Pearls of Wisdom: Risk, rejection and the real world

Contrary to the belief held by most high school seniors, the arrival of a particular fat envelope does not mark the end of the world’s most painful application process. Alongside the permission to enter the ivory tower of higher education, the college acceptance letter initiates an occasionally agonizing, frequently grueling bumpy road known as the Avenue of Ups and Downs, the Street of Dreams and Defeats, the Route of Risk and Rejection and, for lack of a better term, the Highway of Life.

Sure, high school has its moments of potential disappointment: the talent show, varsity soccer try-outs, scholarship applications, the fabled popularity contest of Homecoming Court. But for all the tears you shed, chances are, if you’re here now, you probably did fairly well during your first 18 years. Case in point: several of my friends, who applied early decision to Stanford, had never been rejected when they drove down Palm Drive for the first time. One girl even managed to avoid the college application process altogether: she was awarded a full athletic scholarship in the first week of November. Needless to say, the rest of the senior class stopped talking to her until our own fates were sealed.

Speaking of sealed fates, or at least the fantasy of them, remember your beautiful Stanford “S”-embossed folder which extolled the virtues of your tireless dedication? In case you’ve already forgotten, the same packet also contained a number of additional forms for programs with funny acronyms like FroSoCo and SLE. If ResEd’s marketing ploys worked, little Amy Admit celebrated her Stanford acceptance by beginning her next round of applications.

Those who decided to steer clear of the dubiously academic freshman housing may have delayed their induction to the process, but they were welcomed into the fold upon dorm check-in. Somewhere in the 10×10 room lay a Stanford Bulletin, containing hundreds of exciting course descriptions. While most of these courses offer open enrollment, a select few come with a caveat or two. The administration may be kind enough to move the HumBio core to Cubberley before rejecting anyone, but there are limits to Stanford’s open-arms policy: freshman year, it’s all about the Introductory Seminars.
Day one of my Stanford career gave me a chilling introduction to the dog-eat-dog way of the Rejection/Acceptance Game. After I had spent hours agonizing over my IntroSem application, I determined that, aside from IHUM and PWR’s ancestor WCT, the course “New Yorker Writers” was the only class worth taking. From the doorway of an overflowing classroom, the professor asked everyone to go outside while she posted the list of accepted students on the door; those who made it were to come back in; those who did not were asked to leave.
Although I was fortunate enough to be accepted into the class (I was right, by the way — the class was, hands down, the best course I took at Stanford), I learned a painful lesson that day: only those who apply to the popular seminars face the risk of rejection. Risk-averse individuals need only wait for the second week of the quarter when the ad for unfilled seminars runs in The Daily.

Next up: the activities fair. From a cappella to spoken word, flamenco dancing to rugby, the enticing tables set up in White Plaza invite newcomers and seasoned vets alike to try out for their next resume-padding group. The problem, of course, is that the rest of the applicant pool is comprised of Stanford students — not exactly the easiest kids to beat.

So, you made it through your first year, took an under-subscribed IntroSem and joined some audition-free extracurriculars? Interested in SoCo (that’s Sophomore College, not Southern Comfort)? Studying abroad? Going on an Alternative Spring Break trip? Writing an Honors thesis? Getting funding for undergraduate research? Unless you’re one of those lucky people who loves Russian or some other equally-obscure academic subject, it’s time to run the gauntlet again. If, however, you happen to be from South Dakota, you might be in luck. Another Econ-related lesson: it’s all about population density. When I applied to (and was rejected by) SoCo my freshman year, I just so happened to be a member of the largest applicant pool — who knew there were so many white, female fuzzies from California?
UROs and other research-related competitions introduce a new complicating factor: money. Suddenly, there is something more at stake than just your pride. Depending on who you are, there may not be anything nearly as valuable as your sense of self, but dollars do have a way of upping the ante.

Those heightened stakes, of course, are just a precursor to the real world version of the Application Algorithm. For most freshmen through juniors, the real world is only visible several days a year when companies descend upon campus for the free-product-giveaway known as the Career Fair, but once your fourth October rolls around, Cardinal Recruiting starts up and the heat is on. More than any of its predecessors, the job search is a daunting experience, perhaps because the contest and its outcome are no longer the side show. If you didn’t make the SImps, there’s always next year. No luck with tour guiding? Try writing for The Daily instead. Didn’t get a job during your senior year? Time to move home with Mom and Dad. Somehow, the last consolation prize is infinitely less appealing than the ones in the previous scenarios.
In my senior year, I applied to work at Google. Ignoring the fact that I was totally unqualified for the position and had no desire to work eighty hours a week, I followed every other scared lemming and headed to Stanford Goes Corporate. Despite the Friday happy hours, the IM volleyball, the dining halls and the “on-campus” speakers, I felt like I was dressing up to play the part of an adult. After five rounds of interviews, stretching from October to January, I didn’t get the job.
As with all hindsight, however, this rejection story comes with a happy ending: in contrast to my out-of-body experience at Google, when I walked on to the high school campus where I’d spend the next year teaching, I felt at home immediately. Not surprisingly, I got the job.

Moral of the column? Rejection is both everywhere and nowhere. That is, while you can’t escape the external application process, you can, hopefully, learn to separate your applications from yourself. The latter is much easier said than done, and I would be lying if I said my skin is now thick enough to resist the emotional plunge that accompanies rejection. But when it comes time to do it all over again this spring, I hope to apply my years of experience and not take the rejections too personally. If all else fails, I will relocate to South Dakota, where, according to my theory of population density, a Stanford diploma will open handfuls, if not hundreds, of doors. I am only slightly concerned about the supply and demand curves.

Despite the many doors opened by her BA in English, Lisa Mendelman has been rejected hundreds of times and lived to tell the tale. Fellow survivors can join her support group by emailing lisame@stanford.edu.