Dealing with denial

It’s December, so acceptance notices are coming in for early applicants. That means, of course, that denials are also coming in for early applicants. All denials—colleges use “denial” instead of the harsher and more emotional “rejection”—feel bad, but the first one feels the worst. It especially feels worse if it’s from an Early Decision or Early Action application and you were hoping to be done with the whole process by now. I spent an entire morning reading through web pages on “how to deal with rejection,” and most of them deal with being rejected by someone you ask out on a date or being fired from a job. So here is my college admissions-specific advice about working through your first—or second, or twelfth—skinny envelope.

First, understand what you’re looking at: is it a no or a maybe? If you applied EA or ED and you don’t get accepted, then they’ve probably deferred your application and will reconsider it with the regular application pool. If you applied regular decision, you may be placed on a wait list rather than be denied. The good news is that a deferral or a waitlist isn’t necessarily a denial—you might still be accepted. The bad news is that it’s still probably going to be a denial in the long run. Take a few minutes to do some quick searches and see if you can find any stats or statements about that for the particular school. Remember, though, that the percentage of deferred or waitlisted students who were eventually accepted last year doesn’t mean that’s how many will be accepted this year. But it will give you an idea of what you’re working with.

If you applied ED, then this means you need to make sure you have other applications ready to go for regular admissions deadlines, probably around January 1st. That gives you several weeks. That’s not a whole lot of time, but you were probably working on them anyway. You’ve got time to catch up.

If you applied EA, this probably doesn’t change much. You were already working on other applications and weren’t completely sure you want to go to this one school. Otherwise, you would have applied ED. So you’ve got emotions to work through, perhaps, but you’re on track.

If you applied regular decision and got put on a wait list, I think you should just probably tell them to bug off and not think about them any more. There are other schools that want you.

If you got bad news of any kind, you may be wondering what you did wrong. It’s normal to do this, to want to know that one thing that messed things up for you: they must not have liked my essay, or my test scores were too low, or even I know someone with worse grades who got in, so there’s something unfair going on. Let go of this thinking as soon as you can. It’s normal, but it’s not useful or productive. Holistic admissions means that there’s no one thing that you did wrong. It’s just not that simple. The truth, which you may find reassuring and/or frustrating, is that you probably did absolutely nothing wrong. It may be that you did everything fine, but the school had more applicants who did everything fine than they could accept. This is why, other than politeness, they don’t call it a rejection.

If you’ve got emotions about the bad news—and you probably do—then you should work hard to name them and understand them. Work on at least one sentence that follows the “I feel _____ because _____” pattern. I feel disappointed, because I really wanted to go to that college, and they denied me. I feel discouraged, because this denial makes me question how well my other applications are going to go. I feel embarrassed, because I acted as though this was going to be my college, and now I have to find another one. You’ll probably have more than one feeling, and they’ll change over time. If you’ve got negative feelings, that’s not a problem. Don’t listen to the folks who tell you not to feel that way. You don’t, in fact, need to stay positive. But one of the most productive ways to make sure your negative feelings don’t sabotage your chances with future applications is to have a clear idea of what your feelings are and where they’re coming from. Naming your feelings is a way to help keep them from controlling you.

Remember that you planned for this. In its current form, a lot of the college admissions process isn’t based so much on people saying Yes as it is on people saying No. Colleges get a lot of credit and prestige for denying people. “Elite” and “low acceptance rate” are almost the same thing, and a low acceptance rate actually makes more students want to apply to a college. While the majority of colleges don’t operate this way—around 80% of colleges and universities accept at least half their applicants—almost all student applicants plan on being told No and also plan on telling at least one college No. If you’re hoping to have more than one acceptance so you can compare quality and/or financial aid, then you’re essentially planning to say No to someone. So it hurts to be a student who hears No and has to wonder if they’ll get into a good-fit school. And it hurts to be a school who hears No and has to wonder if they’ll make their desired yield. But being told No is part of the system on both sides, and you’re prepared for that.

The only thing left to do is take the next step. And unless you applied ED to one school and haven’t got a back-up, you already know what the next step is. Feel disappointed or frustrated or sad or embarrassed or whatever else you feel, and then finish up those other applications if you haven’t yet. Don’t decide that you need to change your list based on this one piece of bad news. Just do what’s next, and you’ll be fine.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts: “What to do when you get waitlisted” and “What are your chances of getting into your top college?”

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

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What to do over your winter break

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! The first day back from Thanksgiving may seem a little early to be writing about what to do over the winter break that’s still a few weeks away. However, I know many students are already planning for—or at least daydreaming about—their winter break already, so it makes sense to go ahead and start thinking about it a little.

These suggestions are made with seniors in mind, but they’re good advice for anyone with a few weeks off this winter.

Rest. This sounds obvious--of course you're going to rest. You have several weeks with no school! But for lots of students--and adults--it never quite seems to work this way. You stay up too late, thinking you'll sleep in, and then you have to get up earlier than you expected. Or you spend too much time in bed or on the couch, and you feel sluggish and dumpy. You can only get good rest from your break if you decide that you're actually going to and schedule for it. Decide that you're going to get 8-10 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night, and then plan accordingly. The time you spend awake will go much better if you do.

Spend quality time with people. Now is a great time to catch up with friends and family, but, like good sleep, quality time with people is also elusive. You go to parties and gatherings, you have text or Snapchat conversations, you spend a little time with people...and then you realize that you didn't really have any good conversations. Quality Time is usually thought of as time you spend with another person giving them your undivided attention. Schedule some time for this with a few good friends and/or family members.

Re-assess. Now is a great time for reflection and regrouping. Here are several exercises to try to keep that conversation with yourself productive and useful.

Highs and lows. Like a lot of families, at our dinner table we often go around and share our high and low moment of the day with each other. It's a better conversation starter with school-aged kids than "how was your day?" and it reinforces that every day has both the good and the bad. Take some time thinking about--and sharing with someone else--your high and low points over the fall semester and your college quest. What worked? What didn't? What felt good? What felt bad? Consider it all.

Two-month time machine. When evaluating your semester and planning ahead, think about a two-month time machine. If you could go back two months to re-try the fall, what's one thing you really wish you could change? You obviously can't really do it, but it's a good way to think about "lessons learned."

Restate your dreams and aspirations. Take some time and write a personal mission statement for the year, especially if you're a senior and moving on to college next fall. Or if you don't want to be so college-centric but want to spend time thinking about what's really important to you, try the "last-year test" method of thinking about New Year's Resolutions. 

Read. It's really tempting to read nothing--or nothing of merit--over the break. You've read so much over the past few months, so why do it on vacation? The answer is simple: now you get to choose what to read, and you can make engaging your intellect fun for yourself. Besides, if you're ready to concede that the only reason you read or learn is because you're assigned to by authorities, then you may want to re-think the whole college thing. Take back control of your mind by reading something. It doesn't have to be Important Literature if that's not what you like, just choose not to be a mental slacker.

Don't do any more college stuff than you absolutely have to. As contrary as it may sound, you really should use your time as a true break and not college-planning time. If you put things off with the idea that you'd do them over break, that's perfectly normal. But get them done first and with focus. You're not going to send out good applications if you're finishing them a little bit at a time while you also finish gift shopping and meet with friends. Make a plan to finish your college to-do list as quickly as possible into the break. If you have December 15th or January 1st deadlines, get those things sent out first and with focus. There's no good reason to wait until the 14th or 31st to send those out.

Don't expect other people to work over the break just because you do. Virtually every year of my time teaching high school I got at least one over-the-break plea from a student. They wanted one last look at an essay, or a last-minute recommendation sent, or help getting their English grade up a little but before the final grades were turned in. How I responded depended on the nature of the request and the student doing the requesting. Sometimes it really was an unexpected opportunity for a really on-top-of-things student, and I happily did what was asked. Sometimes I put forth a minimal amount of effort to just get along. Often I just said no. But please remember that sending other people things to do over the break feels about as crappy and unfair to them as it would to you if they gave sudden unexpected homework over the break. Don't do it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out three related Apply with Sanity posts: “What movies should you watch before going to college?” “College-bound students do their summer reading,” and “What are the strongest signs of success?”

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.