We are constantly getting accepted and rejected as college students, from our recent internship application, club application, fraternity rush experience, or even at the social level with friends and love interests. Getting an acceptance is an amazing feeling, but rejection has become far more common. Before coming to college I was very unfamiliar with these feelings of rejection. Still, as I approach the middle of my second semester I have grown quite familiar with the feeling, and I have learned to embrace it.Â
Rejection, rejection, rejection
Rejection gets old and you become increasingly numb over time. With every opportunity you take to put yourself out there, the whisper telling you that you won’t make it becomes increasingly loud. This is something I have experienced as I have rushed various professional fraternities, even making it to the final rounds just to open an email that reads “We regret to inform you”. With each round I felt more hopeful of a potential acceptance, just to be rejected in the end. With the culmination of my first and second-semester rejections from social, professional, and athletic endeavors I became hesitant to put myself back out there.
Feeling Green: Rejection and comparisons
I sat with my disappointment, and I began to compare. I compared myself with all the other applicants. Was I less prepared? Not as smart? Didn’t leave a positive impression? With all these doubts swarming in my head I couldn’t help but think of my one friend. Everything starting from high school seemed so easy for her, and entering college she seemed yet to bear one rejection. Getting accepted into all the professional fraternities, clubs, and internships she applied for—thinking about this, I turned green with envy. Why were things seemingly so easy for her? I whipped out my phone and dialed my on-call therapist (my mom). I explained my jealousy over my close friend’s abundance of acceptances and the guilt that followed my envy.Â
The Silver lining
However, my green aura would quickly fade as my phone call went on and I reframed my thoughts. I had not only been rejected, I had experienced acceptance. In the past year I had received plenty of acceptances, but the rejections were easier to focus on. I was accepted into universities, a couple of organizations, and a sorority. However, the majority of the acceptances I had encountered were not all black and white with “accepted” at the top. These acceptances can be the easiest to forget about. We experience acceptance without knowing. This can be a friend saying yes to dinner plans, joining a group in a project, making a new friend in class, or passing a hard class. By rewiring the way we think we can see the silver lining and notice our own small daily wins.
What is Acceptance Without Rejection?
The clear-cut rejections still sting, but they were not all bad. The invaluable advice I received also led me to think about how these rejections had shaped me over the past year. Not only had I grown less sensitive to rejection, I had discovered a path to personal growth through rejection. Every “no” I received told me to be resilient, brush myself off, and go after it again. What is an acceptance without experiencing the let-downs of rejection first? Acceptance is ephemeral, while rejection is a journey. Doom-scrolling a college peer’s LinkedIn is ultimately unproductive and defeating. Everyone’s journey is different.
In a world full of rejections and acceptances, I’m learning to try to embrace both experiences. I now look at my rejections as an opportunity to grow and redirect, and I am acknowledging all of my acceptances despite how small.