I was catching up on Everything Hertz when I landed on “Swiping Right” episode on academic rejection. Listening to how Dan and James handle rejection got me thinking about how I deal with academic rejection and what strategies may be more useful for folks, especially younger academics who are still trying to find their way.
Let’s face it: academics face a lot of rejection. There are far more undergraduates who want to go to graduate school than there are spots in graduate programs. There are more far graduating PhD students than there are postdoc or academic positions (for those who want to stay in academia). There are far more people who want and need grants than there is money available, far more manuscripts than spots in journals (at least those still bound by print restrictions), and far more people seeking fellowships than there are spots available. It can be helpful to consider our responses to rejection, because it will happen. Often.
Whatever your first reaction is to your rejection, it is a valid emotional reaction. I tend to feel annoyed, at the very least, and if the rejection revolves around something important to me, I can feel hurt. Some people get angry. It can be helpful to sit in those feelings a while and process them, or you may put the rejection aside and try not to think about it for a while. Whatever works for you is fine. What happens next is more important.
What I do next depends on the nature of the rejection. Generally, I’ve found there are two reasons something can get rejected:
- Something you did
- Something that has nothing to do with you
If a manuscript (as an example) is rejected because of something you did — your research questions were poorly formed, you did the wrong analysis, whatever — you can decide what to do with that information. Most of the time, if that’s the problem and I can see where the reviewers or editors are coming from, I just fix those issues and find somewhere else to submit the paper. If I don’t agree, I either choose not to fix those issues and send it somewhere else, or ask for clarification from the editor, especially if the “controversial” feedback seems to be the reason for the rejection. I’ve not been successful doing this, but it can’t be said I didn’t try.
It is important to think about where one might improve their work, even if they don’t ultimately agree with specific feedback. Sometimes I’ll get feedback that suggests someone didn’t read my manuscript closely. They’ll say something like, “You didn’t describe your measures,” or, “I’m not sure what your research questions are,” even though those things may be explicitly laid out in the manuscript (sometimes even with a header!). I usually take those comments as opportunities to ensure my writing is as clear as possible. I’m still going to make fun of those comments in lab meetings, but I’ve found it useful to at least attempt to address them in creative ways.
Where it can get more interesting is when the rejection has nothing to do with you. Once, I had a manuscript on the state of research on online communities in the field of community psychology desk rejected from a community psychology journal because the review was deemed “limited because it only includes research reported about those communities published in community psychology journals.” Of course, that was the point of the manuscript: to review the literature published in community psychology journals, to open a window into what is currently being offered by other fields, and to encourage community psychologists to engage in research on this topic. I pushed back on exactly this point, but it didn’t get us anywhere. At that point, it’s a difference of opinion and/or priorities. The journal isn’t interested, so it’s best to move on. (The paper is now published at The Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, which is a great open access journal people should be reading and submitting to.)
Another time, I saw an ad for an organizational fellowship I was really interested in, but saw it was only for people who worked at places with graduate programs. I am not currently at a university with a graduate program in psychology, so I asked for clarification from the fellowship committee. I also expressed concern that this was rather exclusionary for an organization focused on equity, especially given that most people in this organization do not work at institutions with graduate programs in psychology. The committee member who responded told me to apply anyway, that they would take my application seriously. So I spent one or two weeks pulling together what I felt like was a bang-on application, asking some of the most talented people I know to look it over before I submitted it. When I got my rejection letter a few weeks later, it was because the committee was “focused on faculty from graduate institutions,” despite hearing about how exciting and great my project was. I responded with a request for any feedback they might have, was told it would get looked into, and I never heard about it again. In other words, I’d completely wasted my time.
So what to do then? Your only real option is to move on. I learned an important lesson about applying for funding from that organization. I got a chance to practice applying for fellowships, and I had an opportunity to explain what I love doing to a new audience. There’s no point in dwelling on how unfair it felt to be told one thing and have another thing happen. Obviously I felt my work was important; that’s why I do what I do. This organization’s priority was to fund people at graduate institutions, and I knew that was a risk going in. I know now to work with organizations that don’t have that as a priority.
It’s important your thought process doesn’t devolve into, “They rejected me because they’re stupid.” That may certainly be the case with some rejections, maybe even many rejections. However, the person who always externalizes their rejections doesn’t grow. It’s valid to feel upset or annoyed or angry, but that can’t devolve into angrily calling an editor at their work or home to complain, or to be abusive to others. I rarely fail to find points of growth from rejection, even when the rejection feels unfounded. But if you don’t find ways of moving forward, you’ll forever feel stuck.