“My phone was buzzing,” 17-year-old Matthew shared in a Sunday message to 200 people. “I knew it was the time for early acceptance letters to start coming in.”
With great trepidation, Matthew logged onto his school’s college advisor portal to find the decision of his number-one school: denied.
He could hardly believe it.
“It was my dream school,” he said. “I had visited it and I was sure it was the right place for me. Why didn't I get in?”
You can imagine the feeling of loss, rejection, confusion – things we all feel from a rejection - whether it’s getting into college, getting a job or aiming for that brass trophy.
The idea of what we think is right doesn’t always match up with what actually
is right for us.
This year is especially stressful for families and students like Matthew. With the college admissions scandal bringing the selection process into the limelight and changes in the SAT and ACT, many parents are wondering how their child will be able to stand-out in applications, especially since the number of applications has more than doubled since 2002, to over 10 million.
And while many schools still accept most students who apply, highly selective schools have seen the window narrow: The number of freshmen enrolled at the top 100 most selective schools where an admit rate is below 35% is below 200,000 out of 2.90 million total freshmen in all post-secondary institutions.”
And there’s no let-up in sight for college competition: The number of first-time freshmen is expected to continue increasing, reaching 2.96 million in 2028.
Shifts in admissions can be a boon or burn. For example, the University of California is now admitting more students out of state with higher tuition benefiting their coffers. Diversity, too, can play a role – from gender to geography to race to experiences. Girls With Impact, a non-profit after-school entrepreneurship academy, has seen its students not only receive college scholarships as high as $200,000 in undergraduate business programs, but also win placements into the honors program.
For students like Matthew, early decision can offer several benefits: Certainty of the school they’ll attend since they must make a commitment and earlier timing. Early decision applications are submitted in November or December with decisions coming between December and mid-February, before the standard April period for those who operate under the traditional schedule.
So, here was Matthew, worrying like any other students: “I felt like I had to start over.”
Two more school decisions came in: deferral -- more common than ever now, especially with top tier schools.
A few days later, just one day before Valentine’s Day, he was skiing the slopes with his family.
He decided to shift his mindset and take a different attitude as he waiting for his final few decisions.
“If I got in, I would know it was the right place for me. If not, then there are bigger and better things to come,” he said. But somewhere, I know I’ll fit in.”
For Matthew, it was having faith in the process. Rather than fighting it, Matthew’s approach was to believe that things would shake out the way they were meant to.
The phone buzzed with a text that the decision had come. Armed with his new attitude, he checked his email: He was accepted to Washington University. Great job Matthew.
As Winston Churchill once said, “success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
In today’s world of increasing focus on entrepreneurship, innovation and fast-paced technology, we need to be able to embrace the fact that, sometimes, taking the well-trodden path or the proven path to success isn’t always the ‘best’ way.
If you have done everything you can to set yourself up for success, letting the answer reveal itself and charting a new course can sometimes turn out to be the best thing that could happen to you.
Do you agree? Do you have stories you'd like us to share about college, success and/or the workforce? Tell us.
Jennifer Openshaw is Founder & CEO of the non-profit, Girls With Impact, a business and innovation academy for NextGen girls.
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