This month, seniors you are hearing back from colleges. Assuming you applied to a fair number, you will hear acceptances (yay!) and unfortunately denials too (boo).
I received a call recently from a student asking what to do after being rejected from his top choice school. Going into the admissions process, he had taken a chance applying there. His GPA was below the middle 50% score range of accepted students, and he opted to omit his SAT score. We both knew that the likelihood of acceptance was a reach.
Although we took this inbound perspective, he still wanted us to brainstorm together what to do. He asked if he should appeal, or if there was anything else he could do to convince them to change the decision. I took a moment to empathize with him, as I know what it’s like to want something and it not come through. But my advice to him, since he was accepted into five schools, was to get excited about those schools, as there were things he liked about them. Moreover after playing devil’s advocate with him, we came to consensus for why the other schools might be better suited for him after all.
