How to Avoid a Rejection Letter

(MoneyWatch)  Colleges hate sending out rejection letters.

At least they SWEAR this is true.

Angel B. Perez, the director of admission at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, recently wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angles Times dripping with angst about the thousands of rejection letters that his office mailed this spring. Pitzer turns away at least 78 percent of its applicants, so the bad news required a lot of stamps.

It's hard for me to feel sorry for Perez, but in his essay, teenagers can find clues to what resonates with a school and what falls flat:

Rejected. Pitzer rejected a girl with a 4.0+ and a great application because she never bothered to visit the school even though she lived in the area.

Accepted. Pitzer took a chance on a boy from New York City whose GPA was below the school's average of 3.9. He also didn't submit SAT scores, which is a sure sign that his test results weren't great. The teenager, however, contacted the school multiple times, he showed up when an admission officer visited New York, and he pushed the right buttons when explaining why he was a great fit for the college.

What the New York kid illustrates is that making sure a school is a wonderful match, and then sharing this with the college, can go a heck of a long way.

Good News image by Oran Viriyincy, CC2.0