My daughter is really disappointed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

I’m not a troll. I posted yesterday about Vanderbilt. My daughter is so upset, and is having a hard time. She feels very dissatisfied.

You are not supposed to start a new thread with the same topic. You are supposed to return to the original thread with and say: Update.

Look, OP. If you are not a troll: It is fine to let kids be disappointed for a day but you need to intervene. Maybe she needs therapy. Maybe she needs to do a day of community service or hard labor. Maybe she needs a time out. Someone who is so disappointed about acceptance into multiple ivies plus Northwestern and others is going to have serious problems in life. Help her get used to not getting exactly every little thing she wants just as she wants it. I am not being mean. She will have major problems in college and beyond if you don't deal with this.

Is this a joke?

Do you genuinely think someone should "get over" their disappointment in a single day?

And that if they don't, something's so wrong that a therapist needs to be involved?

Think of the biggest disappointment in your life. The thing that made you the saddest you'd ever been at that stage in your life. Forget about whether anyone else would have been sad or disappointed in that situation. Just think back and remember your feelings. Maybe that will help you find empathy for someone else in pain.

No joke. Kid can attend Northwestern, Dartmouth, Cornell, Vanderbilt... I can't even remember the surplus of incredible schools and yet is apparently so distraught that her mother has started not one but TWO threads on how to help her. This kid has unrealistic expectations about life if these results are so difficult.

Adding. This is from OP's original post: she feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same

This is a kid who was accepted to Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Northwestern, Michigan and Vanderbilt.

OP needs to help her understands that life does not work out exactly as you plan. And maybe help her start a gratitude journal.

This seems like a TERRIBLE application strategy. I understand why people shotgun the top schools. But why go to the effort and expense of applying to Brown and Northwestern and Vanderbilt if getting in is going to make you feel like a failure?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

has to be a troll because earlier in the thread said they were rejected from Vanderbilt and here says they were accepted????

That was someone else, impersonating, I assume. - OP

[Anonymous]

We had a tour guide at UCLA who said she cried for a week that it was her only option (yes, seriously she was a CA native). She'd applied to 15 other schools and got rejected or couldn't attend (sounded like she wanted to be on the East Coast).

Anyhoo, she said 4 years later she was thrilled that UCLA was her only option because she loved it and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. She listed out her stuff and was a massive overachiever.

FWIW. You're DD isn't the only one, and it could be a blessing. Also had tour guide at UNC who was class president and nearly transferred out after freshman year.

[Anonymous]

I'm the one whose daughter was rejected from Vanderbilt. I have the daughter who ended up with a truly poor fit school, is having a miserable year and is applying to transfer.

I am not OP.

And F-YOU OP.

A few of us commiserated with you but you're the lunatic whose kid has a dozen top20 choices but isn't happy. The rest of us whose kids actually got screwed would have killed for one of those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

I’m not a troll. I posted yesterday about Vanderbilt. My daughter is so upset, and is having a hard time. She feels very dissatisfied.

Where does she actually want to go? Harvard and Yale are crapshoots no matter how amazing you are. I don’t see any of her WL schools as being that much of an improvement over the schools she actually got into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

wait, what?

You really had me going.


I don't get the trolling, I really don't.

Must be the UVA booster. Crying for a week she didn't get into UVA because she might have to go to a lesser ivy or UM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Is this where you daughter got into???? And she is upset??????????????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

I’m not a troll. I posted yesterday about Vanderbilt. My daughter is so upset, and is having a hard time. She feels very dissatisfied.

Where does she actually want to go? Harvard and Yale are crapshoots no matter how amazing you are. I don’t see any of her WL schools as being that much of an improvement over the schools she actually got into.

+1 ... This has to be a troll or else this daughter is mentally ill if she has Dartmouth, Cornell, and Brown as options but is devastated about being waitlisted at Penn and JHU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When you apply to top schools as a top student:

EXPECT REJECTION.

This is the category of applicants most likely to get a rejection even when they check all the boxes. Not because they're unqualified. Because there aren't enough seats.

OP, this was on YOU to reiterate to your child that applying to such schools was probably going to lead to nothing. Statistically, this is what happens. So your child had the statistically realistic outcome. None of this should come as a surprise. Again, not because she's a bad candidate. Just because there is extremely little chance of being accepted at any of these schools.

Parents really need to understand this!

You're a jerk.

Understanding the low odds and expecting the worst outcome does not actually innoculate everyone from disappointment.

Here's an example:

What are the odds of winning an olympic medal?? Very low!! But if you're in the top 10% of contenders for medalling in your sport and you fall short, what happens?

Both things - logically, you know that the odds of you winning were very, very low. Even though you're an absolute superstar in your sport. So you can console yourself with those facts - you knew going in that you were not likely to medal. The numbers were never in your favor.

AND even so, you are likely to feel crushing disappointment. In part because of how much you invested in the process and how much you genuinely wanted to reach your goal. And in part because you're so very exhausted by the process that got you there in the first place. There's a huge release of emotions - relief that the process is over, but also HUGE disappointment and sadness and maybe even some dark feelings of regret about having invested so much hard work only to fall short.

Those are big, powerful, and REAL feelings - EVEN THOUGH YOU KNEW ALL ALONG HOW SMALL THE ODDS ACTUALLY WERE.

Statistics are real. And logic is very helpful in interpreting situations.

But feelings are feelings. They'e real, too. And we all have them - whether or not they seem logical or "preventable," and whether or not we're aware of them at the time.

Cheers to you if you think that assuming the worst outcome will innoculate you from disappointment in life. If that works for you, great!!

Personally, that does not work for me at all. In order to marshall all my inner resources (drive, ambition, advocacy), I often need to focus on the BEST outcome - to motivate myself to invest everything I possibly can to achieve an ambitious and low-odds goal. Sometimes it works, and I'm exhausted but overjoyed. Other times it does not, and I'm exhausted and disappointed.

Either way, I feel my feelings and keep on living my life. I know OP's DD will do the same. But yes, the disappointment is real. Hugs to you, OP.

I can understand Ilia Malinin being disappointed for not medaling, but Amber Glenn?

Unless your daughter won an IMO gold medal, I couldn’t comprehend her distress tbh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

I’m not a troll. I posted yesterday about Vanderbilt. My daughter is so upset, and is having a hard time. She feels very dissatisfied.

Oh, it’s you again? Get her some therapy. She’s not going to be happy with much in life if she can’t find a way to be pleased with at least one of those choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the one whose daughter was rejected from Vanderbilt. I have the daughter who ended up with a truly poor fit school, is having a miserable year and is applying to transfer.

I am not OP.

And F-YOU OP.

A few of us commiserated with you but you're the lunatic whose kid has a dozen top20 choices but isn't happy. The rest of us whose kids actually got screwed would have killed for one of those schools.

If it’s any consolation, OP is already f***** if any of this is true, her child is that miserable in general, and she is tone deaf enough for her to seek solace here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When you apply to top schools as a top student:

EXPECT REJECTION.

This is the category of applicants most likely to get a rejection even when they check all the boxes. Not because they're unqualified. Because there aren't enough seats.

OP, this was on YOU to reiterate to your child that applying to such schools was probably going to lead to nothing. Statistically, this is what happens. So your child had the statistically realistic outcome. None of this should come as a surprise. Again, not because she's a bad candidate. Just because there is extremely little chance of being accepted at any of these schools.

Parents really need to understand this!

You're a jerk.

Understanding the low odds and expecting the worst outcome does not actually innoculate everyone from disappointment.

Here's an example:

What are the odds of winning an olympic medal?? Very low!! But if you're in the top 10% of contenders for medalling in your sport and you fall short, what happens?

Both things - logically, you know that the odds of you winning were very, very low. Even though you're an absolute superstar in your sport. So you can console yourself with those facts - you knew going in that you were not likely to medal. The numbers were never in your favor.

AND even so, you are likely to feel crushing disappointment. In part because of how much you invested in the process and how much you genuinely wanted to reach your goal. And in part because you're so very exhausted by the process that got you there in the first place. There's a huge release of emotions - relief that the process is over, but also HUGE disappointment and sadness and maybe even some dark feelings of regret about having invested so much hard work only to fall short.

Those are big, powerful, and REAL feelings - EVEN THOUGH YOU KNEW ALL ALONG HOW SMALL THE ODDS ACTUALLY WERE.

Statistics are real. And logic is very helpful in interpreting situations.

But feelings are feelings. They'e real, too. And we all have them - whether or not they seem logical or "preventable," and whether or not we're aware of them at the time.

Cheers to you if you think that assuming the worst outcome will innoculate you from disappointment in life. If that works for you, great!!

Personally, that does not work for me at all. In order to marshall all my inner resources (drive, ambition, advocacy), I often need to focus on the BEST outcome - to motivate myself to invest everything I possibly can to achieve an ambitious and low-odds goal. Sometimes it works, and I'm exhausted but overjoyed. Other times it does not, and I'm exhausted and disappointed.

Either way, I feel my feelings and keep on living my life. I know OP's DD will do the same. But yes, the disappointment is real. Hugs to you, OP.

If your feeling are disconnected from reality then yes. Your kid may need therapy.

The thing is, your kid was not an Olympian. She wasn't a top contender or she would have gotten into at least a couple of these. She was likely what they call standard strong.

[Anonymous]

OP, I got into and went to my fourth choice after getting wait listed at THREE ivies and not getting off them. It was fine.

My super overachieving sibling always got everything she wanted - HYP for undergrad, Harvard for Med, first choice residency. She married someone similar and they are insufferable in many ways. And they did NOT know how to handle it when their oldest son did not get into his first choice. They panicked and had him apply ED to a school that was way lower ranked than he wanted rather than just calming down and thinking rationally. And they are snobby and entitled about their achievements and don;t have much empathy for others who aren't as high achieving.

My point being, being the kid who always gets everything she wants is not always a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

Wow, being WL at any one of these schools is a sign that your DD was extremely competitive among the applicant pool. What is at the top of the ones where she was accepted?

Cornell
Northwestern
Dartmouth
Umich
Brown
Vanderbilt & more

Ok. Thanks for telling us you are a troll.

I’m not a troll. I posted yesterday about Vanderbilt. My daughter is so upset, and is having a hard time. She feels very dissatisfied.

You are not supposed to start a new thread with the same topic. You are supposed to return to the original thread with and say: Update.

Look, OP. If you are not a troll: It is fine to let kids be disappointed for a day but you need to intervene. Maybe she needs therapy. Maybe she needs to do a day of community service or hard labor. Maybe she needs a time out. Someone who is so disappointed about acceptance into multiple ivies plus Northwestern and others is going to have serious problems in life. Help her get used to not getting exactly every little thing she wants just as she wants it. I am not being mean. She will have major problems in college and beyond if you don't deal with this.

Is this a joke?

Do you genuinely think someone should "get over" their disappointment in a single day?

And that if they don't, something's so wrong that a therapist needs to be involved?

Think of the biggest disappointment in your life. The thing that made you the saddest you'd ever been at that stage in your life. Forget about whether anyone else would have been sad or disappointed in that situation. Just think back and remember your feelings. Maybe that will help you find empathy for someone else in pain.

DP

Maybe not a day but your posting is insane. Maybe your kid is picking up on your deep disappointment because getting into brown instead of yale or northwestern instead of Princeton is not the deepest disappointment in anyone's life other than exceptionally sheltered and privileged kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter’s really feeling down right now. She’s been waitlisted or rejected her top-choice schools, and it hurts. She feels angry and like a failure who worked so hard for nothing and is worried her future won’t look the same. She’s been sad, worried, and crying a lot. We’re not sure how to help her through this or what to do next.

Which schools was she waitlisted from? Some of them move. Work with your school-based counselor to develop a strategy for the best opportunity and let that school know in no uncertain terms that you will enroll if offered a spot. Hang in there!

She doesn’t feel very hopeful. She was waitlisted at JHU, Duke, UVA, Harvard, Yale, and UPenn.

I know someone who got into Penn off the wait list.