In the age of viral college acceptance videos and decked-out bedroom celebrations, some high school seniors are flipping the script on rejection—and doing it with frosting.
Instead of quietly mourning the dreaded “We regret to inform you,” students like Ceci Skala from Needham, Massachusetts, are choosing to commemorate college rejections with a sense of humor—and a slice of cake. In a TikTok video that’s racked up more than 5 million views, Skala and her friends gather around a dessert decorated with the names and flags of elite universities that turned them down. They cheerfully chant, “This is our rejection cake!”
For Skala, who applied to 12 schools and was waitlisted at her top choice, the experience of laughing together with friends helped take the sting out of what can be a demoralizing time.
“If you’re applying to a hard college and you’re seeing all these acceptance videos, it’s going to hurt,” she says in the video. “You don’t see all the videos of everybody else getting rejected.”
She’s right. Social media is saturated with scenes of joy and triumph during admissions season, leaving many students to quietly question their worth in the absence of similar celebrations. The rejection cake offers an antidote to that pressure—one that says it’s okay to laugh through the disappointment.
And Skala’s not alone. A quick scroll through TikTok reveals other teens sharing their own versions of the trend, with cakes labeled things like “At least I have cake!” or “Rejection never tasted so sweet.”
The trend, while playful, taps into something real: the collective anxiety, comparison, and stress baked into the modern college admissions process. By turning rejection into a shared joke (and dessert), students are reclaiming their narrative—and finding a little bit of joy in the “no.”
Who knew a denial could taste this good?
