What has surprised you - as your kid comes to the end of this process

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I contribute as the parent of a recent college grad and college junior? What I learned is that college flies by and your child can be happy at more than one school. Goodness of fit matters way more than prestige. Also, if your child creates a realistic list that includes multiple targets and safeties, you won’t have to fear being shut out. I don’t know of one single student who was rejected everywhere. As a matter of fact, every student I know has had a choice of where to attend. The only people who seem to be miserable are those who are status conscious. There will never be enough slots at the top schools for every qualified applicant so it’s just a lottery. Accept that fact by freshman year of HS and your child will be far less stressed.

I'm getting ready to send my last child off to college, and my first is getting ready to graduate. I agree with this 100%.

I can piggy back off this as the mom of a freshman daughter who is about to finish her first year.
My daughter and her friends all have big gripes about their schools. None are overwhelmingly happy--whether they're at an Ivy, other top20, UVA, other state school, liberal arts college, etc.
It's hard being a teen in the era of social media and the era of WAY inflated expectations for college and finding your perfect fit and having the time of your life.

Everyone my daughter knows is still trying to find their life-long, close friends, no one is dating, everyone is struggling with the competition that is inherent in everything on a college campus in 2026.
Parents whose kids are not are either very lucky or aren't getting the real picture from their kids.

For this reason, help your kid pick a school and don't stress too much over which school it is. Nowhere is perfect and it's all kind of hard.

+1 No place is perfect for anyone, and social media is in part responsible for kids’ inflated expectations of what college “should” be like. Parents can also be reluctant to talk about the harder stuff. There’s that unspoken pressure to tell most people that their kids are just loving college when people ask. College is a huge adjustment and an even harder adjustment now with the social isolation caused by phones/internet/Grub Hub and the competition to get into a lot of things on campus.

No place is perfect. My kids is a sophomore. She had a rough start. Part of it was being unlucky in where she was housed, who was in her orientation group, who she got for a roommate. Unlucky on all counts. But part of what she went through could have been avoided with better supports and systems for first years. Mental health support was very hard to access. So I started asking different questions for kid #2.

Things clicked later on on the semester and she's been very happy since. But she would be the first to say that while she loves her school, she would have some complaints too and no place is perfect.

[Anonymous]

I realize that my kid’s safety is perfectly fine and more than good enough.

[Anonymous]

Our kids (I’m assuming mostly MC-UMC parents in this board) have it way better than most. They have safety nets and choices that a lot of people don’t have. By choices, I don’t mean college choices, but they can think about things that don’t have to do with their day-to-day survival, they don't have other people depending on them, they have a place to go when things are rough. The college hysteria over T-50, etc. is really confined to a tiny sliver of the population (myself includes) that has the luxury of fretting about this stuff .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First my kid aimed for the most prestigious school they thought they had a chance of admittance (50%), and was accepted.

They ended up commiting to a school with a 75% acceptance rate with a highly ranked program for their major.

50% based on Scoir?

.

Based on a google search: “University of X acceptance rate”.

[Anonymous]

2nd time around.

Answer: how exhausting the month of April is…visits, admitted days, stress of deciding, emotions, WLs, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How secretive some colleges are about when their RD decisions will be released.

I don't understand this either. I like how MIT's pi-day announcement is so reliable.

[Anonymous]

We can't even plan to use spring break to visiting colleges since results are announced so late. Then a few weeks goes by, and AP is around the corner.

[Anonymous]

I’m shocked by how many kids are waitlisted, including ours:

7 admits (2 safeties, 3 targets, 2 reaches),
3 rejections (1 after ED deferral),
4 waitlists

Every single one of DC’s friends is waitlisted at at least one T50 school, and a few are waitlisted at 3+ T50 schools.

Is this normal? How to proceed? (No major awards or honors since the fall.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kids (I’m assuming mostly MC-UMC parents in this board) have it way better than most. They have safety nets and choices that a lot of people don’t have. By choices, I don’t mean college choices, but they can think about things that don’t have to do with their day-to-day survival, they don't have other people depending on them, they have a place to go when things are rough. The college hysteria over T-50, etc. is really confined to a tiny sliver of the population (myself includes) that has the luxury of fretting about this stuff .

Disagree entirely. If anything, FGLI kids are far more "top 50 or bust." Go on Reddit. Kids by the many thousands view getting into a top college as their great hope in life (which maybe it is).

[Anonymous]

Most surprising to me was the difference in NPC among different colleges. For us, WASP schools were incredibly generous while Northwestern and U Chicago offered nothing at all.

[Anonymous]

Some of the top flagships are quite generous with merit scholarships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2nd time around.

Answer: how exhausting the month of April is…visits, admitted days, stress of deciding, emotions, WLs, etc.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m shocked by how many kids are waitlisted, including ours:

7 admits (2 safeties, 3 targets, 2 reaches),
3 rejections (1 after ED deferral),
4 waitlists

Every single one of DC’s friends is waitlisted at at least one T50 school, and a few are waitlisted at 3+ T50 schools.

Is this normal? How to proceed? (No major awards or honors since the fall.)

How many safeties and how many targets and how many reaches did you have?

Does it make sense to have more than 2-3 safeties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m shocked by how many kids are waitlisted, including ours:

7 admits (2 safeties, 3 targets, 2 reaches),
3 rejections (1 after ED deferral),
4 waitlists

Every single one of DC’s friends is waitlisted at at least one T50 school, and a few are waitlisted at 3+ T50 schools.

Is this normal? How to proceed? (No major awards or honors since the fall.)

How many safeties and how many targets and how many reaches did you have?

Does it make sense to have more than 2-3 safeties?

I really think 2 safeties are plenty if your kid actually like them. My kid only had one safety (Indiana Kelley), but he would have reluctantly added another in RD if he didn’t get in. Then he had 4 targets and 10 reaches. Applying for business, so needed more than 12 since it is so competitive.