Colorado State University

Colorado State University is the college whose rejection disrupts Tatum’s confidence and prompts Hadley and Ms. Pitt to intervene. Although Tatum regarded it as her last-choice school, she had expected admission to come easily; learning otherwise turns an apparently secure future into an immediate crisis.

Place in Tatum’s College Search

Colorado State University appears in the story through Tatum’s college application rather than through a description of its campus or community. Tatum later explains that she checked her application status online while in the library and found a rejection email. The message stated that the university would not accept her application, a concrete setback that mattered even though she says she did not particularly want to attend.

The rejection exposes a gap between preference and expectation. Tatum calls Colorado State her last choice, yet she had assumed that she would get in easily. Its importance lies less in her desire to study there than in what the refusal signifies to her: an outcome she believed should have been assured has suddenly become uncertain.

Rejection and Its Immediate Effects

Tatum tells Ms. Pitt about the rejection while visibly distressed. She apologizes for breaking down in front of her, then describes finding the email in her inbox. The university’s formal refusal is brief, but Tatum’s response makes clear that the result has unsettled her sense of what will happen next.

Hadley, speaking in Ms. Pitt’s body, already knows that Colorado State was Tatum’s last choice. When Tatum asks how she knew, Hadley says she may have heard it from Hadley herself. This moment connects the college news to the sisters’ existing relationship and to Hadley’s unusual position in the scene: she is trying to comfort Tatum while inhabiting her teacher’s body.

Consequences for the Sisters and Ms. Pitt

Tatum interprets the rejection through comparison with Hadley, saying that if she were more like her sister, she would not be in this situation. The remark reverses the sisters’ earlier contrast: Hadley has long seen Tatum as exceptionally attractive, accomplished, and effortlessly impressive, while Tatum now treats Hadley’s qualities as a possible protection against failure. Colorado State’s decision thus becomes part of a broader crisis in which neither sister’s apparent strengths guarantee security.

Hadley recognizes that Tatum is in serious distress and tells Ms. Pitt that the rejection has left her in an existential crisis. She also reports that Tatum nearly crashed her car while driving away, raising concern that she could hurt herself or someone else. Hadley urges Ms. Pitt to work with her to help Tatum, turning the university’s decision into the immediate cause of a joint effort to support her.

Narrative Significance

Colorado State University serves as the setting for a consequential refusal without itself becoming a developed setting in the narrative. The application result punctures Tatum’s expectation of effortless success and forces the sisters’ contrasting self-images into view: Hadley is not simply the less fortunate sibling, and Tatum’s admired confidence does not make her immune to disappointment.

The episode also links academic and personal forms of pressure. Hadley’s drive for perfection makes her measure herself against her sister, while Tatum’s rejection leads her to measure herself against Hadley. The university’s decision therefore matters beyond admission: it creates a moment in which comparison gives way to care, as Hadley asks Ms. Pitt to help protect and support her sister.