Letdown #1 (The first of probably several yet to come)

If you don't deal well with rejection, then academia is probably not the place for you. Rejection is a common experience for academics; from having your ideas rejected by your peers to having papers rejected by journals and conferences and applications rejected by the bodies to which you are applying. That being said, rejection still sucks, even for academics. Which is why I was disappointed to find out today that I will not be receiving one of the applications for which I applied: the Commonwealth Scholarship.

Actually, the Commonwealth Scholarship process is a two-stage process. First, your application is considered by your home country (in my case, Canada) for nomination to the host country (in my case, the UK). I never made it past the first stage. Apparently the competition was quite stiff; to be polite, the rejection notice included the paltry acceptance rate of applicants. Such information is meant to make you feel better about being turned down, but it rarely (if ever) accomplishes that end.

Oh well... I'm not distraught about it. I still have many 'irons in the fire', so to speak, and I still feel quite confident about my chances at some very good schools. Nevertheless, I would rather have been accepted than not. Maybe next time...