Click. Check. Refresh. Wait.
Click. Check. Refresh. Wait.
Every year, high school seniors across the United States sit in their bedrooms in front of their computers, and they click, check, refresh and wait. They wait for a letter that begins with either “Congratulations” or “We regret to inform you.” Seniors who have planned their future around this letter that begins with “Congratulations” are forced to stop, take a breath and reevaluate their future when their letter begins with “We regret to inform you.”
For a majority of seniors, getting rejected or deferred from their top choice of college is their first rejection. They must learn how to react and approach the situation that involves them not getting what they want, even after they worked hard to get it.
Nadeem Sbaiti was deferred from North Carolina State University (N.C. State) after applying to the university’s Poole College of Management as a business major. Sbaiti had tickets for the N.C. State basketball game for Saturday, Jan. 30, the day he was going to find out if he was accepted.
“I went and I checked, and my heart started beating so fast,” Sbaiti said. “I opened it, and it was just like, ‘Hello, due to the academic competitiveness, we can’t offer you an admissions spot right now, but you’ve been deferred until a later time,’ and my heart just sank.”
Senior Mallory Mitchell was deferred from UNC-Chapel Hill, and later waitlisted.
“I was disappointed; I’m not going to lie,” Mitchell said. “Seeing everyone else post pictures of them getting in, it’s like, ‘Well, okay, I’m glad that you got in, but I wish I would’ve gotten in.’”
English teacher Jill Jackl was denied from her first choice, Bowdoin College, as a senior in high school. She attended the University of Hartford instead.
“I went to Hartford begrudgingly, because they gave me money, and it turned out to be fabulous,” Jackl said. “I got to know who I was…. Disappointment is healthy; criticism is going to happen your whole life, so how you use it defines who you become. You don’t get into your top school; you’ve got to go somewhere else, and how you use that determines how you’re going to go forward. I think that’s a lesson better learned young than older.”
Principal Justin Bartholomew was accepted into his top choice, Boston University, but was denied from their physical therapy program.
“I don’t like to lose at anything, so any rejection is horrible,” Bartholomew said. “But you know things have a way of working themselves out; if you don’t fail, if you never experience failure, then you’re never going to experience great success. You have to have those rejections, failures, mistakes that get made so that you know how to get better at something, how to do something better and how to push yourself harder than you had before.”
When outcomes of situations don’t go the way students hoped, they tend to question themselves about past decisions. If they would’ve done something differently, would the outcome still be the same?
Senior Ally Freeman was denied from UNC-Chapel Hill, and then deferred and eventually waitlisted from the engineering program at N.C. State.
“I think I definitely could have pushed myself a little harder in high school,” Freeman said. “I didn’t sign up for the SAT Prep Class either before they took it away, which I probably should have done.”
Sbaiti feels that underclassmen and rising seniors who are applying to colleges should focus on the standardized tests and being involved in school.
“Definitely do extracurriculars,” Sbaiti said. “I feel like that is probably why I got deferred and didn’t get denied. If you feel like you’ve taken the SAT or ACT enough, just do it one more time. Because you don’t know; you could just get lucky and get a high score.”
Mitchell agrees with Sbaiti but takes a more philosophical approach to what advice she wants to give underclassmen and upcoming seniors.
“I just want to tell future kids, don’t be scared,” Mitchell said. “Do your best, and honestly, if you get rejected, it’s not the worst thing in your life, because there are other schools out there that want you. And just because one school says that they don’t want you, that doesn’t mean that you won’t blossom at another school. Prove them wrong.”
After initially being deferred, Sbaiti was denied from N.C. State. He has come to terms with his initial disappointment.
“At first, I was so mad and upset and like, ‘This sucks. This is the worst thing that could ever happen.’ Now, I just see it wasn’t meant to be, at least for this year. I know that in the grand scheme of things, it’s only one year that I’m going to be missing out [on]. It’s not the end of the world for me. It’s definitely upsetting, but I’ll be fine.”
Callie Robertson, a school counseling intern and UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student, was initially denied from UNC but transferred during her junior year.
“I would say it’s fully fair to be upset about it; I was,” Robertson said. “It wasn’t like in that moment or that time I was super ‘Yay! Now’s the time to have an open mind.’ I would say that it’s okay to be upset about it, because we do plan things, and we do want things for ourselves, and that’s not wrong. But I would say that if it does happen, know that it’s because there could be something better…. It’s a choice to believe that something else could be just as good, if not better, than what you had planned for yourself…. Allow yourself to have an open mind amidst having a one track mind.”
Jackl often tells students to think outside the box when it comes to colleges and to have faith in themselves that they can handle the obstacles that life throws at them.
“This is what I tell students all the time when it comes to colleges: too often they get in the mindset of thinking inside the box and they lose the opportunity,” Jackl said. “I think it’s essential that students look outside the box and have enough faith in themselves that they can handle these opportunities that they don’t think are the best.”
Bartholomew believes that where a student goes to college does not determine their level of success.
“I would bet you, if you look at students I graduated high school with, it probably didn’t matter where they went to college,” Bartholomew said. “What mattered is when they got to college, what did they do with that experience.”
– By Hannah Gail Shepherd