On March 30, The Milton Paper launched their “Wall of Rejection,” an annual tradition which aims to demonstrate our solidarity in the face of the obscure college process. One reason people attend a school like Milton is its elite college matriculations. Yet, every year, dozens of seniors are inevitably disappointed with their results. However, as of the writing of this editorial on Monday, April 13, only nine seniors had put their acceptances on the TMP’s Wall, and all except for three of them are planning to attend or have been accepted to one of the top fifteen colleges in the nation, as ranked by US News and World Report. We, the Senior Editorial Board, also acknowledge that our own participation, or perhaps lack thereof, mirrors the senior class. Out of ten seniors on this board, only two have added their rejections, five have chosen not to participate and the rest have none. Why, then, has this tradition seen such limited participation this year and become tied instead to so-called college success?
The Wall of Rejection falls short of its intended purpose not because of its premise or accessibility, but instead due to students’ interpretation of it: we feel afraid of falling short—both to our own expectations and others’ successes. That almost solely those who have been chosen by a top college feel comfortable enough to display their rejections represents a broader trend within the Milton community of students who are afraid to discuss their own shortcomings unless they can justify them with successes.
Destigmatizing rejection expands beyond college, into this April season of club leadership applications. This month, rejections are bound to happen and may feel almost as personal as college results. With only a specific number of positions available for each club, the reasons for rejection may not be dependent on the quality of the application. Often, personal judgement and arbitrary factors can easily cloud objectivity: friend loyalties, seniority and personal reputation all seem to be hidden in the club application process. And sometimes because of this, your rejection is simply not a reflection of you. Though we encourage self-advocacy, we also recognize the anxiety that comes from having little control over the final decisions.
While Milton equips us with myriad resources to discuss our anxieties—the Counselling and Academic Skills Centers—open discourse around rejection still proves difficult. Our collective silence around the topic assumes our peers lack the empathy to respond with understanding and cuts us off from the solace they can offer. This mental wall, built to protect our pride, also blocks mutual encouragement and support, leaving us stranded at the very moment we need connection most. At Milton, we have a rare opportunity to rely on a built-in network of peers who are trained, through Harkness tables and numerous leadership opportunities, to be exceptional at expressing their opinions and analysis, both in the classroom and outside.
What the low participation in this year’s Wall of Rejection also demonstrates is a lack of upperclassman mentorship as it pertains to “the bad.” Freshmen and sophomores have dozens of choices for apparently perfect upperclassmen to look up to, yet on the other hand, it appears that Milton’s older students are more and more hesitant to demonstrate their imperfections, causing a chain reaction that hurts everyone’s ability to share our struggles with the hardships we all face—the transition into freshman year, the struggles as new sophomores or new juniors, the infamous “junior spring”, the daunting and unshirkable college process.
What we seek is simply honesty. You don’t need to hide your rejections or pretend they didn’t affect you. Take time to process what happened, but don’t try to erase it from your mind. If you do, you, your peers, and the students who look up to you all lose the chance to learn to improve. Post on the wall of rejections no matter how “prestigious” your final result was. Admit to your shortcomings when an assignment or an activity doesn’t go your way. You will feel like a stronger part of our community when you take the risk of giving it your actual self and genuine worries.
As a Milton Paper article by Jiner Huang ’28 highlighted on March 6, underclassmen at Milton have an “idolization culture” around successful seniors, and push themselves unfairly to emulate the perfect image those individuals project. A collective campus honesty about our shortcomings will relieve the drive to perfection in every moment, allowing us all to use high school as the exploratory time this editorial board believes it should be.
We urge you to treat your rejections, be they extracurricular, romantic, academic, or collegiate, as opportunities. The “prep” in prep school should include practice in moving on from rejection. If you aren’t getting rejected, perhaps that means that you aren’t putting yourself out there enough: take the hard class, audition for the a cappella group, and run in the election. Look rejection in the eye. You will be richer for it.