To the Schools That Could Have Been:

This open letter isn’t a letter written with bitterness. It isn’t some scathing thing that I’ll send off to The Wall Street Journal because I’m upset about not getting into your college (like Suzy Lee Weiss, for example. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Click here for the article. Click here for the controversy) – because if it was, I’d only be writing it to one college, and this letter would be very different. You know who you are.

But no, this letter is not one of bitterness, and there won’t be any “Why did you do this to me?” in this. This is a letter of regret.

Recently, the college counselors came into our seminar classes and students had to take one last survey in Naviance. It was basically a post-college-application survey, seeing which colleges we got accepted to and which we didn’t. Earlier this year, we had to fill out the colleges we had applied for or were intending to apply for.

When it came time to say if we’d gotten accepted or not, more than half of the colleges on my list had the “did not apply” option selected. I stared that list down, and I could only think, “Wow…that’s a long list.” 

Basketball player Michael Jordan said once that his father would constantly tell him: “You never know what you can accomplish unless you try.” For that list of colleges, I didn’t even try. I wanted to, but I either procrastinated, or ultimately took them off my list because I didn’t think I’d get in.

That’s completely my fault, and I know it. I wish that I had known how much I’d regret it because while I am going to a college that I really like and am really looking forward to, I just wonder if it would have been different if I had just taken those few extra steps in the applications process. Would I be going to a different school? Would I even have been accepted? See, I don’t know, and I won’t know, because I didn’t try. I just wish that I had.

So, maybe I lied. Maybe this letter is a little bit more bitter than I’d intended. It actually is quite bitter – it’s just not towards you, oh colleges that could have been. It’s towards myself, and that’s the bitterest medicine there is.

Sincerely,

Me (the one who will be going to college – just not to yours).