{shortcode-b7c8fa36692232af3df38b69c9c3cf76c91b4438}

Comp Application Update

It’s not the subject line you were hoping to see. It’s not the dorm storm or letter slipped under your door, or simply the CONGRATULATIONS you dreamt of. It’s yet another blow to the once-inflated ego you had before actually getting to campus. But fear not! You are not the first (nor the last) student to ever be rejected by a club. So, we’ve got some tried and true excuses to save your campus ethos and prove that, really, you’re too good for them anyway.

“I wrote that app so last minute”

Let’s get the straight-up lies out of the way. We all know you procrastinated your PSETs by toiling over (or feeding ChatGPT) several dozen prompts. You wondered whether it was okay to re-use your college essays and evidently it wasn’t. But it’s cool. Play it off. Don’t be such a try hard all the time and pretend if you actually had taken the time to put original thought into your responses, you would’ve gotten in. Totally.

“They just weren’t my style”

Used mostly for performing arts groups. Best when lamenting that, really, you’re a classically trained musician/actor and just weren’t artistically understood. I mean, c’mon. You’re going against prodigies and Berklee dual-enrollees who have been training since birth. It’s okay if your rendition of “On My Own” didn’t hit exactly where you wanted to.

“I wouldn’t have had any time for it anyhow”

Probably the most accurate excuse. With classes and research and internships and eating and socializing and planning for your summer and trying to sleep, you definitely didn’t need to plan a conference in the middle of all of this. Your time shall be filled in different and *unique* ways unbeknownst to the likes of plebeians.

“I must’ve filled out the application wrong”

Can confirm this has happened to friends of mine. Whether you missed a deadline or put in the wrong email, blame your newest disappointment on your lack of attention to detail, not your potential incompetence.

“I bet they’re not accepting first-years”

Applicable only if you are said first-year. Works only up until you meet one of the ‘chosen ones’ read: club legacies, summer comps, siblings, social butterflies who did in fact make it past the ivory gates.

“The comp directors were so weird, I bet they didn’t like me”

Well, if you’re being rejected from the club, they probably didn’t. But, yes, bash on the powers that be. Obviously everyone else in the organization is the problem because they couldn’t see what a brilliant and talented person you are. Fight back against the insularity and nepotism that is so evidently embedded in every organization you didn’t get into.

“I’ll just try again next semester”

Ah, yes. The dejected optimist. Often said with a sigh, a shrug of the shoulders, and a steady resolve to do better next time. The most healthy of reactions, you can look towards the future and let everyone know you can’t be stopped. Hopefully, you’ll realize by next semester that you never wanted to do consulting anyway. Speaking of...

“I never wanted to do consulting anyway”

Yeah, we know. You were filled with the freshman urge to comp a club that publicly claims it only accepts less than 10% of applicants. You wanted to be at the Harvard of Harvard and decided that was HUCG or CBE. You never really wanted to make powerpoints at 3 a.m. in Lamont for S&P 500 companies, or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself.

Whether it’s HUCG, the IOP, ICMUN, an ensemble, a pre-professional society, or your dining hall crush, rejection is hard. But in every corny sense of the phrase, rejection is re-direction. So cry to your mom, take a deep breath, and move on to some bigger and better things — you can always find a home at flyby ;)