Some positivity (hopefully for all of you)

I’m a parent, and frankly I am a little worried at the amount of negativity and despair I am reading on this sub. As RD decisions trickle out this month, I’m afraid this will only get worse. So I’d like to hopefully bring some perspective and positivity to this.

I’m sure most of you realize this - the process is set up to have a lot more rejections than acceptances. If my ballpark calculations are correct, there are almost 10x as many total rejections as there are acceptances for T50 univs. Even the best/luckiest students can end up with more rejections than acceptances. This is unfortunately built into the design of the application process.

This creates a LOT of unwanted and unnecessary noise. A number of you are high performers and haven’t really faced this level of academic rejection before. Neither have your parents in most cases. So there is a cyclical effect of gloom-and-doom where every rejection gets accentuated. And because there are 10 times as many rejections, it feels like that’s all you hear about.

But remember, you can only go to ONE university. All you need is ONE acceptance to make the whole process worth it.
19 rejections + 1 acceptance = a successful application process.

I have been through this process with many kids, and every single one of them has gotten into at least one of their realistic target schools. So I guess all I am saying is that DON’T lose hope and get negative. You just need ONE, and it will come. Stay calm, listen to some good music, and imagine yourself laughing about how silly this month was a decade from now.