He got in his early decision app to Brown. I was looking through their "facts and figures" and realized that his chances are all but zero. I'm depressed. I'm sad. I'm heart broken because I know when he gets his rejection it's going to break his heart. I've tried to prepare him, gently, but I think when the reality comes it's going to really hurt him. Would I love to see him at Brown? Yes, I would love that. I think it would be a great environment for him. A city but a small city. A smaller school but not too small. A place where free thinkers and people like him ABOUND. A school that is very liberal leaning and GLBT friendly. A place far enough from home to force him to become more independent and find his way and yet close enough to home that coming home for family celebrations and holidays would be easy to do. A place that he can take an hour train into Boston OR a 2.5 hr train into the city. It would be a GREAT place for him. It's not going to happen.
Why is it not going to happen? Because last year he got fucked by his two year science project. He picked out a nearly impossible subject of testing spiders on different substances (caffeine, diet pills, and ADD meds) to see the effects on web building. He worked on this for a year and a half and ordered spiders that he NEVER GOT. He then had 2 weeks to completely REDO a 2 year project, all his back work, redo all his paperwork, all his EVERYTHING and find a new subject. Find test subjects. Do his testing and get his experiment done. So he basically did his 2 year project in 2 weeks. He got an A- (which allow me to be perfectly honestly and say I would have been as generous had I been the teacher grading it and would probably have given him a B-). So he passed his science class with the ridiculously high grade that he always did. However in the process he basically had to decide what else needed to be sacrificed so that he could pull that off... and he picked social studies (an AP class). Now while my son is brilliant social studies has ALWAYS been his worse subject and while he has always gotten straight A's in everything else for the most part he almost always gets B's in social studies (with the occasional but not very common A). We've always been fine with this. We've told him that not everyone is interested in everything and we know he works hard but history is NOT his bag of chips. He doesn't like it. He really really really doesn't like it... he kind of hates it. So really I think it was not a struggle for him to decide what class he would let fall by the wayside. He got a D+ that marking period for history. Thus TANKING his GPA as well as his class rank.
His class rank placed him in... wait for it... the top 11% of his class. Great. Just great. I had his GC figure it out and had he not tanked that class for that one semester he would have been in not only the top 10%... but the top TEN... period... not percent. His GPA would have been ABOVE a 4.0 as well (instead of the 3.84 that it currently is). So... because of those two factors that's why he won't get into Brown (and likely not into Columbia either). His SAT's are fabulous and well within range. His ACT's are outstanding. His GPA and class rank are going to keep him out and it just breaks my heart and infuriates me all at the same time. It was a sucky situation that I admit was in large part his own doing for picking a topic for his 2 yr. project that was "over reaching" and we told him at the time it was. It was NOT, however, his fault that the guy we paid in advance for spiders for his experiment never delivered them :(
So I'm sad. I'm worried. I'm obsessing... because you know that's what I do. I worry about how it will effect his ability to get into other colleges he wants to get into. Ugh. I don't even need to get into the whole "my boy is leaving" thing again now do I? How it's going to wrench my heart and kill me a little bit inside. How I don't know how I'm going to get through our days without him. How.... how... how much it's just going to hurt.
I know we have to get through this... I just don't know how.
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