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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, just want to say how sorry I am and empathize with you. I am watching my dtr and her friend group go thru this as well. Kids I’ve known for years, who I would place bets on, kids whose moral fabric I’ve seen tested, kids who support one another, kids who have fantastic stats - most are struggling to get offers they can 1. get really excited for, 2. have the program they want, and 3. are in line with what the family can afford.  I’ve never been so vested in what is happening with my kids’ peers. Covid robbed them of a year and a half of their best high school experiences, and now this. They will come thru it, but it is heartbreaking to watch.

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This is OP, and thank you. I know this is not about me at all but it is hard watching my son go through it. And definitely he is not an Ivy-or-bust kind of kid. He kept adjusting his expectations as the rejections and waitlists rolled in, until he just got to a place where he couldn't do it anymore, getting validation from only the safety (again it is a true safety for most kids, they have a very high acceptance rate).

I recognize people have so many challenges, too, as does he. He knows there must be kids who have gotten in nowhere. He also feels bad for his friends who were so excited to leave for college last year and ended up spending their first year of college stuck in their old bedrooms. He volunteers for an organization that helps seniors, and he sees how tough it is for them to be alone during the pandemic. But it still hurts him, and hurts me as an extension.

I know all your words of wisdom are right (he will find his people wherever he goes; he will forget about all this one day and be fine; he could always transfer; a waitlist school might come through). It does help to hear what others are going through even through the anonymous board. I did not want to talk about this with other parents because they have their own challenges. My son talks to some of his friends about it. That helps some, at least in terms of distracting and getting him to play games online with them and such. I think mostly it doesn't help too much  because he feels they are in a better position. He is the only one of his friend group who has one acceptance.

He gets frustrated and also feels bad that he doesn't even have legacy because one of us went to a non-name small school and the other to a school in a different country. So he hears his friends with double legacy or parents and grandparents and feels like he is at a disadvantage sometimes. He will mature and grow out of this but I understand why this might frustrate him. He is not mean about it to us. He is a sensitive kid but he has mentioned it as maybe that would have helped him get in somewhere other than the safety. He really did not want a small rural school so he didn't apply to the one legacy school.

People asked about major and whether that is the problem. Maybe it is. He said undeclared. He has a strong STEM background but is also very solid in the humanities. He took two languages, though to be honest one is in his parent's native tongue so it wasn't as hard as the other language to learn. He didn't do it to get an easy A, he would like to one day perhaps live abroad. He does not know what he wants to do and we wanted him to do what he wanted and feel like he has to freedom to say he just doesn't know at this point. His counselor said that was okay.

I guess we can go round and round about what went wrong, or what was wrong with his application. We are trying to think ahead and will wait to hear what his counselor says about the waitlist and we will also inquire as to "working it." Between you and me the waitlists do seem like soft rejections and there are so many children on them that it seems unlikely so we don't want to be too enthusiastic about them and get his hopes up just to be disappointed again. We will do whatever we can but at the same time I think he has to be prepared to either take a gap year (which he doesn't seem too interested in) or just come to terms with going to the safety and learning to be okay with it.

Someone asked, "didn't he love the safety, kids should be happy with their safeties too." No he did not love this one. His counselor said, "you need another school on your list that we can be pretty certain you will get in for sure. I recommend University X." And he went with it because she recommended it. He picked two safeties he liked but of course the nature of the universe would have him get in only the university he added on at the end.

I don't think he was cocky about getting into schools but more realistic based on his stats and such. The what is realistic in perhaps other years does't seem to be this year. At least for this kid.

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