Wednesday, February 22, 2006

On Finding A Way To Feel Guilty About Success

Everyone here is very happy about me getting acceptance #1, but I'm trying to find out how happy I should be. First off, funding is not settled yet, so there's no guarantee that I can even accept yet, but that's something I don't worry about worrying about because it only involves me. What worries me is that two other folks put in applications this season too. The other two folks applied to some of the same places I did.

Friend #1 only applied to very very elite ivy and then some schools. She is now coming around to the idea that she may not get in any of these places. She just got a rejection from what was arguably one of her best chance schools. I applied to that school too and haven't heard back from them. She thinks this means that I'll get in. She's being very sweet to me and trying to be cheerful, but it's a smile with puffy red rimmed eyes.

Friend #2 is really not entirely sold on the whole getting a PhD thing, but I'm not sure if that's a front she's putting up because she's really worried or not. She applied to the place where I got in, but hasn't heard back from them yet. In fact, she hasn't gotten any mail for the past two weeks. Not even junk mail. Not even the care package her mom sent about two weeks ago. She went to the post office, but they said there shouldn't be any trouble.

I'm very excited, but I don't want to be a giddy amplifier of their anxiety. Ah, and five places yet to be heard from.

1 comment:

sheepish said...

Admissions can be so random sometimes, since schools only accept limited numbers of people. I've pretty often seen people get into, say, Harvard while simultaneously being rejected by MIT. It's all a crapshoot, and that's why you have to apply to a lot of places. You should be happy, because it's awesome!