Ah, don't you remember that anxious process of awaiting college decisions like it was yesterday? You were addicted to checking your email, wore out the hinge on your postal mailbox, and couldn't sleep at all. It was a lot like being a little kid and looking out for Santa, except Santa doesn't decide your entire future, where a rejection could mean everything.

Over the last close to 20 years, I’ve faced lots of rejection: girls who didn’t want to be friends, boys who didn’t like me, sororities that said I wasn’t sisterhood material. However, I think the rejections that hurt me the most came from colleges.

At the end of March 2014, I had multiple college emails in my inbox to open. Unlike most of my friends, I’d let the emails collect for over a week, more nervous than excited to take a peek at my fate. Eventually, I bit the bullet and opened each message.

Nine messages: two acceptances, one wait-list, and six rejections, including one from my dream school.

Initially, I didn’t take the news so well. I ripped the Rory Gilmore-esque college paraphernalia off my walls and cried so hard I couldn’t speak. Scouring through my drawers, I removed every college t-shirt and sweatshirt from the schools I’d been rejected from. My eyes were so wet and swollen, my contact lenses fell out onto my cheeks. I was freaking out.

After every tear in my system had spilled out of my eyes and onto my face, I tried to analyze the situation. I was second in my class—and only second by a hundredth of a grade point—and president of every club I was involved in. I was in honors classes, AP classes, and I even took off-campus college classes. I had great ACT scores. I’d thought I’d aced the interview, too. I mean, she did say, “You have a really good shot.” What more did my dream school need?

It took a couple of days, but I eventually accepted my rejection. When I toured the schools where I had been accepted, all located in large, urban cities full of exciting connections, the small, New England city I’d fallen for became less attractive and even less practical. I was perhaps a little grateful to be choosing between New York and Boston instead, and most definitely excited.

Now two years later, I can’t imagine being anywhere other than NYU, but I still have one bone to pick with my dream school and a slew of other colleges: the electronic rejection system. In most cases, the notice was located within an online system. There was nothing to print, and within a few weeks, the message had expired all together. It was like the worst form of a Snapchat break up.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the old small envelope, big envelope charm of waiting at your mailbox for the notice is worth continuing. After all, I did receive big packets from the schools where I was offered admission. Is it too much to ask for the rejections to send you an official notice, something to post on Tumblr and rant about for a few weeks?

I don’t care if you’re killing a tree, universities. I paid out between $35-$80 for you guys to review me. If I thought you were worth spending my time and money on, you should at least give me enough respect of sending a hard copy of your decision. Maybe you can pay the same respect to these future generations coming up.