The summer before senior year, I didn’t worry about college applications. I knew I was applying to fashion school and was confident in my applications. However, when school started, doubt crept in.

Although I don’t await school like it’s Elementary, I’ve always loved learning, especially English. I’ve poured lots of free time into reading and writing, but it wasn’t until I reflected on my favorite junior year class, AP Lang, while sitting in my favorite senior year class, AP Lit, that I realized how much I love learning English.

It dawned on me while beginning my college applications that going to the fashion school would mean there were no impactful English classes ahead. I’d be setting myself and my career in stone at the age of seventeen.

This realization forced me to consider my options. Besides wanting to go to fashion school, I’d always wanted to live in Manhattan. While researching potential backup schools, one kept popping up: Barnard. 

A historically women’s liberal arts college attached to Colombia in the Upper West Side. Perfect. I became obsessed. In my head, Barnard was my only viable option.

I discovered the regular decision acceptance rate was 6.5%, but the early decision acceptance rate was 60%, so I chose the latter. With this came a new answer to peoples’ “what are your plans for college?” questions. I didn’t understand that telling absolutely everybody I was applying ED to Barnard meant that absolutely everybody would know when I got my eventual rejection. 

I didn’t consider the idea that Barnard would reject me. I didn’t have a Plan B, only a couple unappealing Plan Cs. So, on December 13th, when Barnard released what I needed to be an acceptance letter, I completely freaked out when it wasn’t. I felt stranded with no path forward. 

I had to find a new dream school and tell everyone who had asked “where are you applying?” that I’d let them down. Because telling people so confidently I was applying to Barnard felt like a promise I was now unable to keep.

It took me a while to get over my short-lived dream. My acceptance of my new reality began with vague plans to go to Paris and ended with more research into one of schools that had accepted me: Sarah Lawrence College. 

As I considered other acceptances and waitlists, Sarah Lawrence became the obvious choice. It has the best of both worlds: a beautifully green campus outside of Manhattan with a thirty minute train ride into the city and a chance to study english and writing while still taking fashion classes

Looking back months later, happy with decisions that led me here, I want to go back and tell my first–trimester-self that getting rejected wasn’t the end of the world. It ended up leading to self-growth and contentment with where I landed. I understood that my life goal shouldn’t be to impress other people. I hope future seniors reading will hear me: not getting into your dream school isn’t the worst thing. It may be the best thing.