I am genuinely sorry to inform you… It is with real regret that I write to inform you… Thank you for your interest… After a thoughtful review of your application….

Rejection after rejection after rejection — the cycle never seems to end. Every year, thousands of seniors apply to the country’s most selective institutions, and naturally, most students face disappointment. In some cases, before seniors even apply or open those supposedly sacred letters, they know a rejection — or many — is inevitable. Since rejections are so common, they should not be taboo. For this reason, we are organizing a rejection wall and asking seniors to either submit their rejection letters to this form or bring their printed rejection letters to A120, where they will be displayed anonymously with hundreds of other rejections.

Truth be told, however, it hurts to get rejected by a college. It is difficult for many hard-working seniors to face the fact that despite spending hundreds of hours volunteering and studying, their dream college can simply shut them away with one sentence. It seems unfair, really. One has to wonder: what was the point of all of those late nights grinding for a now-unimportant AP Calculus exam? What was the reasoning behind the tough schedules, sports practices and SAT practice tests? The answer to these questions is not easy. But, it is a necessary consideration for any senior feeling sad about their college results.

To put it simply, those difficult moments were not for nothing. In fact, they were for everything. They helped build character and work ethic and ultimately taught genuinely practical concepts that will come in handy after high school. Without any of those experiences, no senior would be in the spot they are in right now; high school, in the end, is a time of growth. Seniors who feel as if they wasted their high school years studying for nothing are lying to themselves, and they know it. They should not look back with regret but with pride and accomplishment at what they did, not what they could have done.

Similarly, every college rejection, while at first dreadful, ultimately bears a hidden positivity. Rejections are, in essence, redirections. Every senior applying to colleges eventually goes to a school that feels right to them, for one reason or another. Perhaps they will not attend their dream schools, but there is a certain bond between them and their new choice. Some will actually find that they like a school that admitted them significantly more than one that did not, or even, in some instances, one that was previously their dream college. Eventually, it is something special for an applicant to choose a school that chooses them.

As a competitive high school, it is important that Burlingame celebrates this redirection process. We should not fear sharing our rejections with others, as it would give us seniors, and even future seniors, a sense of comfort and unity. Creating a rejection wall is essential to make this sharing-out process more official.