My DC committed but is not happy - anyone else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your son have aspirations to attend graduate school? My child didn't get into her top choice either but has found a way to embrace another good option. She wants to go to graduate school. I explained that your job now is to get a solid undergraduate education embrace the opportunity. The door has been cracked open, now it's what you do with it that matters. If you do your best, then you could have your pick of graduate programs. Applying to graduate school is an entirely different ball game. My kid has embraced this thinking.

What does your son want long term? How will doing well at this undergrad school him him get there? Stop focusing on what he didn't get and start focusing on the opportunity he has right now if he's willing to seize it.

Is it though? I went to a top medical school and then top residency and the make-up of the student body at both programs is NOTHING like it was when I was there 20 years ago. These schools/programs are also admitting a large percentage of their classes based on diversity (first gen, racial, economic, geographic, etc). They're not admitting on academic merit either.

My top residency class did not admit a SINGLE while male for the incoming class that just completed the residency match--quite striking as there were probably 20 white males when I was there. I'm not a white male either and feel that it's a very good thing to diversify the program and medicine in general. However, I just wanted to point out that the new world of admissions does not stop at undergraduate these days.

If my nephew doesn’t get a top residency, I’m going to be thinking of this post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your son have aspirations to attend graduate school? My child didn't get into her top choice either but has found a way to embrace another good option. She wants to go to graduate school. I explained that your job now is to get a solid undergraduate education embrace the opportunity. The door has been cracked open, now it's what you do with it that matters. If you do your best, then you could have your pick of graduate programs. Applying to graduate school is an entirely different ball game. My kid has embraced this thinking.

What does your son want long term? How will doing well at this undergrad school him him get there? Stop focusing on what he didn't get and start focusing on the opportunity he has right now if he's willing to seize it.

Is it though? I went to a top medical school and then top residency and the make-up of the student body at both programs is NOTHING like it was when I was there 20 years ago. These schools/programs are also admitting a large percentage of their classes based on diversity (first gen, racial, economic, geographic, etc). They're not admitting on academic merit either.

My top residency class did not admit a SINGLE while male for the incoming class that just completed the residency match--quite striking as there were probably 20 white males when I was there. I'm not a white male either and feel that it's a very good thing to diversify the program and medicine in general. However, I just wanted to point out that the new world of admissions does not stop at undergraduate these days.

If my nephew doesn’t get a top residency, I’m going to be thinking of this post.

So you are talking residents, not med students, but since residents start out as med students, here are some actual stats. There were 22,239 incoming students to med schools in 2020. Of these:

--2,678 or 12% were Hispanic/Latino
--2,117 or 10% were Black
--more than half were women, and the growth here has been marked. To the extent that white males are getting shut out, it is women who are doing the shutting.

It should also be noted that the growth in the number of non-white med students is largely concentrated in med schools that have traditional served minority students, such as HBCU. Med schools that have historically been very white continue to be very white. Just a lot more female.

https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/more-students-are-entering-medical-school

[Anonymous]

On my wedding day I was a little sad. I was super excited, in love, making the right choice, etc. I admitted my feelings to my mom and she said, of course you’re a little sad. You’ve chosen a path and every time you do you’ll have a little grief for the path not chosen. That’s totally - let yourself grieve and then go enjoy the amazing path chosen.

Be kind to your son. Picking a college is picking a path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remind him that he’ll do much better at his school than the classmates will that he’s referring to. He can be an entirely different academic peer group there, even if they’re at the same giant school.

No, do NOT do this. This will only reinforce the feeling that he's "better" than the other students there. Plus, you have no idea whether he'll do "much better" than his classmates. Typical DCUM snobbery/elitism.

[Anonymous]

I feel like parents spend years pushing their children to “achieve” in high school for the express purpose of getting into a “good” college and then you’re confused about why they feel terrible when it doesn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

My D was the same a few year ago. Crying and confused. It didn't get better at orientation and she hated being there. But she worked really hard to get good grades and filled out transfer application for her ideal school that rejected her as a HS senior, but accepted her as freshman transfer. The transferred after freshman year and couldn't be happier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe he should look at The Common Data Set and see all the other enrolled students who have similar stats as him.

Beat me to it. I find it more than a little amusing that the OP and OP's son feel that he's somehow more qualified than the other hardworking students who were also admitted. So typical.

Why do people like you have to come on here and be such dicks? OP's kid is upset. He prob worked his butt off and feels the reward was not worth the work. His feelings are valid, whatever you think. He and OP are allowed to mourn a little before hopefully getting back to business.

What people are responding to is not his disappointment, but his (and his parent’s) judgmental looking down their noses at his admitted classmates and pronouncing them lesser than. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does your son have aspirations to attend graduate school? My child didn't get into her top choice either but has found a way to embrace another good option. She wants to go to graduate school. I explained that your job now is to get a solid undergraduate education embrace the opportunity. The door has been cracked open, now it's what you do with it that matters. If you do your best, then you could have your pick of graduate programs. Applying to graduate school is an entirely different ball game. My kid has embraced this thinking.

What does your son want long term? How will doing well at this undergrad school him him get there? Stop focusing on what he didn't get and start focusing on the opportunity he has right now if he's willing to seize it.

Is it though? I went to a top medical school and then top residency and the make-up of the student body at both programs is NOTHING like it was when I was there 20 years ago. These schools/programs are also admitting a large percentage of their classes based on diversity (first gen, racial, economic, geographic, etc). They're not admitting on academic merit either.

My top residency class did not admit a SINGLE while male for the incoming class that just completed the residency match--quite striking as there were probably 20 white males when I was there. I'm not a white male either and feel that it's a very good thing to diversify the program and medicine in general. However, I just wanted to point out that the new world of admissions does not stop at undergraduate these days.

Very interesting. I think it's time to fight back. They cannot ask you to prove things like race. Let's all start doing a little more "identifying as" with races that are more socially acceptable. This removes the power or systemic racism from universities.

Oof. You’re very dumb.

[Anonymous]

I haven't read this full chain but I do like this forum and I have one college and one high school student.

We are college touring with my younger DS right now---- when my own Dad texted and asked how it is going, I told him about the school yesterday (loved a lot of it, a few things didn't like) and my Dad said "I hope he finds the one place that he absolutely loves".

And I just think this is the attitude that is super outdated and we need to get away from - there is no one place for these kids and even if there was, it's unlikely they can be assured admission. I think any parents reading this chain need to talk differently about college than we did, or our parents generation or even a few years ago.

I'm sorry OP's kid is disappointed - most kids work really hard and it's disappointing not to get into the school you want - but it's going to happen to all of our kids so they need to start understanding it's not a reflection of how hard they worked. There are literally not enough spots for all our kids at even the mid-range schools and most kids whose parents are lurking on DCUM will be just fine.

[Anonymous]

Op here - thanks for the mostly kind words. To clarify, we are proud of our child's accomplishments and we did not push him to attend the best school possible - in fact, our greatest emphasis to him was less on the academics and more on where he would fit and be happy. There have been moments in the past day or so where he's had a smile back on his face and that's made us happy. I did not mean for the post to look down on any other students attending the same school. I simply expressed DC's initial thoughts, and for anyone with high schoolers, you know they can say things that they don't truly mean. We've told him there are going to be tons of smart kids at his school (which would be the same for any school, regardless of how they're supposedly rank (side note - I absolutely hate all the US News, Forbes, Niche, etc. rankings - they have their place, but there is far too much weight put on them in the DMV enclave - whether a school is ranked 25 or 75 in US News is not going to matter in the long run, probably not even in the short run).

I also think DC feels to some extent that we made him choose the school that he committed to, and I get it in some way. We had upfront discussions about our parameters, i.e., this was our price range, and we wanted him to stay on the East coast (preferably driving distance from the DMV, but that didn't even bear out). At the end of the day, his acceptances and rejections based on those parameters basically left him with no choice that he loved and so he settled on this school (and I don't even like to use the word "settle"). So, from that standpoint, it feels like we made him go to this school, but he has also made that statement to us in sort of a nagging way to see if he elicits a response. Maybe it's his hedge way of being able to blame us if he's ultimately not happy.

Lastly, DC also realizes that many of his friends were given no choice whatsoever - if they got into UMD (as he did also), then they were going to UMD. My guess is that 25% of his class is headed there. There's nothing wrong with a parent saying that to a child either, as long as it's said upfront.

Anyway, thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read this full chain but I do like this forum and I have one college and one high school student.

We are college touring with my younger DS right now---- when my own Dad texted and asked how it is going, I told him about the school yesterday (loved a lot of it, a few things didn't like) and my Dad said "I hope he finds the one place that he absolutely loves".

And I just think this is the attitude that is super outdated and we need to get away from - there is no one place for these kids and even if there was, it's unlikely they can be assured admission. I think any parents reading this chain need to talk differently about college than we did, or our parents generation or even a few years ago.

I'm sorry OP's kid is disappointed - most kids work really hard and it's disappointing not to get into the school you want - but it's going to happen to all of our kids so they need to start understanding it's not a reflection of how hard they worked. There are literally not enough spots for all our kids at even the mid-range schools and most kids whose parents are lurking on DCUM will be just fine.

I totally agree with this. The flip side of it is that, by looking at all the strengths and pros of the various schools along the way, DD is now having a hard time deciding as her admissions fortune brightened towards the end. But, happy problem. I do think if she hadn't gotten the reach admissions, she would have been happy at the safeties and targets. They all had much to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read this full chain but I do like this forum and I have one college and one high school student.

We are college touring with my younger DS right now---- when my own Dad texted and asked how it is going, I told him about the school yesterday (loved a lot of it, a few things didn't like) and my Dad said "I hope he finds the one place that he absolutely loves".

And I just think this is the attitude that is super outdated and we need to get away from - there is no one place for these kids and even if there was, it's unlikely they can be assured admission. I think any parents reading this chain need to talk differently about college than we did, or our parents generation or even a few years ago.

I'm sorry OP's kid is disappointed - most kids work really hard and it's disappointing not to get into the school you want - but it's going to happen to all of our kids so they need to start understanding it's not a reflection of how hard they worked. There are literally not enough spots for all our kids at even the mid-range schools and most kids whose parents are lurking on DCUM will be just fine.

+100 We've been touring schools with DD and I'm happy that the tours have helped her eliminate absolute "no's" but she's ending up with a list of schools where she does not have a strong preference for one over the other and feels like she can be happy in a bunch of places. (all pretty much rural LACs with good science programs)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC committed and we’ve been trying to show our excitement for him, but he is unhappy and says he should have applied to different schools and didn’t like any of his choices in the end. He is a great student, strong test scores etc, and worked so hard and was so engaged in school. He seems deflated now. Basically he did all this work and for what. This part is immature, but he also has a few classmates going to the same school as him and he says they are lesser students (purely from an academic standpoint) so that likewise makes him feel like he should have aimed higher because he’s now ended up in the same place as them. On one hand, I understand — if money were no object he could’ve gone full pay to a more prestigious school (whatever that even means) but we were upfront with him that without merit we could not pay $75k/year and we’re opposed to significant loan obligations. Ultimately that led him to a top 50-60ish school (honors college) and we’ll get him out with no debt. I do believe he’ll be happy, but am just bummed that he is bummed.

Anyway, just feeling a bit sad that he is sad. Any other parents experiencing this with their kids? I’m also wondering if any parents of kids who are finishing their freshman year felt like this a year ago and can provide some perspective? Thanks.

My older kids went through this and then had a blast freshman year and never regretted going to a "lesser" school. I think alot of kids ultimately have the same experience, especially if they met their future spouse there.

[Anonymous]

I definitely get not feeling super jazzed about having limited options, but hopefully most kids are also applying to safeties that they would like to attend. My DD expected to go to either Penn State or Pitt throughout high school and was excited to go to college. She applied to other colleges and ended up at a LAC but would have been overjoyed to attend either in-state institution since she had spent all of high school researching the schools and their programs and offerings. Because she knew that he stats would likely get her into either college, all of academic motivation was intrinsic and she spent time exploring subjects that she enjoyed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remind him that he’ll do much better at his school than the classmates will that he’s referring to. He can be an entirely different academic peer group there, even if they’re at the same giant school.

wow that’s presumptuous.

You beat me to it, PP. Completely agree.

Some of these “non peer” kids are going to really shine. They are not burnt out from trying to be the top academically at their high school, taking the most challenging classes, and have probably been spending their time in other productive ways. I know my kid has.

They are relaxed and excited about their college that they’re attending and will surprise PP with how well they do.