I preach often here that a sure path to college admissions stress is to obsess about the parts of the process that you can’t control. Far better to focus your energy on the things you can control, like your effort, interest in learning, character, etc. And the ability to respond productively to an outcome you didn’t choose is an effective life skill, as Seth Godin reminds readers in this post.
“The way we respond to the things that we can’t change can instantly transform our lives. “That’s interesting,” is a thousand times more productive than, “That’s terrible.” Even more powerful is our ability to stop experiencing failure before it even happens, because, of course, it usually doesn’t.”