The Long Wait

Take it from a college adviser: Students anxiously wondering if they got accepted by an elite school should be prepared for the thin envelopes even as they hope for the thick ones.

As a college adviser, I have an endless supply of hope. We are in that awkward waiting period between the early admissions decisions back in December, and the anticipation of late March or early April college decisions for the regular process. This is the time when students and parents come to us looking for reassurance: "Do you think Michael still has a shot at Yale?" And this has been a particularly long wait for those whose first choice is Harvard, Princeton, or the University of Virginia, as this is the first year that these three schools eliminated early admissions, sending a flood of early applicants to their peer schools instead.

Will spring ever arrive?

My hope, as an adviser, is that we have built a balanced list of schools for these students to apply to. If Michael only sent applications to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, we are in trouble. And while the graduates of my school, St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, are well represented at these colleges, our focus is in finding the right "fit" and not just trying to find the most selective schools where our students can be admitted. "Fit, not prestige" becomes our mantra as we help our students build their college lists. And parents and their children could stand to recite this a few more times themselves.

If you live in Massachusetts and your daughter has combined critical reading and math SAT scores between 1,200 and 1,300 and is applying to the most selective colleges in the Northeast, you will need to have more hope than other parents whose children have more realistic dreams and more balanced college lists. If she applied early to Yale, the results were probably not pretty.

Yale's early application numbers were up 36 percent (thanks to its friends at Harvard and Princeton), and it turned away a historic number of high-achieving students who had their hearts set on an acceptance letter by Christmas. So most of those students spent their holiday vacations applying to all the "lesser schools" on their lists, dealing with more application forms, more supplements, more teacher request forms and envelopes.

I find it hard to tell my college hopefuls, regardless of their standardized test scores, that they should not apply to Yale. We have some very high-achieving students at St. Paul's: Last year, we could accept only 22 percent of the more than 1,100 students who applied, and our students have average SAT scores of 675 (critical reading), 688 (math), and 673 (writing) out of a possible 800 in each section. But that does not mean they will get into Yale, much to the disappointment of our recent early applicants who were deferred (which means they will be considered again during the regular process). It is also a disappointment to the parents, particularly ones who insist (as one of our fathers did a few years ago) that "anyone who goes to St. Paul's should be able to get into Yale." I did not see what kind of car this parent was driving, but I am guessing it was a 1956 Eldorado with big fins, as it is clear that he was still living in the 1950s, when the college matriculation list posted in the faculty room here read "Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Other."

As a graduate of one of the "other" schools, I know that there are many other wonderful undergraduate opportunities out there, and our challenge as college advisers is to help our students and parents keep an open mind about their options. In other words, I am the Scrooge who tells them, "In addition to applying to Yale, you should also apply to Gettysburg, UNH, and Dickinson." When some parents hear this, they react as if I have told their child, "You're just not good enough."

Back in December, many early applicants got a cold dose of reality. But hope springs eternal: The sting of the early decisions has worn off, and the regular admissions deadline is around the corner. My colleagues and I will be holding our charges' hands while they wait - "Yes, of course we will support you in pursuing your dreams." After all, we are college advisers - we have an endless supply of hope. But having a balanced list of second-choice schools doesn't hurt.

Toby Brewster is the director of college advising at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.