The waiting season for Sherwin Francis is officially over.
Of the six colleges he applied to, five have sent letters of congratulations.
Only Georgia Tech, his first choice, rejected the Campbell High School senior.
Even with impressive test scores and grades, an abundance of extracurricular activities and great admission essays, students like Francis and their parents are discovering what school counselors have known for generations: No amount of "we know you will be successful elsewhere" encouragements is likely to dull the impact of "we regret to inform you."
The thing to keep in mind, they say, is most students will get in somewhere.
And since the annual trek to mailboxes isn't likely to end until Friday, the deadline by when most colleges and universities are scheduled to let students know if they were admitted, more regrets are likely to come.
“But life goes on,” Francis said.
And so all that remains for Francis to do is to commit to one of his other five choices by the May 1 deposit deadline.
Not all students are taking the rejection so well. For instance, some students began posting some rather heartwrenching missives last week on the University of Georgia admission blog.
One prospective freshman wrote, for instance:
“UGA was my dream school and this feeling I'm going through now is unbearably painful ... congrats to all freshmen who got accepted ... I'm very disappointed in myself and feel so sorry for those teachers and family who supported me.”
An out-of-state student wrote:
“I had the stats and was a legacy. I've wanted nothing more than to go to UGA my entire life but I guess everything happens for a reason.”
What all this sad news masks, however, is a happy reality: Most high school seniors don’t experience college rejections.
Madison Hufford, a senior at The Westminster School, certainly hasn’t. She applied to four and has been accepted at all four, including the University of Georgia, Auburn and Vanderbilt.
While she is leaning toward Vandy, Hufford said that when she began the application process, she didn’t have a favorite.
“A lot of people get attached to their first choice and then are disappointed,” she said.
Instead of fixating on one school and stressing, Hufford, 18, said she will rely on the feeling she gets from campus visits.
James Onwuachi, college counselor at Westminster, said that much of the anxiety experienced by students and their parents stems from our being a “statistically obsessed society.”
“Lost in all of that is what makes these schools better every day, and that is the humanity of the students,” said Onwuachi, a former college admissions officer for Vanderbilt and Oberlin College. “Students see themselves as numbers because the colleges see them as numbers, but every student has a unique personality that is a great fit for a college, and we lose sight of that sometimes.”
Although Westminster is a high-pressure academic school, Onwuachi said that there is a lot of angst associated with college acceptance.
“You hear about students crying uncontrollably in the middle of the day, students who are normally animated are a little muted and those who are pretty comical about it,” he said. “If I don’t go to college, I can always see about getting work on the street selling roses.”
At Campbell, Julie Hartline said that counselors created a large bulletin board in their office where students may list where they have been accepted.
“A lot of our students don’t have computers at home or are the first ones who are going to college,” said Hartline. “We wanted a way to celebrate their success.”
Because students don’t always get accepted at the college of their choice, Hartline and Onwuachi said they encourage them to apply to between three and five schools, including a safety school, one in which their test scores and GPA match their profile.
For 17-year-old Kelsi Brooks, it will come down to her financial aid package.
The Lakeside High School senior from Stone Mountain said she was wait-listed at Wake Forest University and accepted at Georgia Southern and Georgia College & State University.
She is waiting to hear from the University of Georgia, Davidson College and Sarah Lawrence.
But she said, “I’m not anxious at all. I know I’m going somewhere. It’s a matter of who offers me the most money and whether or not it’s the best fit for me.”
Ditto, said her mother, Pamela Brooks.
“I think my anxiety level was probably high around December and January, but we were relieved when she was accepted at the Georgia colleges,” said Brooks. “It’s ultimately her decision.”
If the college acceptance season is more stressful than usual for metro Atlanta high school seniors, it has less to do with what’s in the mail and more with what isn’t in their financial aid packages.
As paychecks and college savings accounts have shrunk and household expenses have risen, receipt of the good news of college acceptance hasn’t been the moment of joy it might have been in years past.
But most students will still get into college.
“That is the first truth,” Onwuachi said. “Secondly, the decisions are tough to take, but they are never personal. And then the last thing is where you get into school is not a barometer of how hard you worked in high school. It’s simply the place where you chose to go.”
He said that parents should keep in mind that the admissions process has changed dramatically from when they were applying to college.
And what about the counselors?
“Yeah, we’re nervous, too,” said Onwuachi. “We go to bed with some of this stuff because we know these kids. We want them to be happy. You hope you’ve guided them in the right way.”
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