Helping Your Senior Deal With College Rejection Letters
. Posted in College Admission, College Applications, College Bound, Parent-Child Advice - 0 Comments
This time of year, a lot of excitement is in the air for high school seniors. However, it is possible that your child may not be accepted to every school they applied to, especially when it comes to “reach schools.” The Admissions Office does not know your child personally, and a rejection letter is not an attack against who they are. Making admissions decisions is a complicated science, and if your child was not accepted to a school, the reasons may never be known to you. It can be disappointing and very difficult to deal with these rejections, but it is necessary to remain positive and focus on finding the best fit of the schools to which they were accepted. These schools see something in your child that makes them think they would be a strong contributor to their institution.
Your child’s rejection may have come as a result of limited space available in the incoming class; with more and more students applying to colleges, there is a decreasing amount of space for universities to accept students. While this may mean your child will not be able to attend immediately, as you might have hoped, they can always reapply. Transferring to a different college or university is a path which many people choose to follow. Doing a year or two at another institution may help get their grades up, and show that they can succeed in a college setting. Although they will have to begin the application process over again, if they truly have their heart set on one school, this is an option which should be explored.
While a rejection letter is hardly pleasant, it is also not the end of the world. Explore other options such as going to another school and transferring, attending another school altogether, or taking some time to figure out what is best for them. Wherever they do end up, what will determine how successful they are is their hard work and dedication.
Read more about how to help your senior deal with this process:
Dealing With Rejection From Your Top College