A year ago, uneasiness consumed my being as I awaited news from Northwestern University’s final admission decision after being deferred to the spring round. Later, the email declaring my rejection had found its way to my inbox amidst numerous other rejections and waitlist notifications. I was devastated to say the least; which was expected after writing and perfecting over 30 essays and short response questions, touring campuses in uncharted territory and building up an unshakable optimism for the future. I can’t begin to explain the heaviness of rejection and how impactful it became in my everyday life. Sitting in my classes during the last semester of my senior year was torture as I second guessed myself, reevaluated my choices and vented to my closest peers and teachers about the injustice within the college admissions process. I just wanted the choice, I remember saying with anger and sadness streaming from my voice, to leave if I wanted to, to grow, to become the person I once thought I had wanted to be.
Now a year later, I’m going to be a second-semester freshman here at Arizona State University, the public university within a thirty-mile radius of where I grew up, majoring in a program that I would never have imagined myself in a year ago. My view from 14 floors high consisting of a mountain, a small man-made lake and the mountainous terrain not too far off in the distance. It is a view that I would never have thought I’d get to see, a view I never thought would be as comforting as it is today. I have good days and I have bad days like every college freshman, and sometimes I close my eyes and envision myself along the edge of Lake Michigan with Northwestern in the background and think about how very different my life would be if I had been accepted as I had once so desperately wanted. I envision the snow gently falling around me, the wind chill causing my entire body to shake as my nose quickly turns red. In my dreams, my nose would always turn red because I forgot to put a scarf on, an essential piece of fabric for those living in the windy city. For me the scarf serves as so much more than a piece of fabric to prevent me from getting a cold; the scarf was the one thing I needed the most to be successful but left behind because I never wanted to admit that I needed.
As we’re growing up, packing up and moving up in the world, we think that becoming the person we want to become is as simple leaving our past behind, leaving behind our failures, our sadness, our anger, and our regrets, or in other words, forgetting our scarves. I wanted to leave behind who I was to become who I wanted to be, and learned the hard way that life rarely works that way. As humans, we don’t change; we evolve. For me to evolve, I had to take who I was and develop and work with my own thoughts to become a better person and only then would I become the best person I could be. For me it started on a sunny day in August, not knowing where I stood or what my future would look like, and I think we have all experienced this moment at one point or another within the last couple of months and remember it like it was yesterday.
For all my fellow freshman who received rejection letters and are still struggling to find their place within the campus they willingly or not so willingly committed themselves to for the next four years of their life; keep on keeping on. Wander, make new friends, be open to new experiences, find what you’re passionate about, and remember what pushes you to get out of bed every single day.
Over Christmas Break, I made the short drive to my parents’ house and found myself going through my closet, a place I had avoided until recently. In a small cardboard box, I found the pamphlets and eventually at the very bottom the rejection letters. I look at these pieces of paper now and feel nothing, not sadness nor joy. The rejection that I once thought would exist indefinitely actually turned out to be finite. Arizona State is my home, undoubtedly, and I am beyond excited to spend the next four years of my life here, and I hope that within the next couple of months you feel the exact same way no matter where you ended up.