<p>I posted my reflection, below, to console re: rejections and the crowd went wild – actually one student there encouraged me to also post it on this particular thread, so here it is: </p>
<p>Education is an interactive, transactional experience. Once you get wherever you WILL go, that mutual exchange will become your education, not the name of the school offering it to you.</p>
<p>From the outside you can know very little and some places seem so appealing. But once you are on the inside of wherever you will go, that’s where the real learning and growing begins.</p>
<p>I learned this from my kids. Eldest was so disappointed when he didn’t get his dream school on ED. All winter he wouldn’t tell people (b/c everyone and their uncle asked…) what he thought of the other 7 places he applied (in addtion to hoping for the carryover from the ED place). In his mind he tried to make them all his “second choice” equally rather than create a mental ranking list. He said, “I’ll wait and see where I get in and then I’ll take it from there.”
Soon after April 1, he had answers from all 8: accepted to 4, rejected by 2 (including his ED hoped-for), waitlisted by 2.</p>
<p>THEN he prioritized among the places he was accepted, immediately withdrew from one of them. He made some phone calls, contemplated revisiting one but didn’t, and just announced it as his decision. What began as a passionate quest turned into a rational decision-making process for him. I was witness to that journey. We didn’t care where he went since all 8 places were worthy and each had a flaw. Some were Ivy’s, some LAC’s, although none were public so there was no signficant difference in the finances to influence the decision. One small difference financially did cause him to toss out from among the 4 that accepted him, however.</p>
<p>Off he went in the Fall. He was excited and curious about his new adventure, but I could tell that the rejection from dream-school still lingered in his mind, since he’d become SO attached to it. </p>
<p>In October, we got a wonderful email home, all about how he was loving his courses, being in college, making friends, meeting his professors, on and on. He wrote, “If I could have known how HAPPY I’d be in my ‘second choice’ school it would have been my #1 all along!”</p>
<p>But he couldn’t have imagined his joy before he actually got there and began interacting with his own education.</p>
<p>Before that, all this is the shopper’s view from the outside.</p>
<p>For a while, since he was in a better position to hear about lots of schools once he got onto any campus, he picked up negative little vignettes from people who had sibs or whatever at his original “dream school.” Based upon what demonstrably thrilled him at his actual school, he realized that his learning style better matched the school he was in. Darned if the school that took him hadn’t perceived that “rightness of fit” even better than he could have!</p>
<p>I hope that my story helps a few who find meaning in it. You are not buying a commodity here; you’re gaining entree into a learning situation in which you will have many astonishing choices in the place you DO attend. You can’t even know what they are, but the things that could make you happy next fall might include: a dedicated professor; a major only that school offered well; a favorite cafe; some quiet place on the campus you choose that makes your spirit soar everytime you stop there. These things aren’t on any tour or website because only YOU discover them, and that won’t be until next fall when you’re in your “not-first-choice” place.</p>
<p>Trust yourself. You are young enough to have had one dream but old enough to catch the next wave, too. The next wave will probably take you further if you let it, and you will.</p>