The one-word sentence that you will be looking for as you open your application portal.
Though, with even a deferral or rejection to Penn, I hope you can still say the same to yourself.
As a reminder, the thinking goes along these lines:
No matter what, the decision here is the delayed outcome of your inputs, from as far back as you can think of. You have control of your own inputs, and for this, you can be proud.
Of course, acceptance is what you hope for the most. If you do see Congratulations!, get hyped! Give your loudest roar. Run around like a madman. Embrace your family. Call your friends. You won’t have to write another college supplemental essay for the rest of your life.
But, there must be a symmetry of logic. In the same essence of the all-too-familiar rationale of the non-accepted, it’s worth acknowledging the randomness of such an outcome. Schools like Penn could fill their class ten times over. After meeting a particular threshold, it’s more reasonable to say that you chanced from a variety of factors that came together in one room to give you this particular ternary output. Remember, the mountain is tall and the journey is long, and it’s always better to take each next step with humility.
On the same coin, you might face rejection, defeat.
You couldn’t have expected anything less. And, the decision is what it is. There are life’s controllables and uncontrollables (and things that we can influence), but exerting energy attempting to sway the uncontrollables has yet to be proven productive by mankind.
Think about it this way: the outcomes that happen just happen – they are neither lucky nor unlucky, as these things are assigned by the individual. This is promising, since this means we get to choose our odds of winning:
Rejected?
Congratulations! You have the freedom to apply to all the other schools you want to attend. You still have a chance at your second-choice major. You might miss out on sub-par dining and infamous pre-professional culture. Chin up.
Waitlisted?
Congratulations! Even better! You have all the benefits of rejection, on top of still being in consideration by Penn!
(Of course, there will also be the benefits yet to realize, all the ones from the seeing side of hindsight.)
Which is to say, why not always claim victory? To the universe, these are just the dice being rolled. If these values will not change, why not look at them for your own benefit? In all that comes your way, give it all a hearty Congratulations!
Psychologically, losses are weighed twice as heavily as gains. In reality, there is much to be bullish for. “We suffer more in our imagination more often than in reality,” as Seneca once said. Take the feedback where you can get it, and simply move onwards. The doing doesn’t get done by itself.
Regardless of the outcomes, I’m confident we will be in good shape:
Life doesn’t happen to you – it happens for you.
Best regards,
An optimist.
