While we're on the subject of schools, imagine my surprise when I turned to page A7 in yesterday's SF Comicle and saw a photo of the BHS' Burlingame B bulletin board. The article described a trend at "prestigious" high schools that students are posting their rejection letters from college admissions offices. It's apparently an attempt at some sort of cathartic release. The reporter profiled Lick-Wilderming in SF, Paly and BHS. Good company, no doubt.
For many high school students, the pressure to get into top colleges is intense, with students striving to get straight A’s, excel in extracurriculars, demonstrate leadership and share their unique qualities in a perfect essay. Acceptances are celebrated while the rejections are shouldered in silence, the letters starting with “sorry to inform you” stuck on repeat in their internal soundtracks.
Students at some of the Bay Area’s most prestigious public and private high schools, however, have decided to fight back against the pressure, publicly posting their college rejection letters at school in what students said is a cathartic sharing of grief and an acknowledgment that rejection is a normal part of life.
The article goes on with the usual back-and-forth about the wisdom or damage of doing this vis a vis other students, parents, administrators, book authors, etc. You can read through it yourselves for a taste of the high school zeitgeist. The local angle is
At Burlingame High School, senior Arda Inegol applied to 29 colleges in the fall, including some of the top universities in the country, hoping his 4.33 GPA, his impressive extracurriculars and athletics would result in a flurry of acceptances this spring. “Sometimes not everything is as you expected it to be,” he said. There was a day, he said, when four rejections came in. Eventually he had 13 “we regret to inform you” letters in hand, 11 acceptances and spots on five waitlists.
At school, it felt like everyone was just talking about acceptances, Arda said, as if rejections didn’t exist. He felt his classmates should create a sense of unity from the experience and suggested to administrators and classmates they create a rejection wall. His principal, Jen Fong, embraced the idea.
“It’s a really important way for students to express their disappointments and join in solidarity,” Fong said, adding there is great concern for students’ mental health coming out of COVID. “It’s an opportunity to normalize a negative experience.”
No body should expect to go 29 for 29 regardless of one's resume. Admissions officers have multiple parameters, some of which have nothing to do with the individual applicant. For example, school-based or region-based "quotas". And given what we are learning from the recent Supreme Court ruling, there are even more factors--not all legal or ethical. Inegol noted:
“Once this whole process is over, you realize that it was so stupid. No college defines who you are,” he said. “Eventually you do get into a school that fits you well. I am happy where I will end up.”
I would add even if the first school doesn't fit right, you can always transfer. It's pretty easy--just keep the grades in good standing. The real world is full of opportunities for disappointment. When they turn into "shame" is when a rethink is in order. If the bulletin board helps, go for it.
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