Facing College Rejection By Claire Terzich, Nicole Watson, and Wynne Bendell AHS Class of 2018 alumnus Noah Bendell who currently attends UC Berkeley. Bendell remembers how the first college rejection felt and how it hit him hard. “It was shocking and a bit of an ego hit and for the first one I got and applied early too I was actually crying and each one after that it was hard. I eventually grew numb to it, but it did not feel good.” Bendell said. During senior year of high school, students send their applications out to colleges and receive acceptance or rejection notices in the months that follow. Currently, with the rise of competition, rejection is a reality applicants have to face more often. The amount of people applying to UC Berkeley has increased significantly since the early 80s. In a report, “Freshman Admissions at Berkeley: A Policy for the 1990s and Beyond”, it’s shown that in 1984 12,381 applicants applied and 6900 were admitted, which was an acceptance rate over 50%. Fast forward to the freshman class for fall 2021, as shown on the University of California Admissions website, with 112,838 applicants to UC Berkeley with only a 14.5% admitted rate. Physics teacher Jeff Jorgensen applied to UC Berkeley in 1984— along with another school Cal Poly which he got rejected from—and was accepted. Jorgensen compared the expectations for college applicants from when he applied to current applicants. Although, he acknowledges the contrasts of the college application environment, from the 80s to recent years. “You want to have things that make you stand out, just like people are concerned about today. So the standards were extremely high even 40 years ago. But I don’t think the number of people applying was as high as it is now, but it was less common for people to apply to many universities.” Jorgensen said. Math teacher Toby Jaw applied to UC Berkeley in 1993 and was
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accepted, but faced rejection from 4-5 other schools. Currently, Jaw observes students facing more rejection and sees the divide between different groups of people. “I see more competition, I see more rejection, I actually feel like for students nowadays it’s a lot harder to get into elite schools, I think that on many levels there is this divide between affluent people and people who are struggling and I think that that divide is getting wider,” Jaw said. Science teacher Samantha Johnson applied to UC San Diego for undergraduate degree in 2001 and was accepted, but faced rejection from eight other schools. After arriving home from Spring break during her senior year, she was faced with eight rejection letters. Although, a notification from two UC schools gave her the acceptance she needed. “I just opened rejection after rejection and being like oh my god I’m not going to get into college.” Johnson said. “I remember being really scared that I was not going to get in anywhere and I was really upset about it. I was disappointed because I didn’t want to go to a UC I wanted to go to a different school. So I was really bummed about it, but I rebounded really fast.” Johnson advises that people don’t see rejection as a failure but as an opportunity for growth that one may have never received, if they hadn’t been rejected. “I think that, when you face rejection, you have an opportunity to do something either different or radically different than what you thought you were gonna do and that frequently provides you with an opportunity that you wouldn’t have had normally. And that is a real opportunity for growth or progress that you wouldn’t normally force yourself to do and so looking at rejection as an opportunity instead of a flaw or a failure I think is probably the best way to go.”
