It’s that time of the year again, when seniors are frantically checking their mailboxes or online accounts for news from the colleges they’ve applied to.  These few agonizing weeks are filled with stress, relief, hope and disappointment as seniors find out where they will be spending the next four years of their lives.

        In a survey taken by seniors at George Washington High School, 40 percent of the students got accepted to the college of their first choice, 39 percent got rejected, and 21 percent still don’t have their results.  The percentages are slightly higher for acceptances to the colleges of their second choice, 51 percent were accepted while 37 percent were rejected.  Based on the statistics, things did not work out as planned for some students, so it is important to have a back-up plan.  About 76 percent of the students surveyed had a back-up plan, while 21 percent did not.

        Alex Tan, a senior at GWHS, tells how he felt the moment he found out he was not going to be admitted to the college of his choice, “Recurrently, I checked my application statuses of all the colleges I applied to.  Unfortunately, I discovered that I got rejected from CalPoly.  Immediately, my heart sunk and I felt as if a knife had stabbed me through my heart.”  He says, “I believe it is because I applied to an impacted major (business), and that deferred my chances of getting in.”  Another senior at GWHS, Francisco Chi, describes his emotions when he found out the bad news.  “When I got home, I saw a bunch of mail on the ground and looked through it, I saw a letter from the school I wanted to go to, I was extremely nervous.  When I opened the letter, I noticed that it was a rejection letter and I was crushed.  My dream school had just rejected me and I didn’t know what to do.  Now I have to go to a mediocre school that I’m not really enthusiastic about.”

        On a brighter note, Tak Lam, a 12^th grader, hasn’t gotten any rejections yet and is still waiting for his results from three more colleges.  Lam states, “When I found out my acceptances, my reaction wasn’t that big because I believe that no matter what college I get into, it depends on me to make something out of it.  But I was kind of happy when I found out I got accepted to UCLA because it shows I have a bigger chance of getting into UC Berkeley, which is my first choice.”  Danny Li says, “When I got accepted to the college of my third choice, I felt relieved because I got a rejection from another college the day before, and this really boosted up my self confidence.  I did not get all of my results yet, so I am still pretty nervous about those results.  But overall, I guess you could say I am satisfied at the moment.”

        This is the moment of truth for seniors because after four years of sleepless nights, procrastination, stress, and all that good stuff, they finally get to see if all their hard work paid off.  According to the survey, 67 percent of the seniors that were surveyed are satisfied with their results, while 22 percent of them are not.  How will you fare when your time has come to be accepted or rejected?