Best Rejection Email!!

[Collegestress16]

<p>Eventhough I am devastated by the rejection, I really liked Stanford’s rejection letter. I know its lame, but it made me feel special and realize that no matter which college I attend, I can still be successful and happy. I;ve wanted to attend since I moved to California when I was 8 and it was a dream that I always thought would become reality. I studied hard and got straight A’s, joined Student Government, practiced sports, took photography classes, etc… I’m not going to lie, I did many things to pad my college resume, but in the end I loved every single activity I did. During first semester of senior year, I discovered College Confidential and it fascinated me to see students so incredibly talented who wanted the same dream.</p>

<p>I became addicted to CC, and scored the Stanford/ Ivy forums every day. I literally became obsessed with getting in and eventually lost sight of what I really wanted or even needed. I honestly thought I was going to die if I didn’t get into a top school. I spent countless nights thinking about what would happen. </p>

<p>Then I remember reading Shaw’s 2003 article after I applied to Stanford in December, and it was the turning point in my entire college process that made me realize that my college experience and future was going to be dictated by the choices I made and the determination that embodies who I am. In the end I’ll be at CAL next year and I’ll just keep remembering “There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them.” I’ll be successful one day, and it will be because I learned from this rejection and I’m going to be even more determined and stronger from it. </p>

<p>Anyways, I really like Stanford rejection email, it makes me feel like my life is not completely ending, but just beginning. For all those rejected like me, hang in there and I’m sure we’ll all be happy no matter where we go. We should just enjoy the rest of our senior year!!:):)</p>

<p>*Dear Collegestress16,</p>

<p>It is with regret that I write to inform you that we are unable to offer you admission to the freshman class at Stanford University. Please know that this decision does not necessarily reflect any deficiency or weakness in your application. To the contrary, we are humbled by your talents and achievements, and are impressed with the commitment that you have shown in all of your academic and extracurricular endeavors. It is unfortunate, and truly our loss, that we are not able to offer admission to more students from our exceptionally talented applicant pool.</p>

<p>We appreciate the thoughtfulness and care that went into your application and want to assure you that your candidacy received thorough and serious consideration. This decision should in no way detract from the very impressive credentials that you presented; due to the large number of applications that we receive for a comparatively small incoming class, we must unfortunately disappoint the vast majority of our applicants each year.</p>

<p>You should know that we arrive at all admission decisions by way of an exhaustive committee review process. As a result, all application decisions are final, and we are unable to consider appeals of any kind. To find answers to some of the most commonly asked questions regarding our admission process, click here. These should address many of the questions and concerns that you may have. I hope that any disappointment you may feel at this decision is tempered by the justifiable pride you should have for your accomplishments to date, academic and otherwise. To that end, I share with you an article I wrote for the Los Angeles Times in 2003 and have updated to be current for today.</p>

<p>I know this is not the news you hoped to receive, and for that reason we will not send a duplicate notification of this decision by mail unless you request one from us. If you wish to request an additional copy of this letter by mail, you may do so here.</p>

<p>Collegestress16, you are a fine student and I want to thank you for your interest in Stanford, and the effort that you put into your application. I wish you the very best for an outstanding undergraduate experience.</p>

<p>Sincerely,
Richard H. Shaw
Dean of Admission and Financial Aid*</p>

[arrrrr]

<p>I thought I was crazy in thinking that this was an awesome rejection letter. I’m glad we share that view. It made me feel safe and confident about my future.</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>Yes, Stanford has always been known for giving out some of the best rejection letters.</p>

[collegehappy]

<p>Collegestress, I actually have Shaw’s article saved on my desktop! i just read it for the first time a couple days ago. such great insight. and then just recently, i read a WSJ article about all these famous people who originally got rejected by their first choice colleges but still went on the be successful. you’ll end up somewhere great! good luck!</p>

[112358]

<p>I as well thought the rejection letter was very well done.</p>

[Jamie235]

<p>Same here.</p>

[xAAAx]

<p>It still made me feel worthless regardless of what it says</p>

[collegehappy]

<p>I felt really good about that Handala…until I saw you were going to Stanford. lol No, but really, it was well put and congrats (I assume you just found out today). Thanks. Unfortunately next week is my spring break, so April 1st is going to come very slowly. Ugh.</p>

[fuzzyfirebunny]

<p>I really like that they acknowledged it was “their loss.” Reading over the email again, I have to agree, it’s a good rejection letter… and I’m sure all of you will go on to do great things anyway :)</p>

[Sci-Fry]

<p>^ Congrats on your acceptance Handala! You truly deserved it (especially after MIT massacre), and I wish you all the best in your pursuits.</p>

<p>As for me, I’ll probably be going to Oxford next year (as long as I meet the IB conditions). It’s always been my first choice because I’m in love with the place and would only be 1 hour away from my sister… unless I miraculously get into Harvard… but things are looking grim after MIT and Stanford rejections. Berkeley Engineering made things better, though.</p>

<p>Congrats to everyone that got in. To all those rejected, keep strong and hold faith in the future. You are not defined by the university you attend, and nobody can take away the achievements that you take pride in. University rejections constitute but one of many potholes in life’s long and windy road… but the car always pulls itself to the end of the road, i.e. you can still be successful (lol my unsuccessful attempt at a metaphor).</p>

[tiachopvutru]

<p>Although I think the rejection letter is well-crafted, it didn’t prevent emotional damage. I got over it pretty quickly, though, after some reflections on how I haven’t tried hard enough (I only really started worrying about college beginning senior year).</p>

<p>The part of the rejection letter that touched me is the part where they say they wouldn’t release the letter by mail unless requested because it’s not a news the rejected student hopes to receive.</p>

[Collegestress16]

<p>I read the accepted email on the other thread, and I must say that the rejection letter was much more flattering:)</p>

[kwaldner]

<p>Don’t worry, there’s still stanford for grad school! :)</p>

[sleepmachine]

<p>Really? For some reason I couldn’t help but find it monumentally insincere.</p>

[blissfulting]

<p>@OP
I don’t know if I’ve seen you around before today (not you personally, your username, lol)…mostly because I’ve tried to stay away from the Stanford forum the past few months…but I just want to let you know that you sound like a really, really cool person.</p>

<p>You’re going to Cal? I may end up at USC, so we won’t be too far apart actually, lol. Here’s to inevitable success for the rest of our lives! ;)</p>

[Collegestress16]

<p>^ awwwww thanks! At first I was like “oh snap…someone from my school can actually tell who I am from my CC posts? Who could that be …?” But LOL, I haven’t been on any of my reach school’s forums in the past month, because then I start expecting too much. This is the first time, I’ve been on the Stanford page in about 2 months!! But since I don’t have that much hope for my other privates, CAL or UCLA will be where i go. USC is a GREAT school!! Good luck with H&Y!!</p>

[orangemarmalade]

<p>What’s this Shaw letter you guys are talking about? I’m interested in reading it.</p>

<p>And not to burst your bubble, but how do you know those aren’t form letters that Stanford sends out to its rejectees?</p>

[Collegestress16]

<p>I stole this from another thread ( BTW: Shaw actually changed this article in the rejection emails for this year) What are form letters?</p>

<p>

Rejected by Stanford? You’ll live</p>

<p>By Richard H. Shaw
March 30, 2007 in print edition A-29</p>

<p>THIS AFTERNOON, my office will send out nearly 18,000 e-mail messages to high school seniors who are waiting with anticipation to learn whether they will be invited to spend the next four years at Stanford.</p>

<p>While I have been in the admissions field for more than 25 years, I expect to be feeling quite a bit of pain at the end of this week (as I do each year) about the many exceptional youths who did not get offered one of the roughly 1,650 slots in the Class of 2011. I also expect that, in the following weeks, I will hear from parents who are understandably distraught that their sons and daughters with top high school class rankings, perfect 800 SAT scores and some truly impressive extracurricular accomplishments were denied entry.</p>

<p>Clearly, I believe that a Stanford education is wonderful, but my experience suggests it’s often parents who are more upset about our admission decisions than the kids. I can relate to their concerns: I find myself getting jittery as my daughter waits to hear from the colleges she’s applied to this year. But given that today’s teens already have enough pressure in their lives, I wish to impart three credos to these parents.</p>

<p>First, it’s all relative. While the number admitted into the undergraduate class has remained unchanged for years, Stanford, like many of its peer schools, has had a record number of applicants – nearly 24,000. Regardless of arguments over whether too much preference is given to one category over another, thousands of students are going to be turned away, and there is no doubt that the vast majority of them could have met the demands of a Stanford education. We could, for instance, have filled the incoming class four times over with applicants who achieved grade point averages of 4.0 or greater.</p>

<p>I wish there were a formula to explain who is accepted and who isn’t, but the decision-making is as much art as it is science. Each class is a symphony with its own distinct composition and sound; the final roster is an effort to create harmony, and that means that some extraordinary bass players don’t get a chair. What’s more, even among my staff there are legitimate differences about applicants. The bottom line: The world is not going to judge anyone negatively because they didn’t get into Stanford or one of our peer institutions.</p>

<p>Second, celebrate the bigger picture. Despite the constant media buzz about the turbulent state of youth today, most of the applications I reviewed – as well as those reviewed by my colleagues at Stanford and elsewhere – are truly remarkable. And in most cases, those denied admission to some schools are admitted to others. The transition from high school to college is a monumental turning point, and it’s more important to focus on how a young adult is moving on to a new stage than where that stage happens to be. This is the moment when parents should mark the success of their children and rejoice in the excitement that the next four years will bring.</p>

<p>And that leads to my final point: Education is what a student makes of it. Of course, certain schools have resources that others don’t, but they all offer opportunities to learn and to grow.</p>

<p>I am reminded of a teenager graduating high school in Sunnyvale, Calif., in 1975, who applied to only Stanford and one other school. He was understandably disappointed when denied admission here, but he later excelled as an undergraduate at the distinguished university across San Francisco Bay, UC Berkeley. He went on to earn a doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to become a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins. In 2003, he joined the Stanford University School of Medicine and last year was the co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.</p>

<p>Andrew Fire is not atypical when it comes to Stanford applicants. Nor for that matter is John Etchemendy, the Stanford provost and philosophy professor who also was denied admission as an undergraduate. Nor are any of the thousands of others who aren’t accepted into Stanford and go on to have fulfilling lives.</p>

<p>An undergraduate degree from Stanford, or an Ivy League college, may well end up being only one line at the bottom of a resume. What parents of college applicants across the country need to remember this week is that the news their children are about to receive, whether good or bad, is but a single step on a much longer journey.

</p>

[tant14]

<p>While I agree that the letter is well-drafted and thoughtful, the knowledge of the fact that everyone who applied received it as well sort of cheapens the sincerity behind those words considerably. But I genuinely believe that they didn’t have a blast rejecting me.</p>

[Tilgaham]

<p>I almost felt at peace after reading the email they sent me. It was like a good break up (if that makes any sense). Seems like a truly awesome place!</p>