this is a great article containing wise advise that all college applicants should read.
"I can’t see myself being happy with any of the options I have. In addition, it is quite painful to see others celebrating acceptances to my dream schools when I am still, quite frankly, in mourning over what could have been. I feel like the butt of a very cruel, drawn-out joke, one which had me vastly overestimating my ability to achieve at the level of higher education I aspired to.
Is it that I am stupid and no one ever let me know? How can I be respectful and celebratory of others’ achievements when I feel awful about myself for failing at my goals? Where do I go from here? "
Sigh. Applied to schools that she doesn’t want to attend. Some dudcsccelt her. Too far away , she says. Well, they didn’t move.
Nothing you can do about how you feel. Of course the student is upset. Rejection really hurts. Sometimes forever. You find you can’t dwell on it as much when you are busy. Busy working on getting ready for going to college can take up a lot of brain units.
I hope that young woman throws herself into the college she’s attending.
Re: “If your self-worth is tied to being better than others, then, you’re headed for trouble.”
However, lots of things in life are competitive, where you have to be better than (some) others in order to achieve your goals. Admission and merit scholarships at many desired colleges is one obvious example; in college, there is competition for grades when “grading on a curve” is done, and the competition becomes high stakes for students who are pre-med, pre-law, or attempting to get into an oversubscribed major. Getting a job is a competitive process. Keeping a job can be competitive (ask someone in an “up or out” type of job, or where forced ranking is done in performance reviews, or where the employer is shrinking for whatever reason). Those looking for a spouse are also in competition with others of the same gender and orientation.
Of course, when the competition is higher stakes, it can be more stressful and unhealthy, perhaps leading to unsavory “cutthroat” behaviors. In a broader sense, a society with less of a social safety net forces competition to be higher stakes.
@ucbalumnus
Although I understand your point, I respectfully do not believe that certain economic or political systems, in themselves, cause a greater or lesser degree of cutthroat competition. However, one could argue that the existence of free enterprise in itself does permit an “unlimited” level of competition which some will see as opportunities to vanquish their competitors.
I sometimes think adults use the wrong metaphors to discuss opportunity and economics. For example, one of my graduate school professors once compared the American economy to a pie (frequently used metaphor) and lamented the “fact” that when some have a larger piece, others have smaller pieces. That’s a pretty static understanding of economics, and I think the same happens with college admissions. Certainly, if the circumference of true opportunity is admission to a finite group of elite private schools, then those not admitted are consigned to “smaller pieces,” but that is simply not the case, as demonstrated repeatedly on CC and in the NYT Comments section of the article. I hope you would agree.
Maybe a better metaphor is seeds or plants, nourished and trimmed and bearing fruit – or not. One can inherit or purchase an entire vineyard and then let it rot.
The pie can get bigger or smaller. When the pie gets smaller, or is widely seen as getting smaller even if it is not, then there could be more incentive to compete, sometimes in a more “cutthroat” manner.
While it is true that there are plenty of unwanted pie pieces for the taking in the college admissions pie, it does look like there is an increasing tendency for applicants and parents to feel that only the more selective colleges are desirable (i.e. increasing “elite or bust” mentality, perhaps driven by perceptions of the overall economy). Such a perception, regardless of whether or not it is true, can increase the level of competition in what people think of as a zero sum game. Yes, it is their choice to restrict themselves to a zero sum subset of the game, but have you seen students striving for USC and UCLA (with realistic chance of admission) being happy to attend CSULA (or SFSU or UCM or UCR etc.) as their backup?
Methinks there are a lot of pies out there, even though people are fooled into believing that you must eat of only one pie for college success – a small pie with10 slender pieces, too thin to subdivide.
I’ve seen too many successful people to believe that prestige equals success. It doesn’t. In fact, life is NOT a competition and it’s a fallacy to believe it is. The job market is about unique fit and qualifications. There’s an abundance of available jobs for those willing to work for them. Of course it’s not easy, but nothing in life ever really is. Everyone has a unique set of skills to contribute and there’s always a job to fit those skills.
There isn’t just one pie that just randomly gets smaller or bigger. Though granted, many factors are out of your control, you could bake your own pie, learn how to bake pies, invest in good pie bakers, trade pieces of pie to get the type you want, and more.