WHY COLLEGE REJECTIONS AREN’T ALWAYS BAD NEWS
IN THE SPRING OF 1994, I CRIED OVER BEING DENIED admission at Northwestern and Columbia—and three other elite universities. A close friend failed to console me by saying, “Rejection builds character.” But she was right. Nearly three decades later, I trace so much of who I am, and the career I’ve built, to that awful week.
Rutgers, where I ended up, was huge, and there was a need
