Tis the season of college mail once again. By March, many colleges send out their acceptances and rejections to students all over the country. Between FAFSA, scholarships, graduation planning, extracurricular activities and grades, this certainly is a stressful time for every senior deciding what they will do after high school. Yet the most gut wrenching thing to deal with in this chaos is rejection.
You may be rejected from your top choice, second choice or even your safety school. None of us really know how the admissions team chooses their students anymore. Lots choose to admit students purely based on scores, other times it's a holistic review and sometimes, I swear they're just flipping a coin. Overall, rejection is going to inevitably happen in our lives at some point. I have had my fair share of rejection lately, however every time it has happened, I have always seen another path open up. Remember, the dreaded thin letter is simply a thin letter. This piece of paper says nothing about your worth, creativity or potential. Rejection is tough, especially if you had your heart set on something; however learning how to handle the unfortunate event can help in the long run.
1. Stay healthy! Run around, play sports, eat an apple. All of these little things will accumulate together to help you. Most of all get your sleep! Sleep is crucial to your body. You may not realize it, but keeping your social, physical and mental well-being is by far the most important thing in your life. Let yourself feel sad for a while and speak to people about it -- you are letting yourself grow through that process so be proud of yourself.
2. Treat yourself. This could be completely contradictory to my last point, but go ahead eat that giant pizza. Do not eat a giant pizza every day, but my point is, if you want to just sit down and consume every edible thing within your arms radius a couple of times a week, do it shamelessly. You are awesome and deserve junk food, nights out with friends or a mani-pedi.
3. Remember it's not the end of the world. You have an entire lifetime. Not getting into a school does not indicate that you won't be successful. Your drive and persistence leads you to success. Good examples could be Halle Berry and David Karp. Those two had such a passion for what they did that they let a once so called hobby soon became a blown out career for themselves. So just keep going. This may be a bad moment, but in due time things will work out the way they should.
4. Explore other options. This generation is insanely lucky to have schools that give you the luxury of different options. You may have been neither rejected or accepted but instead offered a summer program to complete in order to be admitted. Do not rule out that option. The university is giving you a second chance to prove yourself so go for it. You may have also been accepted into others schools, so don't rule that out either. You can also transfer to your preferred university after a couple of semesters at a community college. You and your family get to save more money and you can get a better feel of what a college is like. So relax if you had your heart set on a school. With an open mind, you will find a way.
5. Love yourself. This is a simple yet also very difficult task to achieve. Loving yourself is accepting yourself completely. Trust yourself and trust that you will succeed. Everyone will have obstacles on their road to success. Here's an idea to try: When I was having a hard time, I used to always write three things on my mirror in the morning and erase it later that night. I wrote three positive things that I liked and looked forward to. It's a confidence booster and another way to practice self-acceptance. Know that your worth is priceless and that your potential is greater than you. If you ever need any advice, watch Barney Stinson -- he is one to call himself awesome.