At the gym, I was thumbing through a new issue of Time Magazine.  One of the articles was about college wait-listing.  According to Time, the high school class of 2008, 3.4 million strong, is the largest in American history.  As such, getting into a first choice college is a heck of a lot tougher if you had the misfortune of being born in 1990.

The article went on to offer some tips for wait-listed students, such as “don’t send information (or gifts) to the admissions officer that hasn’t been requested” and “With the exception of applying for financial aid, keep your parents out of the process.”

All the strategizing and rule-following in the world, though, won’t change the reality that 70% of wait-listed students won’t get a spot in the freshman class.  They will have to re-write their plans for the future, and make do with scenarios they might not consider ideal.  This will be a rude awakening for a lot of them, for members of the class of 2008 are also members of the empowered Millennial Generation.  They’ve been told their entire lives that they are special, and that success will come their way because they deserve it. 

In today’s workplace, boomers and Gen X-ers are up in arms over the Millennials’ sense of entitlement.  I happen to like working with these twenty-somethings in most instances, but the volume of SOS calls I get from hand-wringing HR execs doesn’t lie.  That’s why I think this wait-listing phenomena might be a blessing in disguise.  It’s good for kids to learn early that you can’t always get what you want…in business or in life.  But sometimes, you get what you need.