‘Dear Idiot, we regret to inform you ...’

My first choice was Oberlin College, in Ohio. My whole world depended on getting accepted there.

Decades later, I barely remember why.

But at the time, my senior year in high school, it was all I cared about. Part of it was that my best friend planned to go there. Some other friends had gone there the previous year, including this girl I liked.

What kind of idiot picks a college because a past semi-girlfriend went there? Me, I guess.

I was an imbecile.

But in truth, most high-school students are.

I’d also visited the school and liked it. Oberlin was going to be my future.

I put a lot into the application. I think I applied to about 10 schools, with Oberlin far and away No. 1.

I also applied to Colorado College, and to Tufts. It was a stretch to think I could get into Tufts, but my big brother went there. Even then, we understood you had to use a “legacy” to give you a leg up. I applied to Colby, too, and a few others.

I know kids are obsessed with getting into college today, but it was pretty bad then, too.

It was big news when people started getting their replies.

Ivy leaguers

A few of the geniuses got into Ivys. My best friend did get into Oberlin, and he told them he was going.

Then my letter came.

It was not a thick envelope, which was a bad sign. But I still held out hope.

Then I opened it.

“We regret to inform you,” it began, or words to that effect.

That was 38 years ago, give or take a week.

I remember taking my mom’s car and driving to a nearby beach. It was a gray day. I spent an hour accepting that my life was not going to turn out the way I’d hoped. I had just gotten some of the worst news that can befall a high-school senior. My first choice for college — a realistic choice, I thought — had fallen through. I’d been knocked off course even before getting started.

I had no idea competition would be that tough. I had mediocre SATs, but I was a soccer jock and big on the high-school newspaper. I’d done a lot of community service, in part to buttress my college applications, but who doesn’t?

And I was shot down.

Because of my brother, Tufts accepted me. Colby wait-listed me. Other thick and thin envelopes came in but I was too bummed about Oberlin to care much.

Then I got accepted by a school I didn’t know much about: Middlebury. It’s more prominent today, but back then, before U.S. News and everyone else began ranking colleges, it had a lower national profile. I only applied there because my college counselor, who had never met me, told me upon our first meeting that I might like it. Whatever. Sure. That’s why I applied.

Weeks after the Oberlin shoot-down had ended my one chance at a good life, I visited a few schools that had accepted me.

Middlebury’s campus was beautiful. I figured, “Why not?” I’m serious — that’s most of why I enrolled. I told you I was an imbecile.

Looking back, I can’t imagine a better four years. Some professors there helped shape the path I’m still on. My closest friends during that time are among my closest friends today. It brought me to New England, which remains my home still.

Not the right place

I’m sure Oberlin is a fine school, but knowing what I know now, it wasn’t the right place for me, and Middlebury was.

After college, it happened again. I applied to Columbia Journalism graduate school. I assumed I’d be a slam-dunk, having worked summers on newspapers.

They rejected me.

I thought my life was kind of over then, too. But the rejection forced me to get a newspaper job that has led me to just the kind of work I’d hoped to do in this field.

X Mark Patinkin writes for The Providence Journal. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.