College rejection isn't the end of the world

"When you see the small envelope, you just know it's not good news," said Podany, 18. "I just felt very sad for a couple days. Then that turned into anger at myself for not doing better."

Podany, now a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, is not unlike hundreds of thousands of high-achieving students who failed to get into their first-choice school in recent weeks. It's also the first time many of them have faced rejection, leaving them devastated, depressed and angry.

But today's high school seniors who received envelopes thick and thin this spring from the likes of Harvard, UC Berkeley and USC can learn a thing or two from their brothers and sisters in rejection.

Their worlds did not crumble, and their lives largely worked themselves out -- many grudgingly attended their second choices and surprised themselves by falling in love with campuses they once sneered at. Some immediately began plotting transfers to their first-choice school, and others, such as Meena Madan of Long Beach, decided to work hard for four years in hopes of attending their top choice for grad school.

Madan was obsessed with UC Berkeley because of its stand-out programs in geology and paleobiology. When she was rejected last spring, Madan was happy for one small solace -- she found out while she was alone.

"I hate crying in front of other people," she said. "It was absolutely awful. I was crying and crying. The first thing I did was call my sister [who attends Berkeley], and she was crying too. She felt so bad for me. I was miserable for so long. In the end, it took me a couple of months to stop feeling so bad."

As the fall approached, she girded herself to study earth-system science at UC Irvine.

"It can't be that bad," the freshman recalled telling herself. "This is other people's first choice; there must be something good about it."

The Orange County campus, affable classmates and smart professors grew on Madan. The 18-year-old plans to stay put until grad school.

"People in the dorm I'm living in are really wonderful," she said. "I like it a lot. The only thing that keeps me actually from thinking this school is absolutely amazing is the fact my major is not perfect here; it's more broad than what I wanted. But it's an extremely nice school."