"Rejection is a stepping stone in the pursuit of success."
When I read that quote for the first time, my immediate reaction was to think to myself, "Wow, that's a load of crap." This thought didn't stem from a lack of rejection in my life or from my overwhelming success in anything and everything that I pursue; in fact, it was born out of the repeated rejection that I have experienced. Whether it's from a dream school, from a program that I thought would be a perfect fit for me, or from a friend, I have faced a multitude of rejections and although none of them have ended in any significant disastrous outcome, none of them have led to a path of success either. Even though rejections might not necessarily help you become successful, they don't have to be the reason for your failure either; they can simply be a landmark in your path that you leave behind with every new choice you make.
The most rejected I've ever felt was during my senior year of high school when college admissions came out. I knew I wouldn't get into all the colleges I'd applied to and really wanted to go to; that was why I applied to 17. That's right —17 schools. I genuinely wanted to go to all of the 17 schools that I applied to, but the excessive number of applications was mostly because I feared that I wouldn't be accepted at all into any college. I know that most students applying to college have this irrational fear that regardless of how well we have done in high school and how much hard work we have put into every single thing we have done in college, we are all somehow bound to draw the short straw. These fears only become more real when the first wave of letters start coming in.
There are a lot of rejection letters within the first wave; it kind of makes you feel like Harry Potter when Uncle Vernon kept burning Harry's Hogwarts letters, only this time, there is no Uncle Vernon. For me there were a lot more rejections than there were acceptances, and I expected that. I knew that with many schools, I was aiming higher than my grades allowed for, so I was prepared. However, I was not prepared for all the letters to arrive on the same day and not give me the chance to recover at all. At one point I had to stop myself from opening letters because it was starting to become a little too pathetic. However, all was not lost. I wish it had come in the wonderful, huggable form of Hagrid, but the acceptance letter did arrive. It was just a simple email but it started with "Congratulations" and it was from a school that I didn't think I could get into — Rice University.
After all those rejections, the letter from Rice seemed like the fountain of life, and I couldn't help myself from dancing around the house with happiness. I'm grateful that I get to be at such a wonderful university, but I stand by my statement that I didn't really learn anything of great importance from the painful process of rejection. The only thing that I possibly learned was that though it hurts, that pain eventually becomes irrelevant to your life. There are always more things that you can strive for, more positions you can apply for, more something or another, but it all comes at a risk of failure. Either you become brave enough to face that risk or play it safe and ensure success in everything that you choose to do.
Personally, I like the risk. I like the possibilities that the risks bring with them and I have accepted that one of those possibilities is total and complete failure, but there's also a chance of surprising yourself and succeeding. So listen to Shakira and "pick yourself up and dust yourself and get back in the saddle."
