In the last few days, a huge wave of ED results from colleges has hit a bunch of SAS students. During this period, it is easy to experience ambivalent feelings about yourself and others. It might be the self-consciousness when others got accepted into a really good university or the sadness when people got deferred.
“That school isn’t even that hard to get into”, “I heard that person X is also competing for the same slot” “She/he couldn’t even get into that?”
That is why it is especially important for us to keep a positive environment to the ones around us. Here is a semi-exclusive interview with our two seniors, Marcos Nordenstahl (in red) and Ernest Wang (in grey) that talks about this matter. Please remember to stay relaxed, patient, and supportive to both yourself and others!
#1. Be Relaxed
Do stay calm before opening the letter
Don’t make yourself too nervous
The worst thing you can do to yourself is being overly harsh to yourself. It is easy to set unrealistic targets, but hard when things doesn’t go our way. Mentally preparing yourself before you open your letter by being in the right place, with the right people, and having the right mood can really make a difference on how you will react.
Marcos shared with us his strategy to calm down. “Just keep drinking that iced tea.” He told us. “I hate it when people get overly-stressed out. It makes everything around them more tense and uncomfortable.”
#2. Be Patient
Do wait for your friends to tell you their results
Don’t ask multiple times if they are clearly unwilling to share
Ernest told us his own experience: “Some people have asked me where I applied…and I after telling them I sometimes feel like they are low-key judging me for my decision.”
Please keep in mind that it is never mandatory for anyone to share their college process with you. Whether it is their college list, their ED choice, or their ED results, your friends will eventually tell you if they feel like it. For some of us, we just want a period of peace and judgement-free time before all of our peers knows about our ED results. Nevertheless, it is always a pleasant surprise when you are one of the first people to know someone’s results.
#3. Be Supportive
Do post about your friends’ successes
Don’t undermine or hate on others hard work!
Supporting your friend can be seem in numerous ways—telling your friends that university X is lucky to have them, telling them that university X just lost a gem for not seeing how great you are. For me personally, it is always mood-lifting to read about college posts that people have made to others.
However, many people are also quick to form a negative opinion. “That school isn’t even that hard to get into”, “I heard that XXX is also competing for the same slot” “She/he couldn’t even get into that?”. It is so unhealthy and unproductive to say such things. The ultimate takeaway is that before you make a comment on something, please be considerate and take care of each other’s emotions.
Special thanks to Marcos and Ernest for the amazing acting skills (:
In the comments below, what are some ways that you are planning to celebrate for your college decision results?
