The Most Difficult Year to Get into College in the History of the World

Rejection Letters from the Heart

Lately everyone is too depressed to read news about financial matters, so the Wall Street Journal is reinventing itself as the ultimate source of information about college admissions.  Their latest piece is about rejection letters...both really mean and really nice.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124096471555766239-lMyQjAxMDI5NDIwOTkyNjk0Wj.html

1.THE CRUELEST - BATES

Surprising, the cruelest rejection comes from sweet little Bates in Maine:

"The deans were obliged to select from among candidates who clearly could do sound work at Bates."

2.  THE MOST FINAL - STANFORD

The Stanford deans were afraid that kids would try to beg for a second chance, the way you can for the UC's.

"We are humbled by your talents and achievements...and although you are...a fine student...we are not able to consider appeals."

3. THE MOST HUMANE - DUKE

Duke hired a team of Buddhists to pen their rejection letter:

"I know you will find an institution at which you will be happy; I know, too, that the school you choose will benefit from your presence."

4. THE MOST EXISTENTIAL - HARVARD

Of all places, Harvard lets the rejectees know the truth - After you've wasted your youth on AP's and SAT IIs, it turns out that it really doesn't matter where you go to college.

"Past experience suggests that the particular college a student attends is far less important than what the student does to develop his or her strengths and talents over the next four years."

And...not in the WSJ, here's a quote from The Neurotic Parent's favorite rejection letter.  It arrived in the mail of a friend on April 1st:

5.  THE MOST SHOCKING - POMONA

"As you know, your daughter Olivia was denied admission to Pomona College.  We feel compelled to inform you that this was due to information that her guidance counselor provided to our admissions department.  We are concerned about Olivia's recent vandalism spree in a place of worship, and therefore cannot offer her a place in the class of 2013."

This turned out to be April Fools joke written by Olivia herself on "Pomona" stationery which she had created by scanning the font from her real rejection letter.  After her poor parents recovered, they framed the letter and came to the realization that the kind Harvard admissions guy was right: Their daughter will go on to be a superstar, even though she didn't get into Pomona.

Bragging Rights

A one-way ticket three time zones away for my sweet little child, who is suddenly a buff, hairy man -My depression was relieved only by the satisfacton that I had booked on a Tuesday, and therefore had found a fabulous deal on all our flights.  Yes, those of us in the know are aware that if you wait until Tuesday to purchase, you can snap up a ticket that would have cost twice as much on a Thursday or a Monday.

I was feeling good, okay...almost smug, about the series of tickets I had reserved - for parents weekend, Thanksgiving (changeable because I used mileage) and now move-in. 

But then my friend MOWCG/M (Mom of World Class Goalie/Musician) called and told me about her friend, whose son is currently in Boston for the Harvard admitted students weekend.  Not only did this smart mother book her son's flight on a Tuesday, but she brilliantly spent the entire day checking the fluctuation of the fare, refreshing the page over and over until the price of a round trip from LAX to BOS had gone down from $438 to $156! 

Yes, she should be proud that her son got into Harvard.  But that pales next to her internet ticket-booking skills.

Yale or No Yale - The Regular Decision Edition

A few months ago I posted the stats of three kids we know who applied Early Action to Yale.  Some details were disguised (i.e. Varsity Cross Country could be Varsity Tennis; Varsity Baseball could be Varsity Basketball; a double legacy could actually be a multi-generational legacy), but basically the thumbnail descriptions were accurate.

If you remember, Students A and B, profiled below, were both accepted to Yale in the Early Action round.  (Early Action, unlike Early Decision, means you can still apply to other schools...so if accepted, Yale can be your safety!)  Student C was deferred, but took it in stride.

So...is it Yale or No Yale for these kids?  Did Students A & B find an even better school in Regular Decision?  Did Student C get accepted, waitlisted or rejected?  Scroll down for the answer.  Look for the CAPS after each boy's profile.

Student A:

Caucasion male.  Attends top public school in a mid-Atlantic state.  Ranked #1 in his school.  2380 SAT, no prep, one sitting.  Captain, Varsity Cross Country.  Won a language prize and scholarship to spend a semester abroad as an exchange student.  Selected to do research in prestigous summer program - his evaluator said the student has the one of the greatest scientific minds he has ever encountered.

RESULT: ACCEPTED AT YALE, EARLY ACTION.  ALSO ACCEPTED REGULAR DECISION AT HARVARD, PRINCETON, PENN, DUKE, WILLIAMS, AMHERST AND SWARTHMORE. In the last two weeks he has overnighted at Harvard and Penn and attended an accepted student event at Princeton (where his mom reports there was a fabulous spread for the parents.)  Now he is headed to New Haven on Saturday where he will decide - Yale or No Yale.

Student B:

Caucasion male.  Attends top private school in a western state.  2380 SAT, no prep, one sitting.  4.0 unweighed.  School president.  Varsity Baseball.  Star of every school play - Performed at European arts festival.  Winner of national competitions for two musical instruments. 

RESULT: ACCEPTED, EARLY ACTION.  ALSO ACCEPTED REGULAR DECISION AT HARVARD AND STANFORD. Headed to New Haven on Saturday, then to Cambridge next Saturday. (Has already attended a summer program at Stanford so he's not planning a visit there.)

Student C:

Caucasion male.  Double legacy at Yale.  Attends small private school in a western state.  Three-sport athelete. 2310 SAT, superscore.  A bona fide genius - 3.9 unweighted without studying.  Several computer science awards.  Started his own internet business - has many customers in Asia.

RESULT: DEFERRED AT YALE EARLY ACTION, BUT...ACCEPTED REGULAR DECISION!!!!  ALSO ACCEPTED AT BROWN, PENN, WASH U, TUFTS AND BERKELEY.  Headed to New Haven this weekend and to Providence shortly thereafter.

Coming on May 1- Yale or No Yale: The Definitive Results

How to Reach the Neurotic Parent

Q:  I have stories too long for comment. How do I reach you?

A:  Starting April 18th at theneuroticparent@gmail.com

The End of a Mini-Series

We returned home safely from Belize a few days ago.  We're enjoying our bug-free, snake-free accomodations, but all of us do miss the jungle and the all-night chants of the howler monkeys.

While on vacation CJ was very uncooperative about finding out his friends' college results.  He did let us know that Mr. 2400 had been accepted to Stanford and that CF (Clippers Fan) would be headed to Cornell, but stubbornly refused to even peruse any of his friends' Facebook pages to find out where they would and would not be going. 

I,the Neurotic Parent, faced obstacles in my own investigation.  I tried to contact HOMFTE (Highly Organized Mom of Future Top Engineer), who had been maintaining a spreadsheet of the results of kids in CJ's grade, but she was on the Nile celebrating her son's acceptance to Johns Hopkins.  I did reach the MFFMD (Mom of Future Famous MD), who let me know that her son had been accepted to Williams (after being deferred), plus Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Tufts, Berkeley and UCLA.  And I managed to get news about the students featured in my Yale or No Yale post (more about this tomorrow).  But there was hardly any other substantiated news about CJ's classmates, teammates and former pre-school buddies.

I was not alone in my uninfomed status.  Other parents emailed, reporting that their boys "knew nothing" and were doing little to get updates about their friends.  CJ's high school's Naviance site, which reports college statistics, showed that students in his class had been accepted to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Julliard and Williams, but on closer inspection, it seemed that many of these decisions were old news (ED and EA) or might have reflected multiple positive results for the same students.

After 24 hours at home, many calls from parents, (including several from other schools) and continued silence from CJ, the Neurotic Parent just HAD to know.  As another Mom said, not finding out the results after all this was like missing the last episode of a mini-series. 

So I broke down and called a Girl in CJ's class.  Within minutes I had an accurate, comprehensive list of acceptances, denials and waitlist hopefuls, plus details about who was deciding between two or three schools. 

As I theorized, a few of the top spots went to the same lucky/talented students.  A girl who had gotten into Yale EA had been admitted to Princeton.  And another girl received offers from both Princeton AND Harvard.  Shockingly, although CJ attends a tiny school and has taken many of the most challenging classes, I had never even heard of one of these girls and barely knew who the other was...Most unsatisfying - sort of like new actors showing up as stars in the last episode of a mini-series.

Waitlist Donor Bank (Rerun)

I, the Neurotic Parent, am so relaxed after a snorkeling trip on a barrier reef that I cannot think of an appropriate college angst blog post.  (There was a high school senior on the boat who is deciding between Virgina Tech and Georgia Tech, but there's not enough of a story there.)

So, until I come up with new material, which will definitely happen when I return home and hear all the RD admissions stories, here is a rerun of a popular waitlist-related post from last May.

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Recently, the Neurotic Parent received the following comments from readers:

I have a niece who got into Middlebury off the waitlist and gave up her slot at Hamilton and her brother got into Emerson off the waitlist, which opens up a slot at Northeastern.  How long do you think it will be before you know who got their spots?

and

It was actually our Oberlin-bound DGC (Dylan-Ginsberg Clone) who happily gave up his Vassar space for the Santa Barbara girl.

These comments reflect a new trend that is unfolding for students who are admitted to their dream colleges from waitlists.  Mere acceptance was once cause enough for celebration.  But now many waitlist recipients feel a need to know the identity of the anonymous donors who made it possible for them to enroll at their reach schools.

With this in mind, the Neurotic Parent Institute has started a new foundation, Waitlist Donor Trace.  Using cutting-edge research methods, we will locate the girl or boy who gave your child the gift of matriculation.  And for a nominal fee, you can receive periodic updates about how your donor is faring at the better school that let him or her in at the last moment. 

We are also starting a Waitlist Donor Bank.  Top students can now be proactive in giving a lucky girl or boy their hand-me-down acceptances.  

So, if you are someone like Mr. 2400, CJ's friend who just achieved a perfect score on the SAT, here's a simple strategy that could potentially touch the lives of thousands of students all over the world:  Apply to eighteen colleges.  You will probably be accepted at sixteen.  Send in deposits to every college that accepts you.  Then, when you get the call from Harvard or Princeton, you can provide places to sixteen lucky waitlist recipients.  Not only do you get to go to a prestigious school, but you can also help other human beings in limbo, like the Middlebury and Emerson kids mentioned above.  

This act of selflessness will take much less effort than going to Namibia to work with the baboons, and will give you the incomporable satisfaction of having made a difference in the life of an eleventh grader who has had to overcome the misfortune of having been born in 1990 or 1991.

April Fools

You're in.....Oops - just kidding!

Here's a story about how UCSD inadvertently sent an email to all 28,000 rejected students telling them they had been accepted.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-ucsd-reject1-2009apr01,0,3442257.story 

Meanwhile, here I am, blogging from the jungle.  Despite an all-day blackout, CJ managed to find out that one of his best friends was accepted to Stanford...and that other classmates and friends got into Yale, Dartmouth, Williams, Tufts, Penn, Wesleyan and Oberlin. 

But somehow the more caves and Mayan ruins I explore, all of this somehow loses its significance.