I’m in a posh (very un-DC) boutique hotel in Arlington, here for a work function and just got off the phone with C. Tearfully she told me that she had received the dreaded thin envelope from the DC private school that she had soooooo wanted to go to. The verdict: waitlisted. But at close to $30K a year it was always going to depend on receiving a very large amount of financial aid. The fact that admissions was not needs blind, that the application asked if one was applying for financial aid, surely played a role. I read it as an acknowledgment that she would be in the ball park for admissions, were it not for the money. And although I hate to say it, it’s easier than if she had been accepted but not received financial aid. Now that would have been a difficult conversation. This takes it out of our hands.
Thankfully C. has a sleepover birthday party to go to this evening, which I hope will lighten her spirits and provide some consolation. On Monday night there’s a big meeting for all the students going to the IB program and their parents, and and on Tuesday morning she has a chance to really see the building, visit classes in session, register. I hope the excitement of all that, will win her over. But in the meantime I forsee a good deal of brooding and why me?’s.
I know that’s how my daughter would respond – lots and lots of brooding (with some snapping at the family thrown in for good measure!) … hope the birthday party takes her mind off it and hope she finds she really likes the IB program!