Whats your story?

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>Here's how it all went down, for me.</p>

<p>So I'm at my job. The hour is winding down, and I'm biting my nails in anticipation. Thankfully, I just brought myself a new cell phone, so I'm playing with that to pass the time and im browsing facebook and telling people to be ready for 5:00.</p>

<p>Then, at 5, I log in, but it doesnt show up!!!</p>

<p>I check my watch and surely enough, the clock struck 5:00 but on the early decisions website...nothing! </p>

<p>Great, my watch is 2 minutes fast.....stupid watch. </p>

<p>Anyway,I just keep refreshing the page over and over again. Then suddenly, the screen is illuminated by the words "CONGRATULATIONS!" </p>

<p>I don't even read on before I'm jumping up and down in my cubicle hugging my boss - shes just as happy as i am. She pinches me to verify that I am not dreaming, but no, it is all real. I just got accepted into Penn. </p>

<p>"Lets go for a walk", she says, and she grabs me by my arm and leads me throughout the entire second floor, telling anyone who will listen "congratulate my intern, he just got into Penn."</p>

<p>Hugs, smiles, handshakes rain down on me in a torrential flood of praise. I am a star. </p>

<p>After about a half hour, I finally go back to my cubicle. The list of people that I have to call is long, and grows longer with every new person I think to call. First my best friend:</p>

<p>"Yo,--"</p>

<p>Before I even get a chance to tell him, he goes "You got in!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!" </p>

<p>"Ummm, yea, thats wat I was gonna tell you," I say. He must have known by the excitement in my voice that I had been accepted - I didn't even have to tell him. </p>

<p>So we talk for a few minutes as we make plans to celebrate tomorrow. After saying our goodbyes, I call my grandma. </p>

<p>"Gran, I got into Penn!!" </p>

<p>She screams with delight. She tells me of how proud she is of me, and how much she loves me. I love her too; I will hate to leave her come next september, but I will always be near. </p>

<p>Next, I blow about $50 sending a mass text message to every friend, acquaintance, and stranger in my address book, telling them of my new phone number and adding that I got into Penn. The $50 that I spent doubles as a flood of texts come back to me. </p>

<p>My phone bill is going to be sky high, but I don't even care. I got into Penn. </p>

<p>I call a few more friends and family, and I print out about 50 copies of the decisions page. I change my facebook status as well. I check on my other friends who applied ED to Penn from my school. Did they get in too? Were they sharing in my boundless ecstasy or had the unthinkable happened to them? </p>

<p>All three of them got in too. I was glad - I didn't want to feel bad for anybody.</p>

<p>I hug my boss goodbye, and skip out of my job. On my way home, I cant think of anything else but how fortunate I am to have made it. </p>

<p>There is a God. </p>

<p>Not that I was denying that fact before, but I'm just saying. There really, really is.</p>

2

<p>Funny story…Well Congratulations, I thought it was going to end in that the Congratulations was actually a typo and that you had told everyone of your acceptance even though you were really rejected, but that didnt happen so congrats</p>

3

<p>My whole school knew. I have a big mouth, and a lot of caring classmates. I was shaking the whole day through. People wouldn’t stop with reminding me:</p>

<p>“Only 6 hours, 24 minutes left…”</p>

<p>“5 Hours, 12 minutes…”</p>

<p>“3 hours, 44 minutes…”</p>

<p>I was surprised there wasn’t something from a friendly teacher in the formal morning announcements. I spent the entire day fixated on the clock, as did all of my friends who had absolutely no interest in Penn, but seemed to take a keen interest in my getting into Penn. Last period came, and I was released from school because my teacher was absent. I got a ride home and was in my door by 2:30.</p>

<p>I couldn’t stop moving. I tried playing ping pong against a wall, I tried pacing through my house, but nothing could calm me down until I played some Billy Joel through my ears. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. </p>

<p>My mother came home at about 4:30, my father at 4:45. The plans were set: once I get the good news, we’ll hightail down to Philadelphia, swing buy the Penn bookstore, and buy anything that caught our eyes. Then we would go out and get an exquisite meal together. That was my Christmas present. I asked my parents to let me have my privacy and allow me to see my decision in the basement, and they understood.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE=Eric Kaplan]
*Dear Andrew,</p>

<p>I am sorry to notify you that after reviewing your application thoroughly, our selection committee is unable to offer you admission to the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 2012. All aspects of your application, the academic and the non-academic, were considered carefully and compared to those of the rest of the applicant pool.</p>

<p>Perhaps the most difficult part of my job is writing similar letters to thousands of students, whose accomplishments are promising and exciting. I realize that Penn was your first choice school and it might be particularly difficult for you to learn of this decision at this time. I assure you that the selection committee gave your application every consideration, but, because of an unprecedented number of outstanding applicants we have to deny admission to a large majority of the remarkable students who seek admission to Penn. Most of our applicants are qualified to pursue successfully a program of study at Penn; however, only a relatively small percentage can be admitted.</p>

<p>We are pleased to have received your application. I am sincerely sorry to disappoint you, yet trust that you will have other opportunities to attend another very good college. I wish you the best in the future.</p>

<p>Sincerely,</p>

<p>Eric J. Kaplan
Interim Dean of Admissions*

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>I stared at it for fifteen minutes. Reloaded several times. Watched my friend EDers get in and be ecstatic, and I just couldn’t participate in their joy. I hadn’t even been deferred, I was the only one in my school outright rejected, and the only Penn ED reject in recent memory, and I never thought of myself as the least competitive candidate. I had never even thought of attending a different university, and now it’s a cruel reality. </p>

<p>I walked up the stairs of the basement and embraced my parents as we cried together. We would not be visiting the Penn bookstore tonight - we would not be going anywhere tonight. We sat around the living room and tried to make sense of it all - how kids in my school could seem less qualified and get better decisions.</p>

<p>Sending those text messages, emails, and phone calls - to family, to friends, to teachers, to those I met at Penn over the summer at the program I attended - were some of the hardest things I’ve ever had to relay. I never wanted to take this too roughly, but I’m crushed.</p>

4

<p>Sigh I feel for you Jeydomz. That’s almost what happened to me. Most of my friends got in ED but I did not. I remember reloading it several times too. </p>

<p>But you understand that you applied to Wharton. Which is harder than Columbia, Brown, etc. It’s so difficult to get in.</p>

<p>Yeah it hurts for me too. I cried for almost an hour and I normally never cry. I never felt so bad before but forget Penn. You’re better than it. You don’t need it.</p>

5

<p>Jeydomz, I feel with you. I too have a very large mouth and basically my whole school expected me to get in at 5:00PM today. I have a legacy and some very good connections at Penn, and also have a strong academic record that would make me competitive even without my legacy. Anyhow, there were a few other students in my class also applying to Penn ED, and I beleived I was a much stronger applicant than any of them. So, as I sat down to read my admissions decisions I was expecting an acceptance, and seconds later I was viewing the same message that Jeydomz saw. I was horrified and must have reread it 15 times to make sure. Penn was the perfect place for me, and I have never even thought of going to another school and here I was veiwing a rejection letter. Two of the other kids from my school who have a worse GPA than me, got deffered and two others got accepted. I don’t understand any of this and am in a state of shock, its not even like I got defferred, I got flat-out rejected! Oh well, **** happens.</p>

6

<p>

</p>

<p>Better than an institution with tons of star professors, brilliant kids, and research money? That’s <em>cough</em> a bit arrogant <em>cough</em>.</p>

7

<p>All those who are rejected, let us not be bound to the nightmares of the past but to proceed with new hope!
What else can we do besides anyway. We are not even deferred. Ha.</p>

8

<p>PlanPlusDebater, theres a bunch of star professors, there only one YOU.
Your life is from your own perspective.</p>

<p><em>cough</em> SHALLOW <em>cough</em></p>

9

<p>And btw PPD, I would love to have been accepted. That’s why I applied ED. It was my dream school. But the thing is I was rejected. So it’s time to suck it up and move on. Penn isn’t everything. You choose how you want to let the rejection affect you.</p>

10

<p>Very well stated celcius</p>