It appears OP is embarrassed and left the thread pages ago.

Anonymous wrote:DD got into her dream school. She moves in soon, and she's quite happy. Problem is, she can't seem to shake the fact she was rejected from her 5th choice school. I am certain this is because that school was the most selective of the bunch by far. Anything I can say to her to help her shake that off? Or will school starting help?

I told my kids that not every school would take them. You can be a great applicant, but there aren't enough spots for every deserving applicant at every school. After you qualify for admission, you are just hoping to get lucky. She didn't get lucky at that school. It's just luck. Lots of things in life are like that. Success is a combination of hard work and talent and luck. You can control the first two, but you can't control luck. If someone turns you down, just shake it off and keep going. The best way to get lucky is to keep trying.

She sounds a little dramatic. I think therapy will help her get some perspective on life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD got into her dream school. She moves in soon, and she's quite happy. Problem is, she can't seem to shake the fact she was rejected from her 5th choice school. I am certain this is because that school was the most selective of the bunch by far. Anything I can say to her to help her shake that off? Or will school starting help?

Note that the replies posted so far are based on the assumption that your daughter is doing OK and just has a mildly bruised ego.

Given how expensive college is and how hard college can be, it might be worthwhile to be a little paranoid about your daughter’s mental health.

If you think she’s really more anxious, depressed or otherwise messed up than other kids you know, maybe it would be worth it to see if you can arrange for her to have tutoring or telehealth counseling in place from the start, and maybe it would be good to understand what would happen to her financial aid if she dropped one or two classes.

This is nice and everything (I recognize that it comes from a good place)- but I feel like the parent is just afraid to step up and tell it like it is.

Q? Who said anything about a financial aid package being at play?

But sure, if the parent has tried unsuccessfully to help the child to mange their thought process and to direct their internal mental messaging in a more healthy manner - then get therapy.

Well, if the parents are rich, letting nature take its course and letting the daughter make her own choices might be a reasonable, low-impact approach.

If the daughter really has a crisis, has to drop classes or take medical leave to cope with the crisis, and that wrecks the financial aid arrangement that made paying for college possible, that’s a nightmare.

Maybe there’s not anything they can do about finances in that scenario, but maybe it would be good if they understand what they’re up against.

Tell her that after she drops out of her first choice school, she'll be living at home and commuting to GMU anyway, so in the grand scheme of things none of her top 5 choices matter.

Don’t minimize this. Tell her that even the ablest among us encounters rejection in life, now she has too, and she’s fortunate that rejection occurred over something she doesn’t even care much about. She will be a better and fuller and stronger and more empathetic person for having experienced some (small and relatively inconsequential) rejection. So she shouldn’t banish this from her thoughts but be mindful of the experience - and be conscious of how she ultimately moves past it, as she must and will.

My biggest concern as this kid’s parent would be what’s going to happen when they’re (eventually) denied their first choice of something. Have they never experienced rejection?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these posters who claim they would just tell the kid to just shut up & grow a pair might be telling the truth, but I suspect most of these are all tough talk & no action.

Most of us wouldn't know because we've raised our kids better than that. We've just went through the admissions process last year and EVERY KID picked their college and moved on from disappointment immediately, in May 2023. Even my son's friend who was wait-listed at Harvard. He knew it wouldn't happen, so he picked the second best and didn't look back (he never got off the wait-list). This is because they all know it's a lottery to some extent, and top-tier colleges are well-nigh impossible to get into these days. All are happy with their choice.

So either OP made it seem more serious than it is, and she needs to tell her to cut it out, or her daughter has a mental block over this that needs to be addressed by a professional. But I can guarantee that most kids don't react like that.

Maybe since OPs kid did get first choice (and it seems like choices 2-4 too), she doesn't have a good perspective on how grateful she should be to be in that position or on how empathetic she should be to others who aren't.

With all those acceptances, it sounds like there were not a lot of difficult conversations to be had along the way as far as her own admissions were concerned. And perhaps the family failed to step in to be sure to have the conversations regarding gratefulness and empathy for others.

(Not accusing OP of this...but...) I think people who end up on the plus-side of the school lottery (including the ones with hooks) like to believe it was all 100% earned and that those who didn't get a lottery slot could have done something different to tip the balance. They lack the perspective that comes with the rejections/WL. (but they should totally know better)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of these posters who claim they would just tell the kid to just shut up & grow a pair might be telling the truth, but I suspect most of these are all tough talk & no action.

We’ll never know because our kids will never be ruminating about their 5th choice.

+1

Personally, when my kid was deferred ED1 from their Top choice (my alma mater/T10 school), we let them be upset/take it in/mope around for 24 hours, then we reminded them that they had already been accepted at 2 of their T5 choices but they still had a choice at the ED1 for RD (not really the acceptance rate is less than 5% and we made kid well aware it's a lottery). We helped them get excited about their choices---those they already had acceptances to and those they were still waiting to hear from and focused on getting the remaining applications in with strong essays/etc.

Similarly, when the ultimate rejection came from the T10/ED1, we let them be upset for 24 hours and then helped them get excited about all their other choices----they applied to 12 schools, got rejected at ED1, WL at a T25 (3rd choice), First year overseas at another which they had already decided was too big/not their place, and accepted with merit at EVERY OTHER choice, including their 2nd choice. Not too shabby, only rejected at schools with acceptance rates below 5-9%. So we focused on planning return trips to the top 3 acceptances (and offered a return trip to the WL if they wanted but secretly hoped they didn't) and got busy helping them decide where they would attend college. Ultimately they picked their 2nd choice, which I personally think was a much better fit for them overall and they are extremely happy there.

It's our job as a parent to help our kids deal with rejection in a healthy manner, and letting them obsess about being rejected at a college is not healthy.

Anonymous wrote:Some of these posters who claim they would just tell the kid to just shut up & grow a pair might be telling the truth, but I suspect most of these are all tough talk & no action.

In my case, it would have been included in the first conversation of the 5th school rejection. You can be blunt in kind ways at the start. I would have immediately said something along these lines:

Well that's too bad. But hey, it doesn't really matter because you got your first choice and weren't going to 5th choice anyway. And you already have your cream on the top with multiple other acceptances that were above this rejected school (meaning 2nd-4th choice if that was true). Plus, now someone who really wants to go to that (5th) school has an acceptance now. Its nice that they don't have to wait to get off a waitlist spot that you might have created.

Then if it persisted all summer (as it has) - I'd be a bit more heavy handed and note that it was bordering on greedy/ungrateful.

Anonymous wrote:Some of these posters who claim they would just tell the kid to just shut up & grow a pair might be telling the truth, but I suspect most of these are all tough talk & no action.

Most of us wouldn't know because we've raised our kids better than that. We've just went through the admissions process last year and EVERY KID picked their college and moved on from disappointment immediately, in May 2023. Even my son's friend who was wait-listed at Harvard. He knew it wouldn't happen, so he picked the second best and didn't look back (he never got off the wait-list). This is because they all know it's a lottery to some extent, and top-tier colleges are well-nigh impossible to get into these days. All are happy with their choice.

So either OP made it seem more serious than it is, and she needs to tell her to cut it out, or her daughter has a mental block over this that needs to be addressed by a professional. But I can guarantee that most kids don't react like that.

Anonymous wrote:DD got into her dream school. She moves in soon, and she's quite happy. Problem is, she can't seem to shake the fact she was rejected from her 5th choice school. I am certain this is because that school was the most selective of the bunch by far. Anything I can say to her to help her shake that off? Or will school starting help?

What exactly does this mean? Describe what not being able to “shake off” the fact that she didn’t get into a school she applied to looks like. What is she saying and how often?

Did she really rank every school in order of preference? Just curious, I think mine only had top 3 and then the rest.

Anonymous wrote:Some of these posters who claim they would just tell the kid to just shut up & grow a pair might be telling the truth, but I suspect most of these are all tough talk & no action.

We’ll never know because our kids will never be ruminating about their 5th choice.

Anonymous wrote:This should teach her not to judge people based on their college. It is not a measure of their worth.

Very insightful comment.

Yes, this could be a great opportunity for an important conversation.