I woke up rather late one day recently. I checked my phone as usual. I noticed an email and immediately got out of bed. It was from one of my two dream schools.

I rushed downstairs to check if my parents had left for work. My mom was in the middle of an online thing.

Spoiler alert: I did not pass. Not waitlisted, but completely rejected.

I waited until my mom had turned off her mic and camera to come into the room and break it to her. I was not even finished saying the words when I started bawling my eyes out, and just crying as hard as I could.

My mom told me it was fine, and that I did what I could, and it was okay. She told me that we could try to lodge an appeal and hope that I’d get accepted. But I felt frustrated, that I was not worthy of the writing course that I applied for.

After a few hours of crying and being sad, I realized that just because it is your dream school and you’ve envisioned going there, that’s not always going to be where you end up. I’ve believed since I was young that when a door closes, a window of opportunity is opened for you. It may not be immediately open, but it will be there if you try your best.

I realized that it isn’t something that should get me down. It may help boost your confidence to get into your dream school, but maybe it wouldn’t be as much of a challenge if you actually went there. That’s how I want to think of the situation.

It is now time for me to rise up and prove, not to others but to myself, that I am worthy of the course I chose, that I am enough. To rise up is to know that you are in a better environment wherever you go. It means that you no longer feel the anxiety of not fitting in.

For those of us who didn’t get into our dream schools, it may seem like the world is crashing down. But I like to think we’ll do great things in the future, no matter where we end up. This may have knocked us down, but this will push us to strive more.

We have different mindsets, so we will cope differently from each other. As for myself, the road to rising up from this rejection is up ahead.

What I do know is that, there is a better opportunity ahead of me, be it the acceptance to another school, or through other ways. I’m manifesting it. I’m still amazing and I hold so much possibility.

To all incoming freshies, we can be anything!

—CONTRIBUTED

The author is an 18-year-old student in Quezon City.