My kid isn't getting in

[Anonymous]

I hope PP and their student are OK, but this is classic DMV or DCUM bubble-speak. This is not meant as disrespect.

Your student's stats are phenomenal by almost any measure. It is the expectation and perspective that is off. The expectation for this process is to have target schools including a couple leaning yes, a couple safeties that are absolute yes - and that the student feels good about them. The reaches are by definition just that, reaches. Then at the end you have 2, 3 maybe 4 to choose from (unless you ED binding of course). That is if you feel that "choices" is a sign of success, which is odd because a student can only attend one college.

Setting the right list early, setting the perspective are both critical - the truth is that attending any school in the top 50 in the USA is terrific and students do well after they finish at all of them. So much more than the name of the school at work.

If your student is smart enough to work for and achieve those results in HS, they are going to be fine, better than fine. They need perspective from someone, and then they need to go off to college and have fun for a month or two then never think about this process again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry OP! But why such hate for UMD? Lots of kids got rejected by UmD this year. I get you have a high stats kid and hoped to get into a selective school. But unfortunately, high stats are not enough. 3 years ago my kid 1580 SAt, 800 on physics, math2, history, 15 APs and 2 beyond AP classes, software entrepreneur, rejected by MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cornell, Penn and Princeton. Only got acceptance from his safety schools UMD, Michigan and Georgia Tech. All honors. My nephew had a similar story, high stats but rejected everywhere. He was beyond depressed when he realized other lower stats kids getting into these schools. That was it for me. For me DC2, we didn’t apply to any school with less than 30% acceptance rate and it has been good so far!
Hang in there. It will be fine. UMD is a good school. Goal is to get an education… it will be met

This is almost the same as my friend's son, SAT 1600, 15 APs all 5, Presidential service award, sports team captain, cello first chair, rejected from dream schools Stanford, MIT, CMU and other top schools, only got accepted from his safety UVA. It took more than a year for the parents and kid to recover from the disappointment.

We have two of those in this household with similar results. Kids with perfect stats/EC getting rejected is nothing new. It happens all.the.time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a strange and tough year. Mine got in to Tulane and several other top schools for her desired major and rejected out of hand at Clemson.

Okay. What on earth is your point? Tulane isn't a top school.

Ranked better than Clemson overall and even more so for the program which is direct admit in most cases.

Why on earth do you need to crap on other people's schools? The point is that the OP shouldn't feel bad in the least. In a normal year, OP's kid would have been admitted at most or all of the schools to which he applied.

Congrats PP for your kid getting accepted to Tulane. Our DD is a freshman and really likes it. By way of comparison she also got into UVA, W&M, GT, NYU, UGA and Davidson. But I suppose other posters will say those schools aren’t sufficiently “top” schools either. Can’t please everyone. Tulane gave her the best deal and we are grateful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The difference between one big public flagship university and another is not too great. The difference in experience between that and a small private is huge. It sounds like OP's kid wanted a small private and they didn't apply low enough on the selectivity scale. Leaving him stuck with a big public experience he was trying to avoid.

Lets be honest. Public school sucks compared to private school. (I went public through grad school and my kids are in public now). I'm sad because a kidlike that could have gotten decent merit at a lower ranked private like Macalester or Oberlin.

Funny, Oberlin produced 4 Nobel prize alums, one of whom turned Caltech from a local vocational school to what it is today.

[Anonymous]

OP, you’ve confirmed something I’ve long suspected. My kid goes to a lesser ranked public high school and the neighborhood just nearby is a much higher ranked high school. I always suspected that he would end up in the same place as the rich kids nearby, but they would be disappointed they ended up there while he will be satisfied. He would really like to go to CP and doesn’t know anyone at his high school who would make him feel ashamed of it.

[Anonymous]

Have your kid take a gap year and move to a Midwest state for a year or Alaska.

[Anonymous]

Posts like this one make me wonder what has become of this country. What has been done to parents?

[Anonymous]

Cry me a river. The world needs ditch diggers too.

[Anonymous]

“Rejected from UVA.”. That’s what this is about, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you’ve confirmed something I’ve long suspected. My kid goes to a lesser ranked public high school and the neighborhood just nearby is a much higher ranked high school. I always suspected that he would end up in the same place as the rich kids nearby, but they would be disappointed they ended up there while he will be satisfied. He would really like to go to CP and doesn’t know anyone at his high school who would make him feel ashamed of it.

This is very true about life. Life is about being happy with where you are at and shining where you are at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have your kid take a gap year and move to a Midwest state for a year or Alaska.

Work for a year in Montana. Businesses are desperate for workers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry OP! But why such hate for UMD? Lots of kids got rejected by UmD this year. I get you have a high stats kid and hoped to get into a selective school. But unfortunately, high stats are not enough. 3 years ago my kid 1580 SAt, 800 on physics, math2, history, 15 APs and 2 beyond AP classes, software entrepreneur, rejected by MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cornell, Penn and Princeton. Only got acceptance from his safety schools UMD, Michigan and Georgia Tech. All honors. My nephew had a similar story, high stats but rejected everywhere. He was beyond depressed when he realized other lower stats kids getting into these schools. That was it for me. For me DC2, we didn’t apply to any school with less than 30% acceptance rate and it has been good so far!
Hang in there. It will be fine. UMD is a good school. Goal is to get an education… it will be met

This is almost the same as my friend's son, SAT 1600, 15 APs all 5, Presidential service award, sports team captain, cello first chair, rejected from dream schools Stanford, MIT, CMU and other top schools, only got accepted from his safety UVA. It took more than a year for the parents and kid to recover from the disappointment.

We have two of those in this household with similar results. Kids with perfect stats/EC getting rejected is nothing new. It happens all.the.time.

Kids work so hard and hope to get into top schools because they were told high stats are not enough for those schools. They did everything they could, school work, ECs, sports, volunteer, etc., but ended up with the same state schools as the neighbor's kids who had good grades but not much ECs and relatively easier high school lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK here's the brutal truth. My kid is a 90% kid who thinks he's a 99% kid. 1500 SAT. 4.5W GPA with a solid rigor- 11 APs but not in hard science or math. He got into Scholars but not Honors at college park. Rejected from UVA. Neither outcome was unexpected, but both still hurt.

We paid for test prep. We paid for a college counselor. We paid for editors for the essay. We did not pay for private K-12. So recs were from public school teachers and administrators who are overworked and can't really glow even if they want to. We filled out a FAFSA.

He's getting rejected or deferred from everywhere (elite publics and privates) except safety schools. I know, it happens. I know we should have been prepared for this. It has to happen to someone.

And as special as my kid is, being 90th percentile in a world of 99.9th percentile can be a crappy feeling. Add to that not being full pay, not being a legacy, and not being a recruited athlete. I wish I could undo the last two years. I wish I could reset as the goal getting admitted to the state flagship and other out of state publics that offer merit aid and call it a day. That's good enough and trying to shoot for more is a dream that is largely reserved for the extra-brilliant, or the upper crust.

If I could do it over I would have him apply to Miami of Ohio and Wisconsin and Pitt and the other public schools that take a lot of kids from this area instead of all these crazy expensive private schools with much smaller classes where kids like him applying are a dime a dozen. At the time he didn't want to because he knew College Park is a better school than all these options. So he'd rather cast a wide net with the more selective private schools. But now it's coming down to the wire and it really feels like he will literally have NO choices. I am regretting his whole strategy. I just hope similar parents out there can hear this and inform their own choices.

Well what were you thinking??? It’s obvious BEFORE spring senior year where a student stands academically. There are tens of thousands of kids with higher stats than yours applying to the “top” schools. And we all know the ones getting in without the top scores are hooked in some way.

[Anonymous]

I know it doesn't help with DS's experience of rejection, but here's an additional perspective. I have been teaching at UMD in recent years after having gone to a top SLAC and taught at an Ivy and a top UC and I am SO IMPRESSED with the kids at UMD. Everything about the experience of teaching there has been a pleasant surprise to me. The faculty will be delighted to have him in class and he will be plenty stimulated by his peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The difference between one big public flagship university and another is not too great. The difference in experience between that and a small private is huge. It sounds like OP's kid wanted a small private and they didn't apply low enough on the selectivity scale. Leaving him stuck with a big public experience he was trying to avoid.

Lets be honest. Public school sucks compared to private school. (I went public through grad school and my kids are in public now). I'm sad because a kidlike that could have gotten decent merit at a lower ranked private like Macalester or Oberlin.

Funny, Oberlin produced 4 Nobel prize alums, one of whom turned Caltech from a local vocational school to what it is today.

Oh, it’s you again, Obie booster.