970s” or “when I was a senior, the c students went to (T20 college name)”

[Anonymous]

My daughter went from varsity one year to jv the next in a sport and was rejected from an extracurricular she was really interested in - so college rejection was no big deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We try to provide a safe, comfortable childhood then boom! At the end of it all, the devastating rejection. Will it make them stronger and more resilient or bitter?

OP you need help. What a bizarre post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids grew up in NW DC where every extracurricular resource is overabundant

FIFY

Maybe. But the pool of competent/impressive kids is larger.

My friends who have kids elsewhere (in middle America) don't have to fight 50 kids for a single spot on the travel basketball team. Or 100 kids to make it to the
semifinals of the spelling bee. Or whatnot.

They have a reasonably smart and/or reasonably athletic kid and the kid rises to the top of the local cohort.

Here you can have a talented kid and it's like "take a number". I'm sure it's similar in other urban areas.

Anyway--my point is not that the area is competitive OR heavily resourced. It's that my kids have been REJECTED A LOT.
And their response to college rejections was like, "shrug. Okay. Moving on".

You are mistaken. This is not Lake Woebegone. Kids here are not inherently more impressive or competent than kids elsewhere, but their parents are all the same kind of striver pushing them into the same few opportunities. Sincerely, kid who absolutely competed with 50+ kids for a spot on an AAU team in the 1990s in suburban flyover America.

[Anonymous]

Ha! Not by a long shot.

My high school senior was born with disabilities. He's struggled all his life. He'll be happy enough going to his target school if his reach school rejects him.

My second participates in competitions and auditions. She hates it when she loses the top spot, but it builds resilience. I would imagine it's good training for college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Watching the grandfather he was extremely close to die from a terminal cancer was pretty bad.

He's had many rejections/demotions in sports (some where a coach told him he was getting moved up; only to have a higher up TD block it because of a butt kisser); he's had some coaches ghost the team, he's seen really, really bad parent behavior and had a few injuries that caused him to miss a season, etc. The sports world was pretty brutal to him, much, much more so than anything related to school. This is why I think sports can be so beneficial for kids. It's a place where they deal with difficult people, learn to work together and to overcome disappointment, they experience their first rejections, see there are better alternatives, watch what they thought was a bad thing end up opening so many other doors and opportunities. And, they learned sometimes all the hard work and RESULTS won't make a difference. Somethings are not under your control.

Things with school have been very merit-based for him so far which is such a welcome change.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Neither of my two oldest kids were phased by their college rejections. They knew they'd done their best and they'd wind up somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We try to provide a safe, comfortable childhood then boom! At the end of it all, the devastating rejection. Will it make them stronger and more resilient or bitter?

Your kid will be Stronger....You? you'll continue to be bitter. lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Watching the grandfather he was extremely close to die from a terminal cancer was pretty bad.

He's had many rejections/demotions in sports (some where a coach told him he was getting moved up; only to have a higher up TD block it because of a butt kisser); he's had some coaches ghost the team, he's seen really, really bad parent behavior and had a few injuries that caused him to miss a season, etc. The sports world was pretty brutal to him, much, much more so than anything related to school. This is why I think sports can be so beneficial for kids. It's a place where they deal with difficult people, learn to work together and to overcome disappointment, they experience their first rejections, see there are better alternatives, watch what they thought was a bad thing end up opening so many other doors and opportunities. And, they learned sometimes all the hard work and RESULTS won't make a difference. Somethings are not under your control.

Things with school have been very merit-based for him so far which is such a welcome change.

Oh and we have always had the 'if they don't want me, I don't want them' mindset with coaches, schools, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Certainly if we react dramatically, it will affect them

Me thinks this is more about the parent than child.

[Anonymous]

Unfazed, unbowed, unbroken.

Student government election losses and lessons learned were tougher as was mother’s illness on two separate occasions.

[Anonymous]

Can't they be disapopinted and upset and also not rejected for life?
The way the parent/OP phrased this it seems like she thinks that it's her fault, or that she is supposed to protect from the big/bad world, or thatall of the work until now is for nothing.

[Anonymous]

OP, you just might be alone in this one. Why did you choose to shelter your child from life?

[Anonymous]

OP-if college rejection breaks a kid, how are they going to handle anything else life throws at them?