It's That Time of Year...Dealing with Rejection

Spring brings heartfelt and revealing articles and columns about handling rejection when the college of choice denies or wait lists a student.

One making the rounds this year is a column by Mitch Ablom. It certainly resonated with one high school senior. A teacher who's on the Mom's College Cram Course panel told me about a student of hers: valedictorian, taking college courses already and getting As, but still deferred from Columbia. The young man said he thought this column allowed him to feel that someone really understood the plight of college applicants.

Back when I was applying to colleges, admissions wasn't an industry and as far as I remember, it wasn't particularly newsworthy. Too bad. I could have used some insights, and perspective, when I was dealing with wait list and rejection pain.

But it does seem to hold true. We all wind up at the right place -- or we learn how to make it right. And that's a life skill we'll all need, at least occasionally.

Selectivity

It's a crazy world when top-tier colleges seemingly brag about how few students they accept. And it's even crazier when the statistics really don't back up the braggadocio. The Answer Sheet, the Washington Post blog by Valerie Strauss about colleges, looks at this issue and offers studies that indicate there are more slots at some of these colleges than before. The post also reminds us that a number of those students applying to the so-called best colleges have no chance in hell of getting in -- their grades and scores make it unrealistic to even contemplate admissions success.

Then again, just as we are seeing documented changes in how people spend and how they think about value and what is important (something good coming out of the ugly, sad and unnecessary recession?), maybe we will start being more pragmatic -- more selective ourselves -- when it comes to thinking about which colleges make the most sense.

Learning from Rejection

These are scary times for high school seniors as they discover where they've been accepted -- or not. I still remember an April day, during spring break, when I was home and waiting for the mail. Except the mail was late due to a substitute postman, of all days. So I passed the time talking with friends who called to share their fates.

Finally the mail arrived and the news was not what I had hoped for. I'd been accepted at fine schools, just not the one I'd wanted. I spent the next week or so analyzing my situation, opted not to wait for wait lists, and made my choice. There was pain, but it was soon overtaken by graduation, a summer job, and excitement about a new chapter, even if it wasn't the one I'd counted on.

Around this time of year, you can always find stories about how people deal with rejection -- or perceived failure -- including getting a thin envelope from their college of choice. They're worth reading, whether you're in high school, in a challenging relationship, or struggling to find a job. An astute friend pointed out a good example. Even though it was J.K. Rowling, and even though she was giving the 2008 commencement address at Harvard, she makes good points, in memorable fashion, about what she called the "fringe benefits of failure."