The Most Rejected Generation: Young Adults Navigating an Unforgiving Landscape

During a recent visit to Williams College, I spoke with a perceptive senior named David Wignall who shared an insight that had not occurred to me before. He described young people today as "the most rejected generation."

His observation is supported by stark statistics from elite university admissions. In 1959, about half of American applicants applied to only one college. Today, students often feel compelled to submit applications to 20 or 30 institutions, hoping that a few will accept them. Over the past two decades, applications to the 67 most selective colleges have tripled, reaching nearly two million annually, while available spots have not grown proportionately. For instance, Harvard’s class of 2028 received approximately 54,000 applications but accepted only around 1,950, resulting in more than 52,000 rejections.

The competition intensifies in the summer internship arena. Goldman Sachs, for example, offers about 2,700 internship positions but attracts roughly 315,000 applicants, leaving over 300,000 hopefuls turned away. Some students report applying to dozens of internships with minimal success; one recounted applying to 40 internships and receiving 39 rejections. Others feel pressured to submit between 150 and 250 applications annually to secure a small number of offers.

The challenge escalates further after graduation, as young adults enter an increasingly impersonal job market. The ease of online applications has led to millions sending out hundreds of resumes, only to be filtered out by opaque algorithms. Numerous accounts describe candidates applying to hundreds of jobs without receiving a single positive response.

This multilayered system evaluates countless young individuals, often conveying a message that they fall short of expectations.

To better understand this intense competitive environment, I spoke with college students and recent graduates from elite institutions, where exclusionary pressures are often most pronounced. Without exception, they identified strongly with the notion of being the "most rejected generation."