THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994                    TAG: 9406030064 
SECTION: DAILY BREAK                     PAGE: B13    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY HANNAH BOTTAMY, HIGH SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT 
DATELINE: 940603                                 LENGTH: Medium 

DON'T BE DAUNTED BY COLLEGE REJECT LETTERS

As you reel off your list of colleges, you sense the dreaded question. ``No kidding! What a great school! And have you heard from them yet?''

{REST} Your face reddens as you try to avoid the word: rejection.

``Yes. . . uh, I wasn't accepted.'' Then there's silence as the other person tries to think of something comforting to say.

Chris Hooker-Haring, Dean of Admissions at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa., makes a couple of good points about rejection letters that may not have occurred to many students.

A rejection letter does not mean you are unfit for college. ``Selective colleges have more qualified applicants than they have spaces for,'' Hooker-Harin said. This is especially true for the Ivy League.

According to the ``1994 Fiske Guide to Colleges,'' out of 12,860 applicants to Princeton University, only 16 percent get in. That means 10,622 rejection letters.

It is implausible that 10,622 unfit students applied to Princeton, so a rejection letter from Princeton should not come as a major disappointment to any student.

Hooker-Haring says a student should expect at least one or two rejection letters. A student who gets into every college he or she applies to may not have applied to selective enough colleges. ``If you don't shoot high enough, it guarantees that you won't be rejected,'' Hooker-Haring says. ``But you'll never know what caliber college you could have gotten in to.''

So don't take rejection letters from colleges too personally. It's better to have tested your limits than to play it safe and ask yourself for the rest of your life, ``I wonder if I could have gotten into. . . .'' by CNB