Meredith’s Musings: A Promising Candidate

By Meredith McKinnie

Rejection. It’s always personal, even when it isn’t. I tell my students when they don’t get into a coveted program to “keep trying… think outside the prescribed box…reconsider your goal… redefine your purpose… make sure that it’s what you want.” I now realize how asinine it all sounds. I need a new approach.

I’m twelve years post-MA and diligently working my way up the ladder, though recently hit my ceiling in academia. I always wanted to get my doctorate, even before I finished my bachelor’s degree. I love learning, reading everything I can get my hands on, considering multiple perspectives. I’ve learned to save my opinions until after I’ve absorbed accurate information. I work around experts, the advanced minds with the highest degrees who educate the workforce of tomorrow, those desiring knowledge or at least the degree required for a global market. My master’s degree allows me to teach incoming freshmen, and my work ethic helped land me an administrative role in my department, one normally reserved for someone with the doctorate I had never obtained.

Last November, I decided I would finally apply to PhD school at 36. Why not try when working full-time, juggling motherhood and marriage and pregnancy? Something about having kids has made me focus even more so on me and what I need. I want my girls to see I never gave up on me. I want that PhD. I want the knowledge that comes with it, the challenge, the struggle of obtaining something hard through hard work. And I don’t think being a mother or a wife or working multiple jobs should limit me. Even now when I’m writing, my two-year-old asks, “Mommy work?” She knows a computer and a pen means mommy is busy. I can be both busy and available to my kids; enough hours exist in my day.

I found a program out of state, a convenient on-line option. It is a tough, well-respected school, but I knew I was a promising candidate. My background along with my scores made up for the decade gap from my previous degree. I worked hard for two months researching and writing a twenty-page writing sample, updating my CV, writing a statement of purpose, summing up who I am and what I could bring to the program, all while not seeming desperate for entry, though emotionally I was. When I submitted everything, I felt like I was already in. The application process is tedious and expensive; institutions don’t want their time wasted with frivolous applicants.

I got the standard rejection email two days before my birthday. I was crushed. The program director wrote me a few days later, saying my entry was all about “kairos…timing,” that the committee was inspired by my compassion for students and impressed by my professional experience but not taking those interested in my area of study at that time. And while I know the selection process is indeed selective, I still felt unworthy. I felt like those students in my office looking for answers as to why they weren’t good enough. I felt ashamed of how I had swept aside their need for understanding with my lofty responses.

I put on a good face, kept repeating the director’s positive comments in my head, as if his approval made up for my disappointment. Then the fighter kicked in. Who gets in on her first try? What would I tell my girls by giving up now? I decided to apply to another school, one without an on-line option that would require travel and more sacrifice, more time away from my family. It would take more than hard work. I submitted everything again, to the new school three hours away. And instead of holding my breath, I kept it to myself, not even telling many that I had applied, scared of rejection again.

I got the acceptance email on a Thursday morning. I start classes this month. The director of the program praised my experience and my application. I felt she got me and what I had to offer. It was gratifying to finally be seen as a worthy candidate. I bought a new leather crossbody bag capable of holding my books and my laptop. I’ve researched my professors, delved into the depths of the program and how I will navigate this new school. I know I can do this. I’m more excited than scared. I’m not the same naive girl who sat in graduate classes almost fifteen years ago. I’m more centered, more tested, and more aware of my abilities and comfortable advocating for myself. In a few years, I will have the PhD I always wanted. I’m proud of myself for embracing rejection as motivation. I now have a story for my students. I’m going back to college again, and while some dread the thought, this girl/woman/wife/mother couldn’t be more ecstatic.