Supporting Your Teen After Elite College Rejections

As college decision letters hit mailboxes (or email accounts) in April, thousands of accomplished high school students face rejection from dream schools like Stanford and Duke. For parents, it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see incredible kids get turned down by elite colleges despite straight A’s, stellar SAT scores, top AP scores, and armloads of extracurricular achievements. How can parents best comfort and encourage their teen after such a significant letdown?



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Here are five tips for helping high-achieving students emotionally move forward when the Ivy League — or Ivy-plus schools — don’t come calling. 

  1. Listen with empathy as your teen processes their disappointment. Allow them to express their emotions rather than minimizing their feelings. This is a loss to them that they need to grieve.
  2. Gently reframe the outcome as an opportunity to find the best college fit without name-brand pressure. Many amazing schools recognize their talents and want them on their campus!
  3. Praise their hard work on applications and all they’ve accomplished in high school, no matter the admission results. Rejection is common with single-digit acceptance rates.
  4. Shift the focus to celebrating and visualizing positive futures at the schools where they were accepted. Help them imagine how they’ll thrive by visiting accepted schools, connecting with students, and researching the schools with their new admitted-student perspective.
  5. Seek counseling support if your teen becomes depressed or their self-esteem plummets. This result is not a judgment of their worth or potential — it’s simply a numbers game.


The college admission process can be a rollercoaster. Support your wonderful teen in building resilience and staying positive despite elite college rejections. The future remains theirs to shape. With empathy, perspective, and celebration of success, you can support your remarkable teen in finding happiness and opportunity wherever their college journey leads next. 


We encourage parents to read the book Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be by New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, which puts the whole crazy college ride in perspective:


People bloom at various stages of life, and different individuals flourish in different climates. For every person whose contentment comes from faithfully executing a predetermined script, there are at least 10 if not 100 who had to rearrange the pages and play a part they hadn’t expected to, in a theater they hadn’t envisioned. Besides, life is defined by setbacks, and success is determined by the ability to rebound from them. And there’s no single juncture, no one crossroads, on which everything hinges.


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