I hate to pile on, but I have to say that it does seem like there is something lost in translation here. I understand that in the end, Wellesley was the only financially viable choice and that Bethany decided that she would rather not attend there, but I am quite frankly confused by the fact that a student at the UIUC lab school did not have a list that was better set up to provide her with more than one financially viable option. Believe me, I understand that college admissions is difficult to gauge and that financial aid is unpredictable, but there are ways to craft a list to give oneself a much better shot at coming out with some good options, and I would expect the college counselors at a school such as this to be able to do that. Bethany only applied to 7 schools, and three of them--WashU, Pomona, and Duke--were highly competitive and probably reaches for a student with a 2120, which, while certainly a good score, is closer to the 25th percentile at these schools than anything else. That only leaves 4 schools that she could have likely be admitted to. Speaking as someone who spends a significant amount of time on a college admissions website and considers themself an amateur expert, this is not a good strategy for students for whom financial aid is a large concern. These students need to apply to more schools in general, and more schools where large merit aid is consistently available, and if anything fewer reaches. In addition, it is my fervent belief that a student who truly does their research in the fall should not end up with multiple schools that they "deeply regret" applying to in April. Not to be cruel, but there are students all around the country who attend far worse schools than the UIUC lab school and who are far worse off financially/socially who do a better job applying to college. I suppose Bethany somewhat admits that she didn't do a great job in the article, but still. In addition, I find the fact that Bethany is extremely worried about money yet will be spending her gap year on the (very worthwhile!) Rotary Scholarship somewhat puzzling. On the aforementioned college admissions website, there are plenty of lower income/low income/basically poor students, and they usually don't have the time/money for such a luxury. I understand that she is going on scholarship, and that I am not (and need not be) privvy to her family's financial background, but usually students with such money worries have substantial jobs and/or are looking for every opportunity to make/find some money for college. Taking time off and not spending that time making money seems like an odd choice to me. As far as Wellesley in particular, while I am sypathetic to Ray's comments on schools that talk about a social life being just a bus/train ride away, I would note that Wellesley makes it much easier than most schools who boast this claim, and that the students seem to take advantage of it quite often. I don't think that it is just the admissions people blowing smoke. Also, I'm not quite sure what the jab at cross-reg with MIT was about, but Wellesley students have full cross registration privileges, not just privileges at lousy classes that no one wants. Finally, though I am sure that it is difficult to receive criticism from strangers online, that is the risk one runs when putting oneself on the internet, and these comments are tame, intelligent, and well-written by almost any standard. One post questioning Bethany's judgement and one post that happened to miss the single comment in which Bethany said that she could not fly out does not "rude and meaningless" make. In addition, please do not regard my post as being rude--it is my straightforward appraisal of the article and Bethany's college process, not a personal attack on Bethany. If anything, this is more directed at the lab school counselors, who seem to have let Bethany down in this process.