Scenario #3: You don’t get into your first choice school.
Here’s what you should NOT do:
Panic. Throw a tantrum. Give up on the whole college thing.
Here’s what you should do:
Nobody wants to get the skinny letter in the mail. Yes, that is a total captain-obvious statement, but it still needs to be said. As disappointed as you must be, you still need to have some sort of plan post-graduation. And that will probably involve another college lower on your list. Here’s the silver lining: this does not have to be a nightmare situation.
The other schools that accept you — and there will be other schools — might be better for you overall. You might feel less overwhelmed there than you would have been at your first-choice school. Classes might be easier to get into, professors might be more approachable, you might find fellow students more like yourself, etc.
And there’s some more good news. If your freshman year goes by and you are still thinking about the college that got away, you can try to transfer. Plenty of students take a year or two at one college and then transfer to a more selective school their sophomore or junior years. At this point, you will have a few semesters of college-level work under your belt. That could be the proof that the admissions office needs to give you a spot in their graduating class. Success in college classes is much more impressive than success in high school.
Further, this is a scenario where you might be able to “have it all”: eventually being a student at your first-choice school and paying less overall when compared to other students that started there as freshmen. As a transfer student, you may not have the same level of investment that your peers experienced.
Moral of the story: Not getting an acceptance letter to your first-choice school is not a tragedy. In fact, you might look back at this situation and be thankful.
NextStepU knows that you will be on the look out for your acceptance letters during the next month or two. We’ll advise you on how to make the best possible decision. Keep an eye out for more acceptance scenarios over the next few weeks!
Written by Rachel Montpelier. Rachel is a senior at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y. and is the editorial assistant at NextStepU.
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