Happy New Year!
I hope you were all able to celebrate the holidays with your loved ones and are ready to tackle on the second phase of the college admission process: acceptance letters. Some people consider this part even more nerve-racking than writing a good essay, filling out paperwork, or just completing the application, but for me, I found that this is the part that can make or break a student.
Dartmouth College was not my first or second choice school. In fact, I never even knew about it until my senior year when I received a pamphlet from the College. The school I did know a lot about was the University of Southern California (USC). I dreamt of becoming a Trojan and cheering the football team at every game. So much was my devotion to USC that I didn’t even bother to research many other schools because I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else. So, when I received the rejection letter, my reaction was…well, let’s just say it wasn’t cute. I applied to nine other schools but I didn’t pay attention to the schools I actually got into, not even Dartmouth. All I could do was question myself; why had this school rejected me? Was I not competent enough? Was I not involved enough? These questions swirled in my head and tormented me until I realized this:
I was still breathing. I hadn’t died because a school rejected me nor was my life completely shattered because of rejection; it happens. I’m not saying it’ll happen to all of you (I pray that you all get into the schools you’ve worked so hard for) but the reality is that along with many of the exciting opportunities you will be offered in the upcoming weeks, you may also have some disappointing mishaps. If one of your friends gets into a school and you didn’t, be happy for them and support them. A rejection letter is no reason to get angry or sad with others or yourself, it just means that you’ll be able to share your talents and ideas at another institution. And who knows? You may find that you were meant for that other school you never saw yourself attending.