Admissions Academy Blog

Admissions Decision Time

•  Posted by Sarah Ziegler on March 24th, 2010 in Admissions, Articles of Interest
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April 1 quickly approaches, the traditional deadline by which colleges will have notified applicants whether or not they have been admitted. Many students are already celebrating acceptances and scholarship offers from their top choices, and many students are already beginning to cope with the emotions of not being admitted to theirs. For both parents and students, spring can present a challenge to understand how or why admissions decisions were made and how to make the best choice for the next four years.

This is also the time of year that spawns articles about making the most of bad news or about how elite college admissions has become even more competitive than it was the year before. The Wall Street Journal, in anticipation of April 1, published an article highlighting “famous ‘rejects’” — from Warren Buffet to Tom Brokaw. All of the successful personas featured in the article were rejected from Ivy League schools — and most were rejected from Harvard — but found opportunities and mentors in their other college choices. While the sentiment that you can be rejected from Harvard and still be successful in life may help comfort students who find themselves in similar positions, what about students who weren’t aiming for the Ivy League? Why focus on admission to (or rejection from) elite universities that aren’t the targets of the vast majority of collegebound students?

Of the profiles in the article, the perspective of Lee Bolinger, Columbia University’s president, struck an important note: that students shouldn’t let other people’s (namely college’s) judgments about them determine their own self-worth. Our counselors keep another article around the office for this time of year: “Dealing with Disappointment.” True, it also comes from the alumni magazine of an elite university (Stanford), but the message of the article is not so much that you can be successful despite Stanford, but that it’s the individual who determines his or her own success.

For students who are dealing with bad news, remember that as much as hearing “no” may feel like a personal rejection, it isn’t. Selective colleges, whether Stanford or San Jose State, have more qualified applicants than they have space available, and the fact that you weren’t offered admission doesn’t mean you made a mistake or that the college didn’t want you. For parents, celebrate your child’s offers of acceptance rather than focus on schools that didn’t offer your son or daughter admission. Moving on from, rather than fixating on, the “no’s” can help students find a great fit in a college they may not have originally considered. Lastly, keep Stanford President John Hennessey’s words in mind: “the experiences [students] encounter and the depth of character they build along the way will mean far more than the name of the institution on their diploma.”

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