Hi guys!
Just saw a few posts from folks feeling like failures because of their rejection emails, and wanted to send you a message from future you. 5 years ago this week, I received yet another rejection among a rather long list — was feeling like I wouldn’t get any invites and was almost certain I wouldn’t match (not to mention all the questions this inspired re: how am I ever going to get a job if I can’t even get an internship interview?!?) This particular rejection stung, as it was my first choice site, not only because of its strong reputation, but also because it was close to home.... and I hadn’t been home in 6 years .... and with a 4 year old niece and a new niece on the way, I was dying to just get home. Fast forward, and I ended up with 9 invites and matched at my first ranked site. Two months later, I met a hot engineer, who ended up moving across the country with me so I could return home for fellowship. A year later, I landed my dream job at the site that rejected me! Here I am 2 years later... married to that hot internship engineer, reading your applications, and prepping for another interview season. With this post, I hope to highlight a few things.. this process is a crapshoot. You may be number 12 on a invite list that can only be 11 people long. Every application before you is fantastic, and yours is too—- it’s possible that someone just happened to mention something that a given reader found interesting —- it doesn’t mean you aren’t good. It doesn’t mean you aren’t valuable... and I am living proof that sometimes you end up just where you’re supposed to be, and that if you push hard enough (and have a little luck) you can land wherever you want to... eventually.
Hugs from a selection committee member/interviewer. This procsss sucks, but you’ll be on the other side soon enough! Hang in there...