I, like many on this subreddit, was rejected from Stanford two days ago. I was of course sad and spent that night sulking, regretting that I'd arranged a Vanderbilt interview for the day after.

But I realized something the next day during my two-hour conversation with a Vandy alum: Stanford was never my dream school.

Someone else made a post here about always fantasizing about the actual getting in part, and that was me too. Love is blind, in a bad way. I overlooked what I didn't like about Stanford, telling myself it was perfect for me simply because I wanted to get in for the sake of getting in. I think some of us have the idea in our heads that we always have to be challenging ourselves because that's what we do in school. We strive for perfection and want to be the best. And Stanford seems like the greatest challenge of all.

Now I'm realizing that Vanderbilt honestly may be a better fit for me, or Pomona, or other places that I actually have chances at. I'm really glad I had that Vandy interview when I did because it picked me up out of the muck and made me realize I can do my best in a lot of different ways. I realized flexibility is really the most important thing to me in a college (alongside rigor of academics) and Vanderbilt has plenty of that. I'm glad Stanford rejected me so that I could start seriously giving careful thought to all the schools I like.

Maybe this is just cognitive dissonance or sour grapes or whatever lol but I'm ok with that