Rejection Letter Collage

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Brickhouse

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I'm thinking I should do something creative and cathartic with the 28 rejection letters I've amassed. Make that 27 - Temple never sent me one, but I'm just assuming it's lost in the mail. I would have an attractive new piece of art for my wall, and I'd be putting to use all the paper that would otherwise have been wasted.

Anyway - so what do you think? I could like color them all, or maybe burn the edges of them so they look like ancient historic documents....paste them to a piece of wood and then lacquer them on? Or maybe cut them into shapes and make a picture on a piece of poster board?

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Those of you who know me know I'm completely serious about this.

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I would fold and paste all the letters into a collage in the shape of a phallus. Then I would paste a picture of me bending over and grimacing under the giant phallus. Rejection is so kinky.
 
Only 27?!? Babe, you ain't got nothin on me!
 
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i think i threw all of mine away or just lost them somwhere. come to think of it i should have been more careful.
 
I used most of mine as scrap paper to try and derive a couple of equations for my research project. Not exactly an artistic endeavor in the style of Brickhouse, but at least I got some use out of the damn things. It's kind of satisfying to scribble sloppy math across the watermarks of the schools that dissed me. :D
 
I used mine to buy myself booze at my school's career services Rejection Letter Party.
 
I usually ripped mine in half before I finished reading them... :mad:
 
Trekkie963 said:
I used mine to buy myself booze at my school's career services Rejection Letter Party.


I might believe this to be true....
 
You should collect one from every school. I will donate mine. :D After that, paste the edges together and make the longest rejection train in the history of the world!!
 
burning them in a fireplace always feels good.
 
27? i got you beat by plenty brick....haha

although...none of have anything on mr red...

but a collage is a good idea, that would look cool. im gonna do something with all the ones i have. just havent decided what...
 
Nice! I mean, not nice that you have those rejection letters, but we can all relate to your story. I think I had a total of around 30-35 rejection letters by the end of the entire process. Didn't keep them, though. :)
 
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I had my 17-piece wall o' shame. 16 schools rejected me, one of them felt the need to send me 2 letters (apparently they think I'm so dumb that I needed to be told I was rejected twice), and Drexel never actually rejected me, but Mom says that I"m still receiving info on their PT programs. Hmmmm...sounds like a consolation prize to me!

My one acceptance letter went on the fridge. It's still there. :D
 
Sweet Tea said:
I had my 17-piece wall o' shame. 16 schools rejected me, one of them felt the need to send me 2 letters (apparently they think I'm so dumb that I needed to be told I was rejected twice), and Drexel never actually rejected me, but Mom says that I"m still receiving info on their PT programs. Hmmmm...sounds like a consolation prize to me!

My one acceptance letter went on the fridge. It's still there. :D

Thanks for putting things back in perspective that in the end, it really just takes one :)
 
The collage should be completed in such a way that you can add in any future rejections that you may receive in life. This could also include pictures of people who reject you, such as boyfriends or people who interview you for a job or pass you up for a promotion.

Then if you ever go insane . . . it could not only serve as your collage of rejection, but could be your source for exacting revenge on those in the world who wronged you. :laugh:

At that time you could throw darts at the collage (in a method similar to those found in medical school admissions procedures) to choose the next victim to reap the consequences of their rejection.
:smuggrin:
 
holy christ!!!! 28!!! I am so ****ed!! I am only applying to 20 schools meaning i'll be in the hole 8 acceptances for the next cycle!!!
 
Here is my idea of what to do with mine: for each rejection letter drink a bottle of Raki (traditional mediterranean drink - it said of Raki that when a man gets to the end of the bottle he can taste the tears of sadness and rejection out which the drink is fermented) then burn the letter and store the ashes in the bottle to symbolize the funeral of my ingrown dreams and med school aspirations. I guess this turns more into a ritual than something visually dramatic like the collage might be, but just to offer my own idea and maybe to inspire you to something original of your own.
I came, I drank, I catharsis.
PS. If you do this, pick your poison of choice carefully, your liver will hate you. And best of luck on this whole process!
 
Hey brick, I'll send you mine, hon!!! We can wallow in misery together, chica.

I always thought that making a huge paper chain out of the letters would be fun and stringing it around my bedroom. (You know, the chains you made in kindergarten). It's creative and cathartic all in one.
 
I don't have very many yet because apparently compared to most people I applied to very few schools. (What was I thinking?) This makes collages and paper chains not an option.

I will therefore make my rejection letters into paper dolls. I will then administer needles, ripping, and other beatings to these dolls.
Heh heh.
 
Brickhouse said:
I'm thinking I should do something creative and cathartic with the 28 rejection letters I've amassed. Make that 27 - Temple never sent me one, but I'm just assuming it's lost in the mail.

I never got one from Temple either. They are the only school that outright ignored me.

Can we add waitlist letters to the collage? I have an awful lot of those.
 
I am keeping my rejection letters for the day when I become director of NIH so I can know which schools to deny grants to :D

I'll drive them bastards to the ground!!!
 
I threatened to burn them, but then my parents stole them and had them made into the background for a new dart board. Its really cool, and will be very good for stress relief next year. ("Hmmm Duke . . . wwwhhhap. University of Vermont, yeah I hate them they rejected me twice . . . wwwhap, wwwhap.")
 
I believe I will be saving them... putting them in the scrapbook. Then one day if i have a kid and he/she is depressed and rejected about not achieving something, I'll pull it out and say... it happens to everyone. You're not alone, and it doesn't mean you can't get where you want, it just means you have to keep trying.

And then i'll jump into my Mercedes and head on down to the hospital where I'm the Chief of Emergency Medicine. :)
 
You should abduct somebody and use only words from rejection letters to make the ransom note.

Or you could see if you could paste words together to make an acceptance letter.

OR you could compile them all and mail them to the school out of those 28 that you most wanted to go to.

Whoever suggested the phallus had the best idea though, I think.
 
I would personally walk into every Admission's Office, crumble up the letter in front of the Dean, and go Nicholson-style on them...

(In LOUD shouting voice)

"You want answers?
You want the truth?
You can't handle the truth!

Listen ADCOM we live in a world that has walls and those walls need to be guarded by men with stethoscopes Who's gonna do it? You? You, Mr. ADCOM? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for 40+ MCATS and curse the gunners; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: accepting me, while tragic to you, probably saved lives and that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at application reviews you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like BCMP, MCAT, LOR's. We use then as the backbone of a life trying to defend something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps in the lab under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you," and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest that you pick up a pen, sign that damn acceptance letter and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."

-Poorly adapted from Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men"

Heh heh heh - those bastards will wish they never spent the 37 cents on that stamp. :smuggrin:
 
Well thanks for all the great suggestions people! I actually changed my mind and threw them out last night. Oh well!



(j/k)
 
Well no one came close to Todd Fujinaka's saga...
 
We could have spent a lovely afternoon scrapbooking them had you not thrown them out, Brickhouse. :)

*Many, many years from now...*

And this, kids, is the rejection letter $%^#%%^ School of Medicine sent to me. Yes, sadly that school burned down the following year.

Oh, and this one's from the $%^$% Medical College. Ironically an unknown biohazard outbreak forced them to shut their doors forever.

And this one...

*hehehehe*
 
I have every single rejection pinned on the wall next to my computer so I'm constantly reminded how humiliating this process was. It is one of my ways to motivate myself. The stack is so thick the pushpin is clinging on by the tip.
 
I'm telling you guys, it feels great to rip them up and take them to the trash. They are like negative karma laying around your room otherwise...
 
I've only gotten 1 rejection letter... but I only did secondary/supplemental applications to 6 schools, none of which were incredibly prestigious or anything. I kind of wish I had applied to more, though. In a morbid way it might actually be kind of fun to have rejection letters from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale... just for the letterhead. :D
 
CoverMe, I was thinking the exact same thing. I've got a nice little collection going from the last time I applied. Someday (in the distant future) when my kid gets cut from a team or gets a bad grade on a test or something, I'm gonna pull out a book thicker than the Oxford English Dictionary and tell them, "hey I understand, look at all this rejection. But I didn't become the director of the CDC by accident. And that Nobel guy? He doesn't give away too many of these medals :laugh: so you gotta work hard and put it behind you" But I also like crossing out the words to make it an acceptance letter and/or throwing it back at them A Few Good Men style.
 
Cerberus said:
holy christ!!!! 28!!! I am so ****ed!! I am only applying to 20 schools meaning i'll be in the hole 8 acceptances for the next cycle!!!

Don't feel bad. I only applied to three schools. A top ten, my favorite, and the back up I would never want to go to. I got accepted in my top choice, rejected from the top ten, did not go to interview at the sh**hole. I think it's better this way. Saves a lot of money and energy. Good luck.
nascent
 
OmahaMX80 said:
I've only gotten 1 rejection letter... but I only did secondary/supplemental applications to 6 schools, none of which were incredibly prestigious or anything. I kind of wish I had applied to more, though. In a morbid way it might actually be kind of fun to have rejection letters from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Yale... just for the letterhead. :D

That, my friend, is some expensive letterhead. RGB!
 
I know... but so are most novelty items.
 
that sounds like a good idea. maybe i'll do that.
 
nascentdoc said:
Don't feel bad. I only applied to three schools. A top ten, my favorite, and the back up I would never want to go to. I got accepted in my top choice, rejected from the top ten, did not go to interview at the sh**hole. I think it's better this way. Saves a lot of money and energy. Good luck.
nascent


Ouch - don't even get me started on this rant!

With only two rejection letters, it wouldn't be much of a collage, now would it?
 
One word: . . .
eBay
:D
 
just trash em. i just did and it feels great!
 
I have my letters crumpled and stashed in drawers all over my house where ever I stood when I opened them is where they lay crumpled to death. yep :horns: :horns:
 
Brickhouse said:
Ouch - don't even get me started on this rant!

With only two rejection letters, it wouldn't be much of a collage, now would it?

I know. I think deep down the only reason I applied to only 3 schools was to avoid the "collage". I don't think my pride could have taken rejection after rejection, which unavoidably would have made their way to my mailbox. Why go looking for trouble? As for your collection, I would burn every remaining piece and pretend it never happened. Denial all the way.
Peace
 
when my friend and i were both accepted to med school last year, we took our mulitple rejection letters, cut them in a collage type format, taking little phrases like, "just the fact that you applied shows what type of person you REALLY are" and "i'm sorry" and "regret" and created a frame to go around our acceptance letters! it was great fun to see how many regrets i could fit on one sheet of paper....and as fun it would have been to burn them, it was more fun to cut them up in an organized, methodical way for a mocking display.

:cool:
 
buglady said:
cut them ... burn them, it was more fun to cut them up... in an organized, methodical way for a mocking display.

:cool:


Buglady,
Your syntax/diction has a Hannibal Lector, serial killer, quality to it.
How about those fava beans?
 
buglady said:
when my friend and i were both accepted to med school last year, we took our mulitple rejection letters, cut them in a collage type format, taking little phrases like, "just the fact that you applied shows what type of person you REALLY are" and "i'm sorry" and "regret" and created a frame to go around our acceptance letters! it was great fun to see how many regrets i could fit on one sheet of paper....and as fun it would have been to burn them, it was more fun to cut them up in an organized, methodical way for a mocking display.

:cool:


I think that's the best idea I've heard so far! I think that sounds perfect for me!
 
"Here is my idea of what to do with mine: for each rejection letter drink a bottle of Raki (traditional mediterranean drink - it said of Raki that when a man gets to the end of the bottle he can taste the tears of sadness and rejection out which the drink is fermented) then burn the letter and store the ashes in the bottle to symbolize the funeral of my ingrown dreams and med school aspirations. I guess this turns more into a ritual than something visually dramatic like the collage might be, but just to offer my own idea and maybe to inspire you to something original of your own.
I came, I drank, I catharsis.
PS. If you do this, pick your poison of choice carefully, your liver will hate you. And best of luck on this whole process!"




I must say, this is a terrible idea. Having been on the receiving end of several bottles of Raki (Yeni Raki, to be precise) there is nothing but evilness in that liquid. Anything that tastes like black liquorish and fire at the same time, changes color from clear to white when water is added, and ignites into blue flames quite easily, is simply not enjoyable and certainly not a good way deal with rejection letters.
 
pekq said:
I am keeping my rejection letters for the day when I become director of NIH so I can know which schools to deny grants to :D

I'll drive them bastards to the ground!!!

Aaaaaaah, this one's clever.

Humming "It's a Small World, After All..." :D
 
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