College admission has been my career for nearly eight years, but prior to jumping onto this side associated with desk, I invested two years as a school that is high in my house state of Louisiana. We was never formally the school’s ‘college therapist,’ so I was spared from having to compose hundreds upon hundreds of letters royal vegas flash of suggestion. But during those two years, because of my role as moderator regarding the scholar Council, I was in a position to get to know a range seniors have been going right through the admission process. Even as we prepare to mail out decisions regarding our scholarship decisions, that I believe will leave a significant number of students dissatisfied, confused, and questioning our judgment, a certain meeting with one of my personal favorite Student Council members is fresh on my brain.

With regard to this story, let’s call him Scott. Scott was the superstar of our school. He was Class President each year during high school, he was the pep rally emcee, and if I were to continue listing all his accomplishments, I would go well over the word restriction that this weblog allows. To top it off, he had been just an incredibly likeable kid. I surely got to know Scott real well since I relied on him for a great deal of what our Student Council was asked to do. Scott had the period that is final of school day down, in order my time was winding down, he would often come by my office to hold out.

One day, with a couple of months kept in his senior year, Scott arrived by looking as bummed out as I had ever seen him. He shared he had been denied admission to his top choice college with me that. To make matters worse, one of his true close friends, who he had planned to room with on campus, had been admitted. We did not really know what to Scott to aid him out. In ‘counseling school,’ we learned that sometimes, the approach that is best to giving advice to someone who is depressed is not say such a thing at all, so that is what i did so.

That this rejection was probably the first time in nearly four years that Scott had been denied something as I was driving home, it dawned on me. He ended up being selected for each leadership position, each club, and each team that he searched for during senior high school. And now, he had been told ‘No’ by an university. Any of us in Scott’s shoes would react the way that is same after several years of success we were suddenly faced with what seemed such as for instance a failure.

After pouring through hundreds upon hundreds of applications during our scholarship review process, and having to deny so numerous fantastic students the chance to receive a scholarship, i’d bet that many of our applicants feel like Scott did on that day some seven years ago. My amazement at just how much our applicants accomplish during their high school careers is matched by my disappointment we can’t make it work with all of them. It is the ugly truth of our process, and of any admission that is competitive, for that matter.

But let’s go back again to Scott for a moment. Three years ago, he had been visiting Los Angeles, I got together for dinner so he and. He’d just graduated from university, where, to no surprise, he previously once again be a frontrunner on the campus community, albeit at a campus that was not his first choice school whenever he was a high school senior. And I also’ll never forget what he stated when he told me personally that he’dn’t gotten into the graduate program he was hoping for: ‘I’m not worried. We’ll eventually figure it down.’ Just What I discovered in that moment is that of all the great things Scott discovered since he left senior school, the best of all was the ability to cope with rejection. He don’t become an epic failure like he might have felt when he had been denied from his fantasy school, in which he had grown up so much in just a few short years.

So at the moment whenever our scholarship decisions have gone lots of you feeling a glum that is little we hope Scott’s story provides some comfort. Rather than harping on the loss of a scholarship, attempt to concentrate on the opportunities that still lie ahead. You might not recognize it now, but there are more out there than you can possibly imagine.

Photo Diary

March is a pretty awesome month. Spring is right across the corner, we have been wrapping up choices on thousands of applicants and it’s my birthday thirty days! We all know it’s tough waiting to hear back from us and we’ve discussed just how to stay busy during this time around. While you all are looking forward to us to send out final choices, we are putting in very long hours to get everything out for you on time.