Prompt 2: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience

My heart palpitated, smacking my chest cavity just like the drums I played for ten years in the All-State Marching Band. I typed in my email and logged onto the admissions portal. The fateful words flashed across the screen: “Dear applicant…” My eyes flew down the page, employing the motion-tracking skills I had acquired through arduous hours of field hockey practice. Within milliseconds, I knew: I had been rejected from Harvard.

The grieving process took 16 days (384 hours, one for each year of Harvard’s existence). Each morning I awoke to images of bashfully-worn crimson sweatshirts briefly swimming in my consciousness before cold, hard reality dispelled them. I thought about the wasted years and countless hours in front of my mirror perfecting the balance of modesty and confidence as I practiced my delivery: “Yes, I go to a small liberal arts college near Boston.”

Despite the unprecedented tragedy, I masked my sorrow using the practiced deception of one accustomed to downplaying their exceptional accomplishments to markedly less accomplished peers. Little did my teammates know, as my hockey stick collided with pucks at practice, I was striking something deeper: rock bottom.

The Harvard fight song I had unofficially adopted as the soundtrack to my life had remixed into a funeral dirge. My grief also produced unintended physical consequences: my trauma had rendered me legally color-blind — specifically, to #c90016.

I found solace in the little things. I cut out toxic presences from my life, like my boyfriend; his only redeeming quality had been his father, a dean of admissions. Really, now that I took off my crimson-colored glasses, he was actually hideously ugly. I could finally stop pretending to care about my 501(c)(6) nonprofit and, with my new free time, had a revelation: I never gave a crap about childhood hunger in south eastern Australia in the first place. I also got around to learning the programming languages I pretended to know on my application. At last, my parents got remarried; they’d only divorced to get a better financial aid settlement anyway.

In hindsight, I realized that I had made the fatal mistake of tying my identity to a school I never wanted to go to in the first place. In fact, intillexi (Latin,“I realized”) that I had actually hated the place from the beginning: how could I have ever wanted to go to a college with disgustingly generous financial aid, horrifically neoliberal research opportunities and $41 billion endowment that at that point was frankly just showing off. In any case, Yale’s “Quick Facts” page had already captivated me. I had the startling epiphany that rather than an Elle Woods, I was an (admittedly much better looking) Rory Gilmore.

Suddenly, life had meaning again. My parents legally divorced again and while I couldn’t bring myself to reopen my non-profit, I did update the website’s graphic design just in case admissions did a check.

I learned invaluable lessons for the simple cost of a 65 dollar application fee. In times of hardship, I now know to lean on my friends — particularly my Adderall® dealer and essay ghost-writer — and more importantly, that it is far better to anchor my self-worth to schools in Connecticut rather than Massachusetts. My new perspective has given me a new lease on life and, thankfully, on the plane I use for impromptu mission trips. I will go forward with newfound empathy for Harvard rejects, extreme condescension for Yale rejects, and resentment for my parents who did not have the balls to bribe a rowing coach for my admittance. Though this unspeakably difficult chapter has taken me a full month to overcome, I will gladly share my painful experience with others in a TED talk I can put on my resume. Though I know I will cringe whenever the sad, monosyllabic college name exits my mouth, I am ready to start my life a-new (Haven). Eat my verit-ass, Harvard. (650)