As the class of 2013 struggles to decide which college to attend, it is important to recognize that not every senior will go to their first choice school or maybe not even their seventh choice school. Every senior can name at least one classmate who was accepted to a school at the top of the 2013 U.S. News and World Report Best College rankings. However, they can also name one friend who was rejected from those schools and bitterly mopes about going to one of their “safety” schools, even if it’s still highly ranked and competitive. Getting rejected from college is painful, but many college-bound students lose sight of how lucky they are and fail to realize how not getting into [insert first choice college here] is not the end of the world.

Suzy Lee Weiss, a high school senior from Pittsburgh, Pa. recently wrote a controversial opinion piece, “To (All) The Colleges That Rejected Me” in the Wall Street Journal, in which she laments that she never had a shot at getting into Ivy League schools because she offers “as much diversity as a saltine cracker,” didn’t start a “fake charity” for “underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo” and wasn’t raised by a “tiger mom.”

Although Weiss’ rant was insensitive – her comments about pretending to be Native American or gay to get into college undermined the struggles of underrepresented minorities and closeted LGBT youth – her underlying sentiment has merit: college admissions officers do sometimes judge students for things they cannot control, and many over-qualified students do get rejection letters.

According to The New York Times’ college blog, The Choice, seven of the eight Ivy League universities reported that their acceptance rates decreased this year – Harvard leads the tight pack with a 5.79 percent acceptance rate. The Ivies simply can’t accommodate every qualified student, even the ones with “nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms” that Weiss complains about.

Regardless of whether a senior will be attending a school with a 5 percent or a 95 percent acceptance rate, it is important that he or she recognizes how fortunate Peddie students are that 1) every Peddie graduate attends a four-year university and 2) we have been primed to succeed in college. Many students who received acceptances from schools from which we were rejected are not nearly as well prepared for college. They did not write as many essays, take as many brutal exams and establish personal relationships with as many teachers as every senior at Peddie has during their time here.

The college admissions process is our first taste of real life. In real life, bad things happen to good people. Deserving, hard-working people get rejected every day. Self-worth is not defined by acceptance letters; what defines personal character is how people deal with rejection. Sometimes, you just can’t break the lock on every door you want to open. Take a deep breath, try your best wherever you end up and, please, don’t complain about your college rejections in the Wall Street Journal.