coping with college decisions

to all seniors/class of 2019:

the first wave of college decisions have hit us, and many more are coming next week. personally, mine (for a dream school that i’ve been in love with for over ten years hahaha lol xd) comes out in a few hours as i’m writing this.

although i’ll be heartbroken/devastated/just plain sad seeing a rejection or deferral, i’ll know i did my best and i won’t regret a single thing i’ve done in high school. i’ve accomplished so much more than i ever could have imagined, and had so much fun in the process. and best of all, i was able to grow as a person.

but i’ve seen a lot of people attach their self-worth to their results. i just want to say: please don’t.

every year, more and more people are in pursuit of higher education but there are the same amount of spots. so every year, getting into college is getting more and more competitive. i can’t even imagine how hard it must be for admissions officers to determine how one student “deserves” more of a spot than another. and honestly, it’s gotten to the point where they can’t even make that distinction, and a lot of the process relies on luck to some degree. 

my interviewer for the mentioned school is a movie director, and she told me something she tells a lot of actors: “you can be the best actor in the room, but you had the wrong eye color”.

the idea here is there are TONS of amazing applicants, and you can even be the most qualified. but there are so many small details out of your control. maybe they were looking for someone from the east coast. maybe they had too many trumpet players already admitted. maybe the admissions officer was having bowel issues and mistook the feeling in their stomach as something to do with you. 

in other words, it’s not personal. it might feel incredibly personal, to write essay after essay about your deepest dreams or secrets or passions, and lay out your entire life in some pages of application. but the admissions officer gets like, 15 minutes to scan through all of that, and sometimes it’s just plain random. 

if you get into a college you love, congratulations!! you deserve it and i’m so glad all your hard work has paid off.

if you get rejected, it’s okay. i know it doesn’t feel like it and you think “ok well haley you don’t even know me how do you know it’ll be okay” well i know that if you’re so passionate about something, you’ll do amazingly no matter where you end up. please don’t let this lower your self-esteem because honestly, this college decision is not an indication of your worth as an applicant/student/human. i love you & i believe in you!

(sorry if none of this made sense. just wanted to get this out in writing before my own decisions come out)