<p>A teacher at ds1's school wanted to start a wall where the kids post their rejection letters as a way to make light of the whole process and show how everyone gets rejected from somewhere. Some people loved the idea; some people hated it.</p>
<p>Does your school have anything like that? I thought it was kind of a good idea. Kids don't have to participate if they're REALLY embarrassed by their rejections. </p>
<p>I guess in my thinking this kind of wall would show everyone's in the same boat and take some of the pressure off.</p>
<p>I think it's a great idea, but not one that would fly at my d's school.....kids wouldn't buy into it IMO (but that may change after this afternoon....ha)</p>
<p>I think the idea would work better if the school's name (emblem, etc.) was blacked out. It would be easier for the students to post their letters and reduce any feelings of comparison that would arise while still getting the message across.</p>
<p>My daughter's high school did this, but it wasn't a school-supported endeavor. The kids just spontaneously decided to do this, and of course no one was forced into bringing the letters to school! My daughter said that lots of kids hand-wrote on the other kids' letters, "I got one of these too!" So it was a carthartic experience. Personally, it's not something I would want to do!</p>
<p>D2's school has a "Wall of Shame" for posting rejection letters in the senior commons. It's completely student driven and voluntary. In fact, a number of parents got upset about the whole idea last spring and appealed to the administration to forbid it--but the students just kept posting letters. D's says its comforting to know that you're not the only person getting bad news.</p>
<p>Definitely comforting to know your sorrow is shared! And good for the rejectee to trivialize the rejection by making a celebratory collage out of it rather than obsessing over the loss alone. It's also helpful for the junior class to be aware of the realities of rejection.</p>
<p>My kids' high school also has a wall of rejections. I think that we should be able to share disappointments as well as accomplishments. With top schools only admitting a small percentage, we know there are a lot of rejection letters out there!</p>
<p>S's school had a student-initiated wall of shame for ED - I don't know if it's still going on for RD, but it seems like a great way to overcome the disappointment.</p>
<p>If you stand back from one of those walls and listen to student comments, many are pretty harsh and nasty. I find it hard to see how this exercise is really very supportive.
I like better the tradition on a certain day in May where all of the seniors wear the sweatshirt of the college they are going to in the fall....really, this is about finding one great school and the rejections are irrelevant.</p>
<p>Last year at the high school I worked at a girl came in and had just been rejected at a school. She felt as though she was the only one. I informed her she wasn't and she said she wished she knew who else had been rejected. So, I put up two boards...one says, "We Got In, Let's Celebrate," the other says, "We Got Rejected, But It's Their Loss." Kids then just place post-its on the boards as they get accepted, rejected. I can't tell you how helpful it has been for kids...and they can choose whether to put something up or not, so there is no pressure. For some it takes a couple of days to put it up, but it has become part of the moving on process.</p>
<p>And then when May 2nd comes (and the "silly season" of college applications is over for another year,) we have a Fire and Ice Celebration (not an original idea). We burn the rejections and we celebrate with ice cream sundaes. This will only the second year we've done this and already I heard seniors stating that they can't wait to burn the rejections.</p>
<p>The B school I went to had a similar "rite of spring" for 2nd year students. The idea was to bring in your worst "ding letter" -- what we called the rejection letters from prospective employers. Many, many students received ding letters w/ major typos, bad grammar, etc. The best was one my friend received -- he'd never even interviewed with that firm! Of course this was graduate school, so there was more than ice cream involved for refreshments!</p>