It’s a new year at UC Davis, which means a new class of incoming freshmen. Welcome! I know you’re all excited or nervous or both! But I also know some of you have just settled onto campus with another emotion: disappointment. Disappointed to be here, because UCD wasn’t your first choice of college. At least, that’s how I felt.
My college acceptance/rejection process was slightly atypical. I got waitlisted to three of my top schools, and I think it messed with my head. I went to a high school that had a reputation for being hyper-competitive academically, so my primary criterion for colleges was the ranking. I figured that I’d get into at least one of the schools that waitlisted me, and it seemed obvious that I should take the highest-ranking school that offered.
So while everyone else was done with any rejections by March, with maybe one waitlist wild card, I still had no idea where I was going in June. And when I got one rejection after the other after banking on at least one acceptance, it hurt. And the sting was still fresh at graduation. Again, I went to a very high-achieving school with a lot of really smart students and a ton of pressure to excel. I always prided myself on being a good student. So even though I liked UC Davis when I toured the campus, even though its ranking is actually very strong, I felt like a failure.
Of course, I wasn’t alone. Many of my friends didn’t get into the schools they wanted either. But because I knew my reasons were kind of shallow, I felt embarrassed to talk to them about it. When you’re in your senior year of high school, everyone tells you numbers aren’t everything, that you’re more than what colleges accepted you. My parents were much more supportive than many I knew. They pointed out that UC Davis really was a great school and that they were super proud of me. But let’s be honest: even when you know you’re not your grades or your SAT score or whatever, you never really believe that, do you?
Until you do. Eventually, you do realize that numbers aren’t everything. And when I started to fall in love with UC Davis and the eco-friendly biking culture and how friendly everyone is and how good the local food is, I realized I was really happy being here. And that’s what was really important.
I’m not trying to tell you whatever reasons you have for feeling disappointed are wrong (again, some of you almost certainly have better reasons than I did). I’m not here to convince you that UC Davis is amazing. And I’m also not going to tell you that I’m sure you’ll come to love this school as much as I do—you might well decide it’s not for you, and that’s totally fine. But I want to tell you that it’s okay to be disappointed, but disappointment doesn’t have to be forever. It wasn’t for me.