So... you didn't get in

Applying to College
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I’ve been thinking about this a lot since my daughter got rejected from her top choice last week, and in talking with one or two of my seniors last week.

Then, yesterday morning, I was watching What Not to Wear getting ready for school. (Don’t laugh, there’s a point.)

On the show, as always happens, a woman tried on a pair of jeans. They made her look fat, and she responded along the lines of “See? I don’t have the body for jeans!”

And the response of Stacey and Clinton? “It’s not you, it’s THAT PAIR of jeans… they just don’t suit your body. So take them off and try on another pair, and another pair, until you find the style that fits.”

See my point?

If you get that dreaded one page response from a college, it’s simply a sign that they weren’t the right fit.

My daughter, when she got the rejection letter, was hurt that her future was based on “numbers on a page.” And she’s right.
They didn’t reject HER, they rejected HER APPLICATION. There are so many wonderful things about her that that particular school will never know: her determination, her work ethic, her kindness, her sense of humor… and so much more.

Pretty much all they had was a series of numbers on a page, and those numbers weren’t a good fit. It wasn’t about HER, it was about HER STATISTICS. Sure, those stats paint a picture, but it can’t possibly be a complete picture.

I hope my early morning ramblings are making sense. If you do get that dreaded thin envelope, allow yourself a pity party… we always find that Ice Cream therapy is a help.

But then get over it. Don’t allow it to make you feel bad about yourself, since they never got to know YOU. Simply acknowledge that this one wasn’t the right fit, and go out and find the school that is.

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Thanks @bjkmom, I hope that lot’s of seniors read your post.

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Great perspective @bjkmom !!

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great post, @bjkmom

…and I will add a WNTW follow up / corollary: when you do get to college and it doesn’t fit perfectly, before you return it (ie, transfer), see if it just needs some alterations (ie, are there other activities/ other courses/ other housing/etc) that will make it fit better!

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Excellent point!

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@bjkmom great analogy!

I’m pretty sure UMD is gonna make my kid’s butt look big…

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LOL, gonna tell my son that Brown was just not his color!

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The problem is that the highly selective colleges urge kids to pour their hearts into their essays and promote the idea that they look at far more than just the numbers. Then they reject 94% of their applications.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-1011-orlin-yale-alumni-interviews-20151011-story.html (The illustrated version on the author’s blog, Math with Bad Drawings, is even better, IMHO.)

I don’t want to let my kid wallow in rejection, but I shouldn’t try to talk her out of her feelings either. Take time to be disappointed, then ice cream sounds pretty good to me, too.

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Love this!

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Excellent @AroundHere And the kids who get in believe they are spectacularly more qualified than anyone else. My friend was an interviewer for princeton for many years and none of the kids she talked to were admitted.

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@curiouspup Yep – lots of Resulting Fallacy going on…

Actually, the Resulting Fallacy is a great analogy for college admissions. You can’t judge the work you did on your application by the results you get. There are nondeterministic factors at play.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself when things go badly, and don’t be so proud of yourself when they go well.”

http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/the-resulting-fallacy-is-ruining-your-decisions

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@AroundHere that is brilliant- thanks for that link!

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@bjkmom This should be pinned! What a great analogy. I can’t wait until your daughter finds her ideal pair of jeans.

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I love this! It can be adapted in so many situations too. You didn’t get what you thought was your dream job, they didn’t reject you, they rejected your application. You didn’t get that home loan, they didn’t reject you, they rejected your application.

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Be careful that you don’t rationalize all your rejections away or you might find that you don’t change the things you need to in order to not be rejected.

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Right, of course. You can carry it too far. But I was writing in terms of college acceptances.

They say there’s a lid for every pot. My point is simply that if you got rejected, it wasn’t the right lid.

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^And there is more than one lid that fits most pots.

It’s all a journey. The path you take will offer things the there don’t. Be present and make the most of them.

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@Massmomm I like that! Maybe Brown isn’t my color…then again maybe it is. Thanks for the deferral, Brown :).

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^^ @sciencenerd123 , my son was deferred, then waitlisted, then rejected. It was a rough ride. Hope you have much better luck!

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@Massmomm That’s awful! Deferred then waitlisted is just mean. That happened to one of my friends last year at Harvard. She ended up getting into MIT, Princeton, Yale, & UPenn. She’s at Yale now and she couldn’t hate Harvard more!! It’s comforting to know that being deferred isn’t the end of the world. I’m sure your son ended up where he was meant to be, and so did my friend, and in the end so will I.