The Student Room Group

Can't overcome feeling of regret

I applied to 5 unis last year and got offers from all of them. I chose King's College London as my firm and Queen Mary as my insurance. Come 13 August I was rejected from both, but after some persuasion I got offers from both unis.

Now any rational person would have chosen King's, but I had a mental breakdown and though that I would do better at QM, not only for my degree but it would also be better for my mental health. I rejected KCL and chose QM, now I just have this huge feeling of regret.

It's been more than a month and my god I can't stop thinking about it. I'm not sure if I am even sane. I can technically enrol at KCL as I have my student enrolment email (I can still log in to enrolment) and I have received all my student emails so far. The actual learning period started this week so while I have missed all the Welcome to King's events I could still possibly join

But I quite literally don't know. I literally begged my MP and the Admissions officer to come here. I think I I thought I was going to fail big time at KCL because of the workload. I looked at some past papers and broke down. I missed out 6 months of school, how was I supposed to come back and do all this? I contacted the KCL chaplaincy and loads of other people and reassured me that I was good enough, but I don't ven know

QM is a good uni, 110%. But I had the chance to go to a better one, and I completely blew it. This is the thing that is keeping me up at night and leaving me insomniac every day.
Reply 1
Well, what are you going to do about it? If it can't be changed, then you need to learn to accept it and move on. One door closes and another one opens. You made the right decision for yourself at the time you made it with the knowledge you had. No need to guilt yourself over it. No reason to think over the what ifs.

Do you practice mindfulness at all? Or do you journal? Anything creative?
Reply 2
Original post by Pathway
Well, what are you going to do about it? If it can't be changed, then you need to learn to accept it and move on. One door closes and another one opens. You made the right decision for yourself at the time you made it with the knowledge you had. No need to guilt yourself over it. No reason to think over the what ifs.

Do you practice mindfulness at all? Or do you journal? Anything creative?

I would feel better if the opportunity to enrol was not made available to me, but the fact that I still can is just hurting me. It's like I'm watching my future move away from me while I'm standing here doing nothing, and that by doing this I'm making a huge fork in the roadmap of my life. It is already something I will take to my grave

No, I have depression. I tried mindfulness but it gave me bad symptoms of an anxiety attack for some reason
Original post by Anonymous
I would feel better if the opportunity to enrol was not made available to me, but the fact that I still can is just hurting me. It's like I'm watching my future move away from me while I'm standing here doing nothing, and that by doing this I'm making a huge fork in the roadmap of my life. It is already something I will take to my grave

No, I have depression. I tried mindfulness but it gave me bad symptoms of an anxiety attack for some reason

Okay, to be completely honest with you, you sound like you're going to go to pieces if you don't try and get into/move into KCL.
My take : give it a shot.

Queen's can't kick you out if nothing comes out of it, so you'll have Queen's anyway so what have you got to lose? Go enrol at KCL, speak to some people there, just DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT >> or nothing will change!

Alternatively - make a pro/cons list and properly write about/remember the reasons why you chose Queen's. Reflect upon it. Good luck xx
Reply 4
Original post by Anonymous
I would feel better if the opportunity to enrol was not made available to me, but the fact that I still can is just hurting me. It's like I'm watching my future move away from me while I'm standing here doing nothing, and that by doing this I'm making a huge fork in the roadmap of my life. It is already something I will take to my grave

No, I have depression. I tried mindfulness but it gave me bad symptoms of an anxiety attack for some reason

It's not. Your future is still there, even if your MH is clouding what you can see. Sometimes you have to keep going through uncertain things and it sucks because it's stressful, but you will get out on the other side. You never know what good things you will find at QM.

Are you getting any support for your MH? Some types of mindfulness can do that, it's also kinda like a muscle, you have to work at it consistently to get benefits from it.


Speak to whoever is in charge of enrolment at KCL and see what they say, you don't ask, you don't get!
Reply 5
Gosh, you sound like my close friend. She was in a very similar situation; got offered a place at King's, for whatever reason rejected it and chose to come to Queen Mary instead.
As someone else mentioned, I think that you'll just endlessly beat yourself up if you don't try for your place at King's. My friend still often brings up that she wished that she had gone there instead. If you've still technically got a place there, might as well ring up admissions and see what they can do for you. Uni has only just begun, so your chances are as high as they'll ever be at this point.

That being said, QM is a really great Uni. I actually had an offer at King's as well but ultimately chose QM as I didn't think that my grades were good enough. You either live with what you have and enjoy your time with QM (I'm now third year and love it here) and get a good degree from a Russell group Uni, or shoot your shot with King's.
What @Pathway just said is true though

To add, you don't need to label it "mindfulness" or meditation practice etc. I get what you mean, I think, because I used to feel so pressured to relax and to "successfully do mindfulness" that it stressed me out! So you don't have to tell yourself that's what you're doing, if you get me? Kinda like tricking yourself into chilling out. But it can be anything, any action, turned mindful just by observing your actions and your thoughts. For example, while typing, consciously remembering it's important to relax your shoulders. Noticing that tension that builds up on your back and letting it go. Or, maybe when you're eating, taking time out to tell yourself "This time is solely for eating and watching Netflix" and let yourself enjoy that time. Or when you've just got into bed, closing your eyes and relaxing each part of your body and imagining you're on a cloud. No pressure, no "time slot for mindfulness", no specific activity, Just incorporate it into your day. It's what I've started to do and it's helped my anxiety/depressive state tremendously. I hope that helps. All the best xx
Reply 7
Original post by zetasigma
Okay, to be completely honest with you, you sound like you're going to go to pieces if you don't try and get into/move into KCL.
My take : give it a shot.

Queen's can't kick you out if nothing comes out of it, so you'll have Queen's anyway so what have you got to lose? Go enrol at KCL, speak to some people there, just DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT >> or nothing will change!

Alternatively - make a pro/cons list and properly write about/remember the reasons why you chose Queen's. Reflect upon it. Good luck xx

I'm going to sound really annoying but I can't decide. If anything the main reason I'm so worried is the prestige that I'm missing out on, and then maybe the fact that I panicked from reading exam papers and reviews and then panicking from them. I have never been to the King's campus ever, and I don't know if I would like the group of people that are going there, I'm a mediocre student at best and everyone there is a whizz in maths (whereas I'm not) for my course.

I am already in £9k of debt, and if I managed to enroll I would in £18k of debt. Moving unis probably takes weeks or months, and by the time I am a new student at King's I will have missed out on a significant amount of content and I will not have made any friends. As I said I'm not good and so I will most likely be behind all the time and drop out. Once I drop out, where do I go? I'm no longer a student at either uni. I can't go back to QM because I will have pissed them off, and then I will have made an even worse mistake. If I enrolled at KCL and then decided to go to QM it would have been a much better situation but I can't go QM --> KCL --> QM

Original post by Pathway
It's not. Your future is still there, even if your MH is clouding what you can see. Sometimes you have to keep going through uncertain things and it sucks because it's stressful, but you will get out on the other side. You never know what good things you will find at QM.

Are you getting any support for your MH? Some types of mindfulness can do that, it's also kinda like a muscle, you have to work at it consistently to get benefits from it.


Speak to whoever is in charge of enrolment at KCL and see what they say, you don't ask, you don't get!

I actually contacted the MH department at QM and have an appointment on Thursday, I don't know how they will react to a student saying they want to leave for another uni

Original post by Bbles
Gosh, you sound like my close friend. She was in a very similar situation; got offered a place at King's, for whatever reason rejected it and chose to come to Queen Mary instead.
As someone else mentioned, I think that you'll just endlessly beat yourself up if you don't try for your place at King's. My friend still often brings up that she wished that she had gone there instead. If you've still technically got a place there, might as well ring up admissions and see what they can do for you. Uni has only just begun, so your chances are as high as they'll ever be at this point.

That being said, QM is a really great Uni. I actually had an offer at King's as well but ultimately chose QM as I didn't think that my grades were good enough. You either live with what you have and enjoy your time with QM (I'm now third year and love it here) and get a good degree from a Russell group Uni, or shoot your shot with King's.

That's my problem! My grades aren't good enough. My course is originally AAA, with contextual it's ABB, and I got ABC...My skills are probably around ACD in real life so I don't think I am good enough for my course
What course are you doing at qm. Qm is a sick russel group and london as well, so if you’re doing something finance then good scope cos its London what more. Canary warf is like 20min away.
The universities don't let you decide if you are good enough because people's circumstances, support, self-esteem and confidence, etc varies between people and over time. If they both gave you an offer, it meant they both thought you were good enough for their university, bearing in mind they have grade inflation to look good. I really doubt you have the lowest grades. They are not charities, they would have given your place to somebody else if that person was better. Universities sort your skillset out in the first year. Do you really think QM is going to be pissed off, if you come back and say you made a mistake, I mean, maybe, if you plan on being rude, otherwise absolutely not, they just see £££. Enrollment probably takes a week. Which uni is better is irrelevant, the fact you are still sleepless about it, after going through all your excuses, to me, is a good indication that you know you have fundamentally made the wrong choice for you personally.
(edited 3 years ago)
Original post by Anonymous
What course are you doing at qm. Qm is a sick russel group and london as well, so if you’re doing something finance then good scope cos its London what more. Canary warf is like 20min away.

I'm doing a course in EECS
I'm gonna be honest. It sounds like you wanna go the Kings and are just making up excuses not to go! And I'm speaking from experience, i went to a uni in north wales thought i'd love it, turned out i hated it and switched courses and uni to Lancaster Uni which isn't the uni i want to go to (Uni of Manchester is my dream) and I'm gonna see if i can transfer there! I'd rather you transfer and stick it out and not have regrets and maybe put in that little bit more effort rather than have regrets! And trust me you'd make friends! Join the facebook groups, ask to hang out, most of your classes are online so you wont be the only one trust me! And accomodation and stuff actually gets sorted out really quickly if you want to transfer and you wouldn't really have to worry about your course as it's online! It's better you take the shot in an attempt to be happy or suffer in a uni you don't enjoy. And three years is a pretty long time and you have to see that place a lot! So personally email kings, get it sorted, move out and be happier!!! And if not its not the end of the world, you could do a post-grad at kings! or request to transfer onto second year!

Good luck and update us! :smile:
please just try! You might as well find out what they say. Would u rather live knowing you will mever find out what they say or find out what they say and accept it? Who cares how hard you tried to get into QM?! Lol! They have millions of other students to focus on not just you (not trying to say they dont care if you like but do you care? You should not). When you have decisions like this to make its important to be selfish in this circumstance. This is your future :smile:. Be positive

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