Ask HN: Rejected from nearly every college. What can/should I do?

[fadelakin]

I'm such a failure. I was supposed to be the one. The first one to do things differently. The first one to go to college. The first one to lead my family out of poverty. Growing up I was bright but I don't know what happened. At the beginning of freshman year, I was two math classes ahead. It's senior year and I'm a class behind. I'm at the point where I'm killing myself of school and not being able to live on to my expectations. Being an immigrant makes things much harder. I have no idea how I'm going to pay for college....if I get into one. Rejection after rejection. 13 rejections so far and 0 acceptances. I couldn't even get into the state school. I suck at taking tests. What is wrong with me?

I'm at the end of my rope. Everything is crumbling around me and I have no idea what to do or who to talk to. I don't care what anyone says but seeing your mom cry fucking hurts. I don't want anyone to see the failure under the hoodie so I don't show my face in class. I guess this is the end.

They say failure is a good thing but when your entire future is on the line, failure is the worst thing to happen to you. I failed. I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry dad. I'm sorry everyone. I failed you. So much for being sober. I hope you can forgive me. I have no idea what to do. I feel like a failure and a disappointment to my parents.

Somebody help me. Please.

[johnny22]

If you live in the US then you should look into community colleges that offer transfer degrees. Many offer automatic acceptance into a public 4 year university if you do well enough. PLUS it will save you a ton of money.

[fadelakin]

Would getting a transfer degree at a community college be better than getting an associates that ties in with the field I want to study? I intend on studying until I get my Masters but I don't know if I should go for an associates in something that relates closely to CS or get a transfer degree in science.

[gm]

Do your research.

There is no such thing as a "transfer degree". You either transfer or you do not.

Get an associates, the paper looks good, it's an ego boost, and it will make your family proud of you. After you get your bachelor's, the associate's will not matter for anything.

A community college is a great way to get into a far better school than you could have anyway, I'm living proof. This is because your GPA resets when you start junior college, and a 3.0 GPA on a junior college will get you into a much better school than a 3.7 would have in high school.

Just get in there, and don't screw up your grades. If you are not going to get a high grade in the class, drop it and then re-take it. It's a weasel thing to do, but it's better than getting a shitty grade in your record.

It's no big deal the situation you are in. Just work at it intelligently. You will actually save a ton of money than if you had gone to a 4-year college for all 4 (or 5 or 6) years from the beginning.

[dragonwriter]

> There is no such thing as a "transfer degree". You either transfer or you do not.

The name may be different at different places, but transfer-guaranteed programs do exist. For instance in California community colleges, the "Associate Degree for Transfer" [0], the University of California Transfer Admission Guarantee program [1], and California State University Transfer Admission Agreements and Transfer Admission Guarantees [2].

[0] http://adegreewithaguarantee.com/ [1] http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/files... [2] https://www.calstate.edu/transfer/apply/priority-agreements....

[gm]

Ah good to know. I actually did the UC transfer thing, when I did it those guarantees for he UC system did not exist.

[joenied]

Do this! I went to community college and you where guaranteed admission into any state school as long as you meet the GPA requirements. Work hard at community college and go to a great state school. Best thing to do if you messed up in high school and still want to go to a good school.

[jmathai]

Thirded. My wife took classes at DeAnza college in San Jose for something like $30 per credit hour. Once she maxed out on transferable classes she transferred to a 4 year college where it was $300 per credit hour.

In the end her degree was from a well known 4 year college.

[paweleca]

It is not a failure it is only a hiccup... I was 16 when i came to USA from Poland. I was struggling with English so after high school I decided to go to community college to learn English. I was two years behind everyone in my age group but I finally transferred to Penn State.

In my last year I decided to take a "break" from school to focus on my start up and I don't feel lie I failed because I didn't finish school, even though my parents were sad about my choice and I felt like I disappointed them.

If you worry about paying for college then it is not that hard as it may seem if you are willing to put some work into it. There is many options for Financial Aid or scholarships and they are not only reserved for the best students. My parents weren't able to pay for my school so I had to pay for it. I started working in a construction company during summer to pay for school. Whenever i was able to work over time I did. After summer i was always able to pay for my school and I had money saved up to live without asking my parents for financial support. I didn't have much but it was enough to not starve.

In the end, owner of the construction company now is my co-founder and is financing my start up and my English is still bad, but I am working on it all the time! You will always come across challenges but there is always solution to everything, You just need to work for it.

[rhonsby]

Whatever you do, please don't give up. Your future is still ahead of you and you haven't failed yet. As cheesy as this may sound, there is so much more to life that you have yet to experience.

If you don't receive an acceptance to a college and reside in the US, I highly recommend attending a community college and transferring to a university.

I know because I went into high school a bright student as well, and like you, I came out without many options. I felt as if I had failed my family because I was the oldest of four and I was supposed to be the first one in my family to go to college. During my senior year of high school, I decided that I wasn't going to let my failures stop me from succeeding.

I went to the local community college, stayed focus, and transferred after two years to one of the top public universities in the United States with scholarships that paid for my entire education.

Now I'm here in the Bay Area, as passionate as ever about pursuing a career in software development. I still have a long road ahead of me and so do you.

[RollAHardSix]

Shut up. Being melodramatic is annoying.

Apply to community college, do that bit, go to uni, get a job.

Maybe not all in that order. Maybe join the service. Lots of options out there. My own path was 5.5 years Marine Corps Reserve, while working, while raising a little one, while going to community college when I could. Now I'm still going to community college but earned a position as a software dev for a company.

Maybe I never got a software job, who cares. It's a job, and there are plenty of jobs out there. The immortal words to aspire to: 'man can't find work, ain't lookin hard enough' - Jayne Cobb.

[Fomite]

Does your school have a guidance office? A teacher you trust? Go talk to them - find out what your options are, preferably from a sympathetic voice.

[sophe]

See if your 4-year college offers continuing education classes: you don't typically need to go through an acceptance process to get into those classes. After a couple of semesters, see about matriculating over to the undergrad program. The process for applying as an existing student is different than for incoming freshman. This is how I got into college in 1986.

[stintaril]

I am really sorry to hear about your recent struggles. I am no stranger to feeling this way.

Right now you are thinking there are no options to make your parents proud or fulfill your life goals. Don't ever think there are no options. We can't always follow our desired path that we lay out for ourselves. Sometimes we have to follow a different path because of unforeseeable, or sometimes, self-inflicting circumstances. In a perfect life I would have gone to film school after high school, but instead I ended up doing a bunch of other stuff until I graduated with a B.S. when I was 31.

You are going to need to way your options. As others have said you should consider community college. It is cheap, and if your parents can help you, you can work part-time and afford it. After two years of community college you can transfer to a state college.

Everyone has failed, my friend. Pick yourself back up. I know it is hard, I know it feels like the future is dim, but it isn't.

If you want to talk further my email is my username @gmail.com

[cafard]

You got turned down for college. That does not count as "such a failure".

These things happen. A kid in my neighborhood ended up sitting out a year. I would suggest that you go to the local community college. You might want to go part time and work, to have something else to think about besides school.

If you feel as if you need some space from your parents, you could join the Navy. They aren't going to stick you on a firebase in Afghanistan, they will clothe and feed and train you. The tech blogger Steve Yegge was in the Navy before he went to college, and I have relatives that did so.

[helpful]

Take my advice with a huge grain of salt. Also, the below advice is base entirely on the assumption you live in the US. I do not know how other countries operate so I can't comment.

1. Take some time away from school after high school. I know people want to rush and get it over with but moving forward when you are in this state some times can create the opposite outcome you want.

2. When you feel better, enroll in a local community college and work your way back towards transferring to a university. Apply for financial aid.

[sjg007]

It isn't over, not by a long shot.

It looks like you can code. Turn your internship into a job at a small web dev company and code. Take classes part time at the Community and work your way up if GPA is the problem.

Also if you have trouble staying sober, find a program or new friends, do whatever it takes to stay sober. Future you will look back and see this as your pivot.

[dreamer305]

Go to community college and do really well. I know of people (including myself) who successully transferred to ivy leagues after cc. This is not the end.

[fadelakin]

I didn't know that was actually possible. I'm going to find out where to go on Monday after talking to my counselor. Just need time to think about things.

[robobro]

See a therapist, maybe. If you're suicidal, call your insurance company and tell them you feel like you may be at risk to yourself.

[cheald]

No, if you're suicidal, call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. There is someone there who will talk to you and will listen.

[chudi]

You can go to another country were education is free and without exams to get into the university

[fadelakin]

Where would I need to look for that? Also judging from your username, I have a feeling you are Nigerian just like me and I find that pretty cool.

[gjvc]

what would you like to do after college? start doing that now. remember, college is a trap for many, and you might hav e just dodged a bullet.

[bluejellybean]

I tend to agree, college isn't always the answer depending on what you want to do.

OP if you are looking to do the development/startup kid thing, school may not be the answer at all. Start building stuff and getting to know people. Look around the internet for books and study your ass off. Maybe move to a college town that has a lot of cs grads and start meeting them/dropping in on cs classes.

Think of it this way; You get to save a boatload on student loans while also giving yourself a lot more time to study/create cool things. In my opinion it will also make you more independent and in turn stronger because you won't have your hand held like most college students.

College isn't for everyone but it can, at times, be a much tougher path to start down on. No matter what you decide is right for you though, the number one thing you should be doing is BUSTING YOUR ASS studying/creating things(I really can't say this enough). There is no point in making your future harder by being lazy in a time of struggle and uncertainty.

So get to it and best of luck!

[cheald]

First off: Asking for help means that you aren't anywhere close to a failure. We all hit our limits at some point - the thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is that the former recognize their limits and get help when they hit them.

Going or not going to college will not make or break you! A lot of young kids seem to have a view that if they don't go to college, they're destined for a minimum-wage job for the rest of their lives. This isn't true. What will land you there is giving up - so don't!

If you want continuing education, community college is an excellent place to start. It's much, much cheaper than a university, and you can complete all your "bullshit" classes there at cut rates while earning transfer credits that you can then take to a university. With tuition and student loan rates where they're at, I'm not sure that spending your first couple of post-high school classes at a university is necessarily a wise economic choice, anyhow!

Second, what did you want to study in college, and what do you want to work as when you graduate? No matter what the answer is, here is the single best thing you can do for your future: Find a way to start working in your target industry. Internships are the traditional way to do this, but there are lots of ways in. The important thing is that you start accruing industry experience now. Unless you want to be a MD, civil engineer, or lawyer, your degree is probably not going to make or break your career aspirations - it may make it easier to get interviews and find interest from employers, but at the end of the day, an employer is going to care about what you have done and what you can do, not what it says on your diploma. A 22-year-old with 4 years of hands-on industry experience and a couple of years of community college is going to be a lot more attractive to a lot of companies than a 22-year-old with a shiny university degree and balls-all for experience. The former comes with training and knowledge baked in - the latter has proved that they can attend class and take tests, but will have to be trained, at risk and cost to the employer.

Thirdly, please talk to someone at your school (a guidance councilor, probably) about finding someone to talk to about this stuff. Counseling is not just for "broken" people - we all need it to some degree or another. You're dealing with some heavy stuff, and need someone to listen and talk through this with you. The fact that you're posting here tells me that you're open to help - your school should have resources you can take advantage of. It might hurt your pride, but it will help. Go ask.

Finally, this isn't the end. This is so cliche and cheesy, but you have your whole life ahead of you. What seems like catastrophe today will be something you look back at and see as a small speedbump in the grand scheme of things. I realize this is the most important thing in your life today (and has been for the past four years, at least!), but this is not the most important thing you'll do in life. That honor is further down the road yet. :)

You have drive and you care. That puts you ahead of SO many of your peers. Find someone you can talk to, get out this anger and frustration you're feeling (it's okay to feel it! Really!), and then figure out how to channel that frustration into solutions.

My dad always told me that there are no "No's". If you are told no, then just keep going until you'll find someone who will tell you "Yes" (if for no other reason than you've annoyed them so much that they'll give you what you want to shut you up. /g). It won't be easy, but it will get you what you want.

Good luck.

[a3voices]

First of all, relax. Life isn't about accomplishment. It's about conscious experience. Everyone who isn't Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk is a "failure" compared to them. And they in turn might be considered failures compared to Augustus Caesar.

If you want to get better at taking tests, then practice them a lot. It's like getting good at chess. Anyone can do it, even people of average intelligence.

As someone else said here, you could first go to a community college and then transfer to a full university.

[nummy]

Do not let this define you.